Measures of Self-Regulation Prospectively Predict Psychological Adjustment in College Freshmen
Year: 2012
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Self-regulation, defined as the ability to flexibly modulate one's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the service of long-term adaptation, is an important predictor of psychological health.However, few studies have directly examined whether measures of self-regulation prospectively predict psychological outcomes in response to an environmental challenge.Moreover, the role of different indexes of self-regulation in this regard is relatively unclear.In the current study, we tested whether two different measures of self-regulation, heart rate variability (HRV) and self-reported effortful control, prospectively predicted levels of anxiety in college freshman adjusting to their first academic quarter of college.Participants (N = 52) reported levels of anxiety at three time points which approximated the start, middle, and end of the academic quarter.Consistent with our hypotheses, higher levels of HRV and inhibitory control, a facet of effortful control, independently predicted lower levels of anxiety at the end of the quarter, controlling for anxiety at the start of the quarter.Moreover, both of these measures appeared to moderate changes in anxiety across the assessment period.Individuals with high levels of either inhibitory control or HRV demonstrated a flexible and adaptive pattern of anxiety across the assessment period, while those low in both of these measures demonstrated a rigid, maladaptive pattern of anxiety.These findings provide support to the idea that self-regulation is important for psychological health because it iii allows individuals to adaptively modulate their behavior in order to meet the needs of a demanding situation.Additionally, we showed that it is important to consider both physiological (HRV) and psychological (effortful control) indexes of self-regulation when prospectively predicting psychological outcomes in response to challenge.vii Correlational Analyses ............
Author: Brandon L. Gillie
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2227389948