Exploring cross-cultural variations in the development of executive function for preschoolers from low and high socioeconomic families

Abstract

This study investigated cross-cultural variation in the development of executive functioning (EF) across the preschool period for United States and Chinese children from low and high socioeconomic families using a longitudinal design. Participants included 216 preschool children (n = 125 from the US; n = 91 from Shanghai and Jiangxi, China). On average, children were approximately 4 years old. In the US sample, 56% were female, and in the Chinese sample, 54% were female. Results from multi-level models varied slightly with regard to specific EF domains, but generally indicated that Chinese children experienced greater gains in EF during the preschool period compared to US children. Cross-cultural differences in EF growth did not vary by socioeconomic status. These findings highlight cultural variability in the development of EF and provide a foundation for additional research exploring factors that may help explain differential growth in EF for Chinese children compared to US children during the preschool period.

Keywords

Executive function cross-cultural comparison China United States preschool

Introduction

In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on exploring cultural influences and effects on developmental outcomes. Due to differences in social systems and values, many scholars have begun to investigate cross-cultural variation in cognitive development, including executive functioning (EF), between Western and non-Western children. Evidence from this work suggests that preschool children from Asian countries, and particularly China, have more advanced EF compared to children in the United States (US; Grabell et al., 2015; Lan, Legare, Ponitz, Li, & Morrison, 2011; Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006). However, previous studies have been cross-sectional, preventing the ability to test for differences in growth in EF across the preschool year between Chinese and US children. Further, no studies to date have explored differences in growth in EF across low and high socioeconomic status (SES) groups in China and the US. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine cross-cultural variations in the development of EF across the preschool period for US and Chinese children from families with low and high SES.

The Development and Importance of Executive Function

EF is defined as the adaptive, goal-directed intentional control of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions (Best & Miller, 2010), and is considered part of a broader system of self-regulation (Blair & Raver, 2015). Theoretical and empirical evidence indicates that EF is comprised of three related, yet distinct, cognitive processes (Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, & Howerter, 2000): working memory (holding and manipulating information in mind; Gathercole, Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004), inhibitory control (overriding a dominant response in favor of a more adaptive one; Dowsett & Livesey, 2000), and cognitive flexibility or attention shifting (maintaining attention and flexibly adapting to changing goals; Rueda, Posner, & Rothbart, 2005). The development of EF begins in infancy, however, brain maturation during the preschool years allows for dramatic increases in these skills during this time frame (Zelazo & Muller, 2010). EF is considered a foundational component of school readiness because when children enter formal schooling, they must draw upon these cognitive skills to adapt to and navigate a new more structured educational setting (Blair & Raver, 2015). As such, the preschool period has received considerable attention as a sensitive stage for the development of EF.

An extensive body of literature points to the importance of EF measured during preschool for short- and long-term school success. Early EF has consistently been found to predict academic achievement concurrently and longitudinally (Blair & Razza, 2007; McClelland et al., 2007; Purpura, Schmitt, & Ganley, 2017; Schmitt, Pratt, & McClelland, 2014). For example, preschool EF is positively associated with initial levels of EF as well as gains in both literacy and mathematics during the preschool and kindergarten years (McClelland et al., 2007), although the relation between EF and math is typically more robust than EF and literacy (Blair, Ursache, Greenberg, & Vernon-Feagans, 2015; McClelland, Cameron, Duncan, Bowles, Acock, Miao, & Pratt, 2014). Preschool EF is also associated with long-term academic outcomes, such as college completion (McClelland, Acock, Piccinin, Rhea, & Stallings, 2013). Emerging evidence indicates a causal association between EF and academic outcomes, including literacy and math (Schmitt et al., 2015; Tominey & McClelland, 2011). Given the importance of early EF, it is critical to understand how development may vary during preschool for different groups of children depending on demographic indicators, such as SES, as well as culture.

SES and Executive Function

Research suggests that persistent exposure to demographic risk factors is related to individual differences in EF (McClelland, Leve, & Pears, 2016; Raver, Blair, & Willoughby, 2013). Children who are from low SES families tend to enter school with lower levels of EF (Raver, Blair, Willoughby, & Family Life Project Investigators, 2013; Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Chen, & Chen, 2011) and these disparities persist over time (Hackman, Gallop, Evans, & Farah, 2015). Models of experiential canalization postulate that early adversities, such as poverty, lead to marked changes in children’s stress response systems, which in turn, affect neural systems that children need to develop strong EF (Blair & Raver, 2015). Thus, children from low SES families tend to be more reactive than regulated in learning contexts. Empirical work provides support for this theory. Studies demonstrate that when children experience poverty-related risks, changes to their stress response physiology occur that are not conducive to the development of EF (Blair et al., 2011). Further, evidence indicates that these effects on the stress response system partially mediate the association between poverty and EF (Blair et al., 2011). As such, deficits in early EF may contribute to long-term academic disparities (Blair & Raver, 2015).

Although previous research demonstrates socioeconomic disparities in EF for children in early childhood (Wanless, McClelland, Tominey, & Acock, 2011), there are competing hypotheses for potential differences across SES groups regarding growth in EF when children are exposed to preschool. For instance, the skills-beget-skills hypothesis suggests that children who have higher initial skill levels as they enter preschool develop subsequent skills at faster rates than children with lower initial skill levels (Heckman, 2000); thus, children from higher SES families would likely develop EF more rapidly during preschool. Alternatively, the compensatory hypothesis (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975) posits that children who are at demographic risk or have lower initial skill levels as they enter preschool develop skills more quickly than their peers because preschool experiences compensate for the effects of inadequate learning opportunities at home. Thus, children from low SES families essentially “catch up” to their more advantaged peers by the end of the preschool year. A third possibility is that SES disparities evident as children enter preschool are maintained throughout the year. In other words, growth in EF is stable and therefore equivalent for children across SES groups (Hackman et al., 2015). However, little is known in terms of the potential differences in growth in EF across groups for American as well as Chinese children. In this study, we explore whether differences in the development of EF across the US and China vary by SES groups.

EF in the US and China

Cross-cultural comparisons exploring differences in EF for preschool children have been previously examined, especially between US and Chinese children. Research suggests that Chinese children typically outperform US children on a variety of EF tasks, including those assessing inhibitory control, attentional control, and behavioral regulation (Grabell et al., 2015; Lan et al., 2011; Sabbagh et al., 2006). Development of strong EF in Chinese children seems to occur faster than for US children. In fact, evidence suggests that Chinese children’s EF is consistently on par with US children who are 6 months older (Sabbagh et al., 2006). Although there is evidence that Chinese children exhibit stronger EF than US children in preschool, a primary limitation of earlier studies has been the cross-sectional nature of the data. Little is known about potential differences in EF growth across the preschool year between Chinese and US children. Including just one time point limits our understanding of differential patterns of development across countries.

There are a variety of hypotheses that may explain the developmental differences in EF across US and Chinese children. One hypothesis suggests that cultural norms, or being from an individualist versus collectivist society, provide a context for parenting practices that shape children’s development. In an individualistic culture (i.e., US), parents typically value individual choice and negotiation when child rearing (Greenfield, Trumball, Keller, Rothstein-Fisch, Suzuki, & Quiroz, 2006). In line with collectivist norms, Chinese parents teach their children at a young age to inhibit individual desires and to practice strong behavioral control (Tardif, Wang, & Olson, 2009). Further, Chinese parents expect mastery in impulse control as young as 2 years of age, whereas parents from Western cultures (i.e., Canadian parents) do not have similar expectations until the preschool years (Chen, Hastings, Rubin, Chen, Cen, & Stewart, 1998). Therefore, Chinese children may start practicing EF skills at an earlier age than US children (Sabbagh et al., 2006). These skills may then be enhanced further as children enter preschool (leading to more rapid growth in EF) according to the pedagogical experience hypothesis, which emphasizes sociocultural differences in schooling environments as a mechanism for development across cultures. Schooling environments may specifically contribute to differences in growth in EF for Chinese and US children. Similar to parental expectations, research has documented that self-control, and particularly, impulse control, is highly valued in Chinese preschool settings compared to US preschool settings (Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989). Further, Chinese teachers provide more proactive instructions with regard to behavioral control in early elementary school compared to US teachers, who use more reactive or correctional instructions (Lan, Ponitz, Miller, Li, Cortina, Perry, & Fang, 2009). Thus, teachers in China may be providing more supportive schooling environments for the development of EF than teachers in the US.

Exploring variation in the development of EF in Chinese and US children during preschool is important for furthering our understanding of the role of culture and pedagogical experiences in shaping children’s development. If there are differences across cultures in the development of EF during preschool, and particularly if Chinese children are developing EF at faster rates, this suggests that some sociocultural mechanism must be at play in this development. This would lay the foundation for future research elucidating these mechanisms so that we may learn what may be supportive of strong EF development in China and perhaps adopt some of these strategies in the US.

In addition to limited research exploring potential differences in growth in EF for Chinese versus US preschool children, most cross-cultural research has not taken demographic factors (e.g., SES) into account (Duh, Paik, Miller, Gluck, Li, & Himelfarb, 2016). Previous studies repeatedly show that children from low SES families have lower levels of EF upon school entry (Wanless et al., 2011a); however, limited research has explored whether SES differences that are persistent in the US also exist in China and whether there are SES-related disparities in growth in EF during preschool. Similarly, no existing research has explored potential interactive effects of country and SES for the development of children’s EF during preschool. It is possible that variation in growth across the preschool year between Chinese and American children may vary as a function of SES. Given theory (e.g., skills-beget-skills hypothesis; Heckman, 2000) and evidence suggesting that Chinese children and children from higher SES backgrounds demonstrate stronger EF during the preschool year relative to children in the US and children from lower SES families (Lan et al., 2011; Wanless et al., 2011b), it is possible that Chinese children from higher SES backgrounds may experience the greatest growth in EF during the preschool year and may be the driving force behind cross-cultural differences in EF growth. However, it is also possible that children with lower initial skills (e.g., low SES children from the US) may experience the greatest gains in EF because exposure to preschool may compensate for any EF deficits at the beginning of the year (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975).

Examining socioeconomic variation in the development of EF in US and Chinese children during preschool extends prior work and provides critical insights into potential reasons for cross-cultural differences that are even more apparent at older ages. For example, differential growth across country, but not SES, would indicate that long-term differences in EF may be more culturally bound; however, differential patterns of growth within country and SES may suggest that there are alternative, more practice-oriented mechanisms underlying these differences that need to be investigated further. Critically, identifying the generation of these early differences in EF skills will lay a foundation for subsequent work in elucidating potential mechanisms to reduce these gaps in the future.

This Study

The goal of this study was to examine cross-cultural variations in the development of EF across the preschool period for US and Chinese children from low and high SES families. Specifically, we compared 1) growth in three EF domains (inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral regulation) during preschool for children in the US and China, and 2) gains in the domains across both countries for children from high and low SES families (i.e., whether growth in EF across countries varied by SES). We chose to include measures of inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility, as well as a measure assessing behavioral regulation, based on previous literature showing cross-cultural differences in these domains and not in working memory (Lan et al., 2011; Sabbagh et al., 2006). Based on previous research suggesting that Chinese preschool children outperform US children on measures of EF concurrently (Grabell et al., 2015; Lan et al., 2011; Sabbagh et al., 2006), we hypothesized that Chinese children would show greater gains in EF scores over the course of the preschool year compared to US children. Finally, given the exploratory nature of our second research question with regard to the potential for interactive effects across SES and country as well as theoretical support for several models, we did not have a priori hypotheses.

Methods

Participants

Participants included 216 preschool children (n = 125 from the US; n = 91 from Shanghai; n = 43 from Jiangxi; and China n = 48). In the US, children were recruited from 12 child care centers in one geographic region. Project staff contacted local preschool directors and explained the purpose of the study as well as what would be involved for the schools and children. After receiving director consent, consent forms were sent home to all children who met eligibility requirements (spoke English and did not have any known significant developmental disabilities). In China, recruitment procedures were similar except children were recruited from two child care centers (one in Shanghai, one in Jiangxi). Upon the directors’ consent, research assistants met with parents of preschool children during drop-off and pick-up time, explained the purpose and procedures of the study, and invited them to allow their child to participate. In both countries, only children whose parents provided written consent participated in the study.

On average, in both countries, children were approximately 4 years old. In the US sample, children were 3.12–5.26 years old (M age at Time 1 = 4.18 years, SD = 0.58 years, M age at Time 2 = 4.57 years, SD = 0.59 years), and 56% were female. In the Chinese sample, children were 2.92–5.86 years old (M age at Time 1 = 4.20 years, SD = 0.71 years, M age at Time 2 = 4.74 years, SD = 0.71 years), and 54% were female. As with any longitudinal study, there was some attrition over the two time points (US, n = 11; China, n = 23). Children who did not complete Time 2 assessments were significantly different than those who did on age, t (212) = −2.10, p = 0.04, such that children who did not complete Time 2 assessments were slightly younger than those who did. Also, children who did not complete Time 2 assessments came from lower SES families than those who did, t(204) = −5.47, p < 0.001. This study was part of a larger study exploring general developmental differences across a number of school readiness domains for US and Chinese children and was approved by the Institutional Review Board.

Procedures

Children were assessed on three EF measures at two time points: beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of preschool. In both the US and Chinese samples, the testing interval (i.e., time between Time 1 and Time 2) was approximately 5 months. Children were assessed in three to four 20–30 min sessions. Assessments took place in children’s preschools at times identified by the schools in a room/area designated by the school directors/teachers. Undergraduate and graduate research assistants administered all assessments. Prior to data collection, all research assistants completed two 2–3 h training sessions, followed by individual practice, and a “testing-out” session to ensure they were able to administer assessments reliably. Parents reported on child gender, age, and demographic information.

Measures

EF was assessed by three commonly used and age-appropriate tasks: the Sun/Moon task (Archibald & Kerns, 1999), a card sorting task similar to the Three-Dimensional Change Card Sort (Zelazo, 2006), and the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS; McClelland et al., 2007). Assessments were given in English for children in the US and in Mandarin for children in China. Other than language of administration, the assessments were all identical. Prior to data collection, a native Chinese speaker translated all assessments into Mandarin, and a second native Chinese speaker back-translated to English to ensure accuracy.

Inhibitory control

The Sun/Moon (Archibald & Kerns, 1999) task was used as a measure of children’s inhibitory control. This task is a modified, Stroop-like assessment that requires children to verbally respond to a series of pictures. Children were shown a page with pictures of suns and moons in a 5 × 6 layout (30 total pictures) and asked to say “moon” when displayed a picture of a moon and “sun” when displayed a picture of a sun. Their responses were timed to measure how many pictures they correctly responded to in 45 s. In the second trial, children were told to say the opposite of the picture (e.g., “moon” for pictures of the sun and “sun” for pictures of the moon). In both trials, children could not continue to the next picture until a correct response was provided. The final score was the number of items completed on the “opposite” trial in 45 s (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics.

	China (n = 81)			US (n = 125)
Variables	M	SD	Min-Max	M	SD	Min-Max
SES	3.66	2.83	1-8	6.94	1.66	3-9
Inhibitory control T1	20.19	11.75	0-42	20.15	8.01	0-36
Inhibitory control T2	29.18	10.49	0-52	26.40	8.75	7-52
Behavioral regulation T1	23.71	20.70	0-60	10.68	15.05	0-56
Behavioral regulation T2	41.13	19.73	0-60	18.08	16.34	0-59
Cognitive flexibility T1	12.13	6.56	0-22	13.58	6.52	4-22
Cognitive flexibility T2	16.66	6.15	2-23	16.56	5.86	5-24

Cognitive flexibility

A card sorting task that was based on the Dimensional Change Card Sort (Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995) was used to measure children’s cognitive flexibility. Children were asked to sort picture cards on the basis of three different dimensions: shape, color, and size. For example, for the first six items, children were asked to sort on the basis of shape (e.g., fish cards go in a sorting box with a picture of a fish affixed to it), and for the second six items, the rule changed and children were asked to sort on the basis of color (e.g., blue fish go in a sorting box with a picture that is blue affixed to it). If children score 5 or more points on the third section (size), a fourth set of six items was administered that consists of a more complex rule: when a card included a thick black border, children were to sort on the basis of size; when the card did not have a thick black border, children were to sort on the basis of color. This same procedure has been used in previous research (McClelland et al., 2014). One point was given for each correct response, with scores ranging from 0 to 24. This measure has shown strong reliability (using tetrachoric correlations) in previous research (McClelland et al., 2014).

Behavioral regulation

The HTKS task is a global assessment of EF that taps the integration of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control in overt behavior (McClelland et al., 2014; McClelland & Cameron, 2012). Thus, it is often called an assessment of behavioral regulation (McClelland et al., 2014). This task consists of three phases. During the first phase of the task, children were asked to respond naturally to a command (e.g., “Touch your head”). Then children were asked to do the opposite of the original instruction. In subsequent phases, additional commands were added and rules were changed, increasing the cognitive complexity of the task. The measure consists of 30 items, with a range in scores of 0 to 60. Children were given a score of 0 for an incorrect response; a 1 for a self-corrected response; and a 2 for a correct response. Past research has documented high inter-rater reliability (κ > 0.90) and validity of the HTKS in assessing children’s EF with economically and culturally diverse samples (McClelland et al., 2007; 2014; Wanless et al., 2011a).

SES

Parents’ level of education was used as a proxy for children’s SES. Parents reported on the highest level of education that they had completed and also that their spouse or partner had completed (if applicable) from nine categories. Years of education were created for each category: 8th grade or less (8 years; 18% of the sample), some high school (10 years; 2%), GED (12 years; 3%), high school diploma (12 years; 4%), some college (13 years; 14%), associate’s degree (14 years; 10%), bachelor’s degree (16 years; 18%), master’s degree (18 years; 16%), and doctoral/postgraduate degree (20 years; 14%). Across the sample, parents on average had 14.44 years of education (SD = 3.93).

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations can be found in Tables 1, 2, and 3. To test whether gains in EF during preschool varied as a function of country, SES, or their interaction, a series of multi-level models were estimated using Proc Mixed in SAS 9.4. In this study, longitudinal assessments were nested within individuals. Prior to analysis, continuous control variables and parents’ education were centered at their means, respectively, and gender was effect coded (girls = −1; boys = 1). Independent variables, time (Time 1 = 0; Time 2 = 1), country (China = 0; US = 1), and SES were entered into the models and a series of interactions between these variables tested whether changes in children’s EF varied as a function of country of origin (Time × Country), parents’ education (Time × SES), or their interaction (Time × Country × SES). Children’s age and gender were included as control variables in all models.

Table 2.

Correlations between Variables for Chinese Children (n = 81).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Child age	—
2. Child sex	0.14	—
3. SES	−0.02	−0.08	—
4. Inhibitory control T1	0.68***	−0.08	0.22	—
5. Inhibitory control T2	0.69***	0.05	−0.21	0.65***	—
6. Behavioral regulation T1	0.48***	0.01	0.50***	0.60***	0.47***	—
7. Behavioral regulation T2	0.48***	0.12	0.29*	0.68***	0.49***	0.69***	—
8. Cognitive flexibility T1	0.49***	0.03	0.37**	0.54***	0.42***	0.63***	0.52***	—
9. Cognitive flexibility T2	0.27*	0.13	0.41**	0.36**	0.28*	0.61***	0.62***	0.62***

Note. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.000.

Table 3.

Correlations between Variables for US Children.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Child age	—
2. Child sex	0.21*	—
3. Socioeconomic status	−0.02	−0.01	—
4. Inhibitory control T1	0.52***	−0.06	0.14	—
5. Inhibitory control T2	0.52***	−0.11	0.11	0.55***	—
6. Behavioral regulation T1	0.36***	−0.03	0.13	0.25**	0.33***	—
7. Behavioral regulation T2	0.48***	−0.10	0.25**	0.43***	0.41***	0.57***	—
8. Cognitive flexibility T1	0.43***	−0.07	0.25**	0.48***	0.43***	0.37***	0.43***	—
9. Cognitive flexibility T2	0.40*	−0.09	0.33***	0.47**	0.48*	0.34***	0.52***	0.60***

Note. n = 125.

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.000.

Data were missing on the following measures: Sun/Moon task (Time 1: 4%, Time 2: 17%), Card Sorting task (Time 1: 1%, Time 2: 16%), and the HTKS (Time 1: 3%, Time 2: 16%). Missing data were accounted for by using full information maximum likelihood, which uses information from all cases including those with missing values (Schafer & Graham, 2002). Models were run separately for inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral regulation.

Inhibitory Control

Results for inhibitory control revealed several significant main effects and one significant interaction (see Table 4). First, significant effects for the control variables revealed that age was positively associated with inhibitory control and girls displayed more inhibitory control than boys. A significant effect of time denoted that children’s inhibitory control increased from the beginning to the end of the year. This effect of time, however, was further qualified by a two-way interaction with SES. As can be seen in Figure 1, inhibitory control grew more rapidly from the beginning to the end of the year for low SES children as compared to high SES children.

Table 4.

Summary of Results from Multi-Level Models for Inhibitory Control, Cognitive Flexibility, and Behavioral Regulation.

	Inhibitory Control				Cognitive Flexibility				Behavioral Regulation
Effect	g	SE	LCL	UCL	g	SE	LCL	UCL	g	SE	LCL	UCL
Intercept	18.90^***	1.10	16.73	21.06	12.10^***	0.72	10.67	13.53	23.83^***	2.06	19.77	27.89
Age	10.05^***	0.76	8.56	11.54	4.48^***	0.52	3.45	5.50	13.26^***	1.50	10.31	16.22
Gender	1.89^***	0.47	0.96	2.82	0.79^*	0.33	0.15	1.43	2.06^*	0.94	0.20	3.91
Country	0.15	1.38	−2.55	2.86	−0.15	0.92	−1.95	1.66	−15.26^***	2.63	−20.43	−10.10
SES	0.39	0.24	−0.08	0.86	0.59^***	0.15	0.29	0.89	2.14^***	0.44	1.28	2.99
Time	7.75^***	1.25	5.29	10.21	5.14^***	0.78	3.59	6.68	17.60^***	2.16	13.33	21.86
Time × Country	−1.47	1.59	−4.62	1.67	−2.23^*	1.01	−4.22	−0.25	−10.75^***	2.78	−16.24	−5.26
Time × SES	−0.57^*	0.28	−1.12	−0.01	0.17	0.18	−0.18	0.51	−0.44	0.48	−1.39	0.51
Country × SES	0.01	0.35	−0.67	0.69	0.17	0.23	−0.28	0.62	−1.06	0.66	−2.35	0.24
Time × Country × SES	0.63	0.40	−0.17	1.43	−0.11	0.25	−0.61	0.39	0.71	0.71	−0.68	2.10

Note. n = 206.

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

g: gamma coefficient; LCL: lower confidence limit; SE: standard error; SES: socioeconomic status; UCL: upper confidence limit.

Figure 1.

Estimated Marginal Means for Inhibitory Control Over Time as a Function of SES.

Cognitive Flexibility

Results of the model for cognitive flexibility revealed statistically significant main effects and one significant interaction (see Table 4). First, significant effects for the control variables revealed that age was positively associated with cognitive flexibility and girls displayed more cognitive flexibility than boys. A main effect of SES indicated that parents’ years of education were positively associated with children’s cognitive flexibility at Time 1. A significant effect for time denoted that children’s cognitive flexibility increased from the beginning to the end of the year. Finally, a significant Time × Country interaction indicated that the cognitive flexibility of children from China grew at a faster rate as compared to children from the US (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Estimated Marginal Means for Cognitive Flexibility Over Time as a Function of Country.

Behavioral Regulation, HTKS

For behavioral regulation, the multi-level model revealed significant main effects and one significant interaction (see Table 4). Similar to the other outcomes, age was positively associated with behavioral regulation and girls displayed more behavioral regulation than boys. Significant main effects of SES and country revealed that at Time 1, children from low SES backgrounds showed lower behavioral regulation than children from higher SES backgrounds, and that children from China showed higher behavioral regulation than children from the US. A significant main effect of time indicated that children increased their behavioral regulation from the beginning to the end of the year. This effect, however, was qualified by a significant two-way interaction with country. As can be seen in Figure 3, behavioral regulation grew more rapidly from the beginning to the end of the year for children from China as compared to the US.

Figure 3.

Estimated Marginal Means for Behavioral Regulation Over Time as a Function of Country.

Discussion

The primary aim of this study was to explore cross-cultural variations in the development of EF across the preschool period for US and Chinese children from low and high SES families. Results differed slightly with regard to the specific aspects of EF, but generally indicated that Chinese children experienced greater gains in EF during the preschool period compared to US children. Specifically, for cognitive flexibility and behavioral regulation, significant two-way interactions suggested that over the course of the preschool year, Chinese children experienced greater growth in EF than US children. There were no statistical three-way interactions indicating that differences in the development of EF across country did not vary as a function of SES. This study is the first, to our knowledge, to provide empirical evidence for a more rapid pattern of EF development for Chinese children relative to American children across the preschool year, laying a foundation for additional cross-cultural research.

Cross-cultural Comparisons in EF

Overall, and consistent with hypotheses, results generally demonstrated that Chinese children experienced greater gains in EF across the preschool period relative to their US counterparts and that Chinese children outperformed US children at the beginning of preschool on the HTKS, a measure of behavioral regulation. These findings are consistent with previous cross-sectional work showing that Chinese children have an advantage in EF compared to US children (Grabell et al., 2015; Lan et al., 2011). Our findings are also in line with evidence from one study suggesting that EF development may occur more rapidly for Chinese children than US children. Specifically, Sabbagh et al. (2006), using a cross-sectional design, found that Chinese children’s EF was comparable to US children’s EF who were 6 months older. Chinese children may experience larger gains in EF during preschool for a number of reasons. For instance, differences in socialization practices and peer influences due to cultural norms are evident. Self-regulation, and particularly impulse control, is more highly valued in home contexts and by peers in China compared to the US (Tobin et al., 1989; Wu, 1996), and Chinese adults expect children to develop sophisticated regulatory skills earlier in life than US adults (Chen et al., 1998). As such, Chinese parents teach their children strong self-control at young ages, which may lay the foundation for more rapid EF development when they enter preschool. As children enter preschool and are exposed to larger peer groups that value strong self-regulation, their EF skills are likely reinforced, which may contribute to greater growth relative to children in the US.

In line with the pedagogical experiences hypothesis, evidence suggests that differences in the preschool environment likely play a role in explaining cross-cultural variation in growth in EF. Studies demonstrate that teachers in Chinese classrooms give more proactive instructions with regard to self-regulation in early elementary school relative to teachers in US classrooms, and that US teachers use more reactive or correctional instructions (Lan et al., 2009). Preschool teachers in China and the US may utilize the same types of teaching practices that are used in early elementary school, which may contribute to the differential growth seen across the samples. Thus, Chinese children may be exposed to more explicit teaching of EF in preschool and may also be given more opportunities to practice EF during this time frame compared to US children. It will be critical for future research to explore these potential reasons for cross-cultural variation in the development of early EF.

In contrast to the greater gains that Chinese children experienced in cognitive flexibility and behavioral regulation as well as the behavioral regulation advantage for Chinese children at Time 1, there were no significant differences between the Chinese and US children on gains in inhibitory control or on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility at Time 1. The finding that Chinese children outperform US children in the beginning of preschool on the behavioral regulation task is in line with previous research using the same HTKS task (Lan et al., 2011; Wanless, 2011b). For example, both Lan et al. (2011) and Wanless et al. (2011b) found that Chinese children scored higher on the HTKS than US children. The difference in scores in our sample was comparable to the study by Lan et al. (18 vs. 14). Although the difference in scores in our sample is greater than the study by Wanless et al. (18 vs. 5), this is likely because the HTKS used in the study by Wanless et al. was restricted to two phases and a total possible score of 40, whereas in our study the HTKS consists of three phases and a total possible score of 60.

The fact that there were no significant differences between the Chinese and US samples on gains in inhibitory control or performance on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility tasks at Time 1 was unexpected given previous research indicating significant differences during preschool on similar EF tasks used in this study (Grabell et al., 2015; Sabbagh et al., 2006). One potential explanation is the tasks used in this study were slightly more advanced than those used in previous research. For instance, whereas the cognitive flexibility assessment (Dimensional Change Card Sort task) used in the study of Sabbagh et al. required children to sort on two dimensions, our card sorting task required children to sort on three dimensions. Similarly, our inhibitory control task consisted of more items than the day/night task used in the studies by Grabell et al. and Sabbagh et al., and was timed. It is possible that due to the cultural emphasis on the development of early impulse control (Tobin et al., 1989; Wu, 1996), Chinese children are able to outperform US children on the simpler EF tasks used in previous work, but that the groups may not diverge when presented with more complex versions of these same tasks. It is also possible that regional differences are at play. In the studies by Grabell et al. and Sabbagh et al., the Chinese samples were drawn from Beijing. In this study, the Chinese sample came from Shanghai and Jiangxi provinces. The addition of a more rural sample from China could have contributed to the disparate findings.

There are a couple of explanations for why Chinese children may have outperformed US children on the HTKS and not on the other tasks. First, the HTKS is considered a behavioral regulation task that assesses children’s ability to integrate the three components of EF in overt behavior (McClelland et al., 2014). It is possible that Chinese children, due to reasons stated previously (e.g., pedagogical experiences), are better able to demonstrate this integration via assessment in preschool than US children. Second, in contrast to the card sorting and day/night tasks used in this study, the HTKS involves gross motor movement (i.e., children are asked to touch their head, toes, knees, and shoulders). This additional component may be a bit easier for Chinese children to understand and accurately respond to, given the strong emphasis in Chinese culture on behavioral control and obedience (Tardif et al., 2009). Finally, the HTKS may be more “learnable” or susceptible to environmental influences than the other tasks. In some intervention work, stronger effects of classroom-based activities are found for the HTKS relative to the card sorting task, for example (Schmitt et al., 2015). If Chinese children are being exposed to more supportive EF activities at home or in the classroom than US children, it is possible that they would demonstrate better performance on the HTKS relative to the other tasks.

More research is clearly needed to elucidate the nature of these findings, as exploring cross-cultural differences in EF growth is an emerging line of work that has the potential to inform practices to support the development of EF. Despite the findings that there were no significant differences between Chinese and US children on growth in inhibitory control or on inhibitory control or cognitive flexibility at Time 1, Chinese children grew significantly more on their cognitive flexibility and behavioral regulation during the preschool year. This suggests that Chinese children’s experiences either in the home or at school are supporting the development of EF during this time frame. Future research is needed to examine what specific factors in these environments are contributing to this rapid growth in EF.

SES and Cross-Cultural Differences in EF

No significant three-way interactions emerged in our analyses, indicating that differences across country in EF growth did not vary by SES for any measures of EF. These findings suggest that the mechanisms underlying differences in EF growth between Chinese and US children may be more culturally bound rather than socioeconomically bound, although future research is needed to uncover potential mechanisms. Nonetheless, our findings indicate that another mechanism beyond SES may be the driving force behind cross-cultural variation in the development of EF.

Despite the nonsignificant three-way interactions in our data, there were significant main effects of SES suggesting that children from low SES families began the preschool year with poorer EF than those from high SES families, which supports previous findings and theoretical models (Raver et al., 2013; Wanless et al., 2011a). For instance, Wanless et al. (2011a) found that children from low SES backgrounds started the preschool year with significantly lower scores on the HTKS compared to the their more advantaged peers. Results from our study also indicated that children from low SES backgrounds experience more rapid growth in inhibitory control during preschool then children from high SES families. This finding provides empirical support for the compensatory hypothesis (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975), which posits that when children from disadvantaged backgrounds are exposed to intervention (e.g., preschool), they are more likely to experience the benefits than their peers (i.e., greater gains in EF).

Limitations and Future Directions

The findings from this study extend prior cross-cultural research on the development of EF in preschool. However, several limitations must be noted. First, our sample sizes in China and the US were relatively small. Future research should include larger samples of both low and high SES children to determine whether these results generalize. We also did not have measures reflecting potential mechanisms that may help explain differences in EF across countries. Socio-cultural factors, such as variation in parenting practices and/or classroom characteristics, could help explain differences in the development of EF in China and the US. Thus, although this study is an important and foundational step in exploring cross-cultural variation in the development of EF, it is descriptive in nature. Furthermore, it is possible that EF differences may be due to factors associated with urbanicity as this has been found to be generative of developmental differences in the US (Miller & Votruba-Drzal, 2013). Future cross-cultural work should also incorporate this factor into evaluations of differential development. Finally, although we had three different measures of EF, we did not have a direct measure of working memory. Thus, our analyses did not paint a complete picture of potential cross-cultural differences on all aspects of EF. Some evidence suggests that there may not be differences in Chinese and US children’s working memory concurrently (Lan et al., 2011), but nonetheless, it will be important for future research to explore potential variation in cross-cultural growth in working memory across the preschool period.

Conclusion

This study is the first to explore cross-cultural variation in the development of EF across the preschool year for children from low and high SES families. Overall, results demonstrated that Chinese children experience greater gains in EF during preschool compared to US children and that these differences do not vary as a function of SES. These findings highlight cultural variability in the development of EF and provide additional evidence that Chinese children have an EF advantage over US children, laying the foundation for future research. Additional longitudinal work exploring whether these differences persist as children transition into elementary school is needed. Further, future research that examines factors that may help explain differences in growth across and within countries is warranted. Understanding the mechanisms that may be at play in helping to explain cultural variation in EF could inform instruction and intervention efforts.

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