Sex Differences in the Stability of Self-Regulation Across Childhood

Purpose: Self-regulation has gained wide-spread attention across a number of social science disciplines in recent years. It is clear that a lack of self-regulation is related to a host of behavioral, social, and criminogenic outcomes. Questions remain, however, regarding between and within sex differences in the change and stability of self-regulation across time. Methods: Using data from a large representative sample of children in the USA, we employed latent class growth analyses to examine the patterns of development in self-regulation in males (N = 10,293) and females (N = 9873) over a 5-year time span from kindergarten through fifth grade. Results: Results indicated that females had a higher mean level of self-regulation across time and that both the male and female samples yielded three classes. In both samples, all three classes remained relatively stable across time, with particular stability in the lowest self-regulatory groups. Conclusion: There was little change in mean self-regulatory behavior regardless of class membership or sex. These findings have important implications for early identification of and early intervention with children exhibiting self-regulatory problems. © 2015, Springer International Publishing AG.