Contributions of Hot and Cool Executive Functions for Predicting and Ameliorating Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Elementary Aged Students

Childhood aggression represents a major public health concern, wherein developmental patterns of many aggressive forms yield future instances of delinquency, substance abuse, and school dropout. Recent interest in the relation of executive function (EF) processes and childhood aggression has helped to distinguish dissociable cognitive bases for some aggressive forms. Primary objectives of the present study were to determine the ecological validity of scale measurement for two latent EF factors – a hot, affectively influenced EF factor, and a cool, information processing factor – and to examine concurrent and longitudinal associations between hot and cool EF and reactive and proactive forms of aggression in a sample of children in 4th to 7th grades. Additionally, treatment effects of the Tools For Getting Along (TFGA) curriculum for hot and cool EF, as well as reactive and proactive aggression were investigated by examining treatment outcomes for reactive and proactive sub-groups identified at prior to treatment implementation. Results indicate that teacher-rated deficiencies in hot EF skills increase the level of severity for both reactive and proactive aggression, and that deficiencies in cool EF skills increase the level of severity for reactive, but not proactive aggression. Further, specific patterns of hot and cool EFs predict proactive versus reactive types across the transition from late elementary to middle school. The TFGA curriculum did not produce significant effects for outcomes of hot and cool EF, or for reactive or proactive aggression when investigated with subgroups identified as high in pretreatment reactive or proactive aggression. Additional results and implications for preventive intervention in the school context are provided.