Negative Affect and Planning Ability in Preschool Children: A Mediation Model of Working Memory, Inhibition, and Cognitive Flexibility

ABSTRACT Past research in developmental psychology has revealed close links between affect and planning ability over the life‐span. However, such links have rarely been studied in children from non‐clinical samples. To address this gap, the present study investigates whether negative affect, understood as a temperamental trait, affects planning ability in 5‐year‐old children. Moreover, it examines whether selected cognitive processes, that is inhibition, verbal working memory, and cognitive flexibility, mediate this relationship. A total of 103 children aged M = 5 years 4 months, SD = 2.7 months, and their parents participated in the study. The analyses, which employed a path mediation model, revealed that negative affect's influence on planning was entirely mediated by flexibility. Moreover, flexibility partially mediated the relationship between inhibition and planning, and verbal working memory had a direct effect on planning. The results provide a new insight into the relationship between negative affect and planning ability in non‐clinical preschool children.