title: Executive and motivational inhibition: associations with self-report measures related to inhibition.
abstract: Inhibition involves the withholding or suppressing of attention or responses to irrelevant or distracting stimuli. We examined the relationship between five experimental tasks of inhibition, represented by two measures of executive, intentional control inhibition and three measures of motivational inhibition characterized by bottom-up interruption of affective and reward/punishment sensitive mechanisms. Associations between these experimental tasks with three self-report measures related to inhibition were also examined. Correlational analyses indicated a small but significant association between the measures in the executive domain (stop task and Stroop task), but a lack of associations between the measures in the motivational domain (emotional Stroop task, a card playing task involving rewards and punishments, and a gambling task). Both measures of executive and motivational inhibition entered as significant predictors on the self-report measures related to inhibition in simultaneous regression analyses, but not consistently in the expected direction. The results suggest that inhibition is not a unitary construct, and demonstrate an association between experimental measures of inhibition and self-report measures related to inhibition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shuster
authors.forename: Maggie E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Toplak
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology; D003118:Color Perception; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult