Self-Monitoring in Children: Accuracy and Reactivity

While the ability to monitor one's own behavior has been proposed as an important step in the development of self-control, very little information is actually available on children's ability to correctly label their own behavior or what effects that labeling might have on the occurrence of the behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy and reactive effects of self-monitoring for both a positively valued (attending) and a negatively valued (talking out of turn) classroom behavior in a group of third-grade students. With minimal instructions, the children were fairly accurate in monitoring their level of attending and of talking out. How accurate they were in monitoring one was not correlated with level of accuracy for the other. While there were no overall reactive effects, reactivity did seem to be influenced by self-monitoring accuracy. The behavior of the more accurate self-monitors remained fairly stable. However, compared to the more accurate self-monitors and to their own behavior during baseline, the poorer self-monitors actually seemed to attend less and talk out of turn more. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of self-monitoring in self-regulation and impulsive behavior.