Current Directions in Psychological

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The Nature and Organization of Individual 21(1) 8–14
© The Author(s) 2012
Differences in Executive Functions: Reprints and permission:
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Four General Conclusions DOI: 10.1177/0963721411429458

http://cdps.sagepub.com

Akira Miyake1 and Naomi P. Friedman2

1
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado at Boulder and
2
Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado at Boulder

Abstract
Executive functions (EFs)—a set of general-purpose control processes that regulate one’s thoughts and behaviors—have
become a popular research topic lately and have been studied in many subdisciplines of psychological science. This article
summarizes the EF research that our group has conducted to understand the nature of individual differences in EFs and their
cognitive and biological underpinnings. In the context of a new theoretical framework that we have been developing (the
unity/diversity framework), we describe four general conclusions that have emerged. Specifically, we argue that individual
differences in EFs, as measured with simple laboratory tasks, (a) show both unity and diversity (different EFs are correlated
yet separable), (b) reflect substantial genetic contributions, (c) are related to various clinically and societally important
phenomena, and (d) show some developmental stability.

Keywords
executive functions, self-regulation, individual differences, behavioral genetics

People differ greatly in their abilities to regulate thoughts and there are several reasons for this measurement difficulty
behaviors. For example, some people can resist the temptation (Miyake et al., 2000), arguably the most vexing problem is the
to eat chocolate cake, whereas others cannot help it even when task-impurity problem. Because any target EF must be embed-
they are on a diet and know that they should avoid high-calorie ded within a specific task context (so that the target EF has
foods. Why do people differ in their ability to control their something to operate on), any score derived from an EF task—
impulses and urges? What are the cognitive and biological say, the well-known Stroop task (naming the ink color of a
underpinnings of such individual differences? color word, such as GREEN, when the color and word are
These are the central questions that we have been address- incongruent)—necessarily includes systematic variance attrib-
ing through our studies of executive functions (EFs)—a set of utable to non-EF processes associated with that specific task
general-purpose control mechanisms, often linked to the pre- context (e.g., color processing, articulation speed). Unfortu-
frontal cortex of the brain, that regulate the dynamics of human nately, this systematic non-EF variance and measurement error
cognition and action. EFs are important to study because they (random noise in the data) are substantial, making it difficult to
are a core component of self-control or self-regulation ability cleanly measure the EF variance of interest.
(or “willpower”), which has been shown to have broad and To alleviate this task-impurity problem, we use a latent-
significant implications for everyday lives (Mischel et al., variable approach. In this approach, one selects multiple exem-
2011; Moffitt et al., 2011). plar tasks that seem different on the surface but still capture the
Since our original study (Miyake et al., 2000), we have target ability. If exemplar tasks are chosen such that they share
learned much about individual differences in EFs. In this arti- little systematic non-EF variance, one can statistically extract
cle, we present what we have learned so far in the form of four what is common across those tasks (using such multivariate sta-
general conclusions. Before doing so, however, we explain our tistical techniques as confirmatory factor analysis and structural
approach.

Assessing Individual Differences in EFs Corresponding Author:

Akira Miyake, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of
EF is a challenging topic to study: It is not only elusive to define Colorado at Boulder, 345 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0345
(Jurado & Rosselli, 2007) but also difficult to measure. Although E-mail: [email protected]

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Individual Differences in Executive Functions 9

equation modeling) and use the resulting “purer” latent variable Teuber (1972). That is, different EFs correlate with one
as the measure of EF. another, thus tapping some common underlying ability (unity),
Our research has focused primarily on three EFs: updating but they also show some separability (diversity). This pattern
(constant monitoring and rapid addition/deletion of working is illustrated in Figure 2a with data from a large twin sample
memory contents), shifting (switching flexibly between tasks (Friedman, Miyake, Robinson, & Hewitt, 2011): The correla-
or mental sets), and inhibition (deliberate overriding of domi- tions among the three EF latent variables are substantial but
nant or prepotent responses). Some tasks we use to capture are far from perfect (i.e., 1.0). This general unity/diversity pat-
these EFs are illustrated in Figure 1. Although there are other tern has been observed in other samples, including preadoles-
EFs (e.g., dual-tasking) and other levels of analysis that could cent children (e.g., Rose, Feldman, & Jankowski, 2011) and
be justified and explored,1 these three EFs (updating, shifting, older adults (e.g., Vaughan & Giovanello, 2010), although
and inhibition) have provided useful insights into the nature only a single unitary factor may be evident in preschool
and organization of individual differences in EFs. children (e.g., Wiebe, Espy, & Charak, 2008). The diversity of
EFs is further supported by the observation that the three EFs
differentially relate to other measures, such as well-known
Four General Conclusions About Individual neuropsychological tests of frontal-lobe functioning (Miyake
Differences in EFs et al., 2000) and IQ (Friedman et al., 2006).
Unity and diversity Although our work initially focused on how the three EFs
relate to one another and to other individual differences mea-
The first conclusion is that individual differences in EFs show sures of interest, our goal has shifted recently to specifying the
both “unity” and “diversity,” a notion originally proposed by cognitive and biological underpinnings of the unity and

Updating: Letter Memory Task (Always Remember the Last 3 Letters)

M K P T C R

“M” “M, K” “M, K, P” “K, P, T” “P, T, C” “T, C, R”

Shifting: Color-Shape Task (Classify Each Target by Color [C] or by Shape [S])

C C S S C S

Repeat Switch Repeat Switch Switch

Inhibition: Antisaccade Task (Report the Arrow Direction Presented on the Nonflashed Side)

+ + + +

Fixate the Cross Brief Flash (150 ms) Look for the Arrow on the Arrow Replaced by a
Opposite Side (175 ms) Mask

Fig. 1. Schematic illustrations of three executive function (EF) tasks used in our current EF test battery. In the letter memory task
(an example of an updating task), participants are presented with a series of consonant letters one at a time and asked to report
the last three letters after the presentation of the letter sequence ends.To ensure that participants constantly update their working
memory contents, they are required to say aloud what the last three letters are after each letter. The dependent measure is the
accuracy of the recalled letters at the end. In the color-shape task (an example of a shifting task), participants see a letter cue first
(either C or S) and, depending on the cue, they make a classification decision about the target item presented shortly afterward in
terms of color (green or red) or shape (circle or triangle) by pressing appropriate buttons on a button box.The dependent measure
is the switch cost—namely, a reaction-time difference between switch and repeat trials. In the antisaccade task (an example of an
inhibition task), participants first fixate on the center cross. When a brief flash occurs, they need to avoid looking at that flash and
instead move their gaze toward the opposite side of the screen so that they can correctly identify and report the direction of an
arrow briefly presented there. The dependent measure is the proportion of correctly reported arrows. More procedural details of
these tasks and the details of other EF measures we use are provided in Friedman et al. (2008).

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10 Miyake, Friedman

a .77

.38 .79

Updating Shifting Inhibition

.67 .65 .43 .61 .66 .71 .40 .43 .45

Letter KeepTrack S2back Color Number Category Antisac Stroop Stop

.55 .57 .82 .62 .56 .50 .84 .82 .80

b
Common EF
Updating- Shifting-
specific specific
.45 .50
.52 .57 .19 .53

.42 .39 .39 .42 .43 .49 .46 .43 .50

Letter KeepTrack S2back Color Number Category Antisac Stroop Stop

.56 .52 .81 .63 .54 .51 .79 .82 .75

Fig. 2. Two complementary ways of representing the unity and diversity of executive functions (EFs), adapted from the confirmatory
factor analysis results reported in Friedman et al. (2011; task names are abbreviated). Numbers on arrows are standardized factor
loadings (values from −1 to 1 that indicate the extent to which the individual tasks are predicted by the latent variable), and those under
the smaller arrows are residual variances (the variances in the tasks that are not explained by the EF latent variables). Those on curved
double-headed arrows are correlations between the EF latent variable factors. Panel a illustrates the unity and diversity of EFs by showing
that the three types of EFs (updating, shifting, and inhibition) are substantially correlated with each other (unity) but are separable
(diversity) in that those correlations are far from 1.0. This was the way our research initially examined individual differences in EFs (e.g.,
Miyake et al., 2000). Panel b illustrates the unity and diversity of EFs in a way that is more consistent with the unity/diversity framework
we have been developing. As Panel b shows, there is a common EF latent variable on which all nine EF tasks load (unity), as well as two
“nested” latent variables on which the updating and shifting tasks, respectively, also load (diversity). Because the common EF variance
happened to be perfectly correlated with the inhibition latent variable, no inhibition-specific factor is represented in the figure. Letter =
letter memory, Keep = keep track, S2back = Spatial 2-back, Color = color-shape, Number = number-letter, Category = category-switch,
Antisac = antisaccade, and Stop = stop-signal (for details about these tasks, see Friedman et al., 2008).

diversity more directly. A new framework—the unity/diversity interesting discoveries. First, after accounting for the unity
framework—that reflects this recent shift in research goals is (common EF), there is no unique variance left for inhibition
illustrated in Figure 3. Each EF ability (e.g., updating) can be (Friedman et al., 2008, 2011), hence the absence of the inhibition-
decomposed into what is common across all three EFs, or specific factor in Figure 3. Stated differently, the inhibition
unity (termed common EF), and what is unique to that particu- factor happens to correlate virtually perfectly with common
lar ability, or diversity (e.g., updating-specific ability). Instead EF, leaving no inhibition-specific variance. This finding,
of the elements on the left side of the equation that reflect which we have now replicated in two independent college stu-
mixed influences from both unity and diversity (updating, dent samples, is shown in Figure 2b. Another discovery, to be
shifting, inhibition), the unity/diversity framework focuses on illustrated later, is that the common EF and shifting-specific
the elements on the right side that may more cleanly map onto components sometimes show opposing patterns of correla-
the underlying cognitive processes (common EF, updating- tions with other measures, hinting at the multifaceted nature of
specific, and shifting-specific abilities) and seeks to specify shifting ability (stability vs. flexibility) suggested in the litera-
their underpinnings. ture (Goschke, 2000).
This new way of examining individual differences in EFs is Using these findings as clues, we have been developing
still under development but has already produced some hypotheses regarding what specific ability each EF component

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Individual Differences in Executive Functions 11

Unity Diversity results hold promise for current efforts linking specific genes to
EFs (see Barnes, Dean, Nandam, O’Connell, & Bellgrove,
Updating Updating- 2011, for a recent review), but also point to the complexity of
= +
Ability Specific the EF genetic structure.
We should emphasize here that high heritability does not
Shifting Shifting- mean immutability. Heritability is the portion of variability
= Common EF +
Ability Specific across individuals within a particular sample attributable to
genetic effects at a particular point in time. Thus, it says noth-
ing about the source(s) of a particular individual’s EF ability
Inhibition
= or the trainability of EFs within each individual or among a
Ability
group of individuals. In fact, recent studies suggest that EF
Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the unity and diversity of three executive ability is amenable to some training effects (e.g., Dahlin,
functions (EFs). Each EF (e.g., updating) is really a combination of what is Neely, Larsson, Bäckman, & Nyberg, 2008), although the
common to all three EFs (common EF) and what is specific to that EF (e.g., transferability of training effects across different types of EF
updating-specific ability). Although our initial research has focused on three
types of EFs (the left side of the equation) and how they relate to other
tasks and cognitive measures (e.g., fluid intelligence) has not
psychological measures of interest, the unity/diversity framework we have been clearly established yet.
been developing focuses on the right side of the equation (common EF,
updating-specific, and shifting-specific abilities) so that we can more directly
specify the cognitive and biological underpinnings of the unity and diversity Clinical and societal relevance
of EFs. In this figure, the inhibition-specific component is absent, because we
have found repeatedly that, once the unity (common EF) is accounted for, The third conclusion is that purely cognitive measures of EFs
there is no unique variance left for the inhibition-specific factor, a point also can predict individual differences in clinically and societally
illustrated in Figure 2b in the data from a large twin sample (Friedman et al., important behaviors (Friedman et al., 2007, 2011; Young et al.,
2011).
2009). In particular, recent evidence points to the unity com-
may be tapping. According to our current view, common EF is ponent of EFs (common EF) as the primary source of such
about one’s ability to actively maintain task goals and goal- predictive power.2
related information and use this information to effectively bias An illuminating example comes from the twin data on
lower-level processing. This basic ability is necessary for all behavioral disinhibition (Young et al., 2009). Behavioral dis-
three EFs and has also been suggested as a key requirement of inhibition is a general vulnerability factor hypothesized to
response inhibition (Munakata et al., 2011). In contrast, we underlie different types of so-called externalizing behavior
hypothesize that the shifting-specific component reflects flex- problems, such as attention deficits (often shown by individu-
ibility—ease of transitioning to new task-set representations. als with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), novelty seek-
At present, we are less certain about what the updating- ing/risk taking, conduct disorder, and substance use. A latent
specific component taps, but two candidate mechanisms are variable for behavioral disinhibition was substantially corre-
effective gating of information and controlled retrieval from lated (−.63) genetically with the common EF variable (the
long-term memory. phenotypic or nongenetic correlation was −.35), indicating
that better general EF ability is associated with fewer such
behavioral problems.3
Substantial genetic contributions More generally, recent research has yielded substantial evi-
The second conclusion is that individual differences in EFs dence that links individual differences in EFs to diverse self-
reflect substantial genetic contributions at the level of latent regulatory behaviors, such as the expression and control of
variables (Friedman et al., 2008). As is commonly done in implicit racial biases and prejudice (e.g., Klauer, Schmitz, Teige-
behavioral genetic analyses, we used correlations from mono- Mocigemba, & Voss, 2010; Stewart, von Hippel, & Radvansky,
zygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins to decompose 2009), staying faithful to romantic partners (e.g., Pronk, Karre-
the sources of individual differences in EFs into three compo- mans, & Wigboldus, 2011), and successfully implementing diet-
nents: genetic variance (heritability) and two types of environ- ing and exercising intentions (e.g., Hall, Fong, Epp, & Elias,
mental variances (shared and nonshared environments). 2008). These findings from various subdisciplines of psycho-
The individual tasks showed moderate heritability (.25–.55), logical science suggest that those simple lab-based EF tasks
with the remaining variance attributable mostly to nonshared illustrated in Figure 1 are capturing something important and
environment (which includes measurement error). However, at meaningful, especially at the level of latent variables.
the level of latent variables, where measurement error is mini-
mized, the heritability estimates were considerably higher (over
.75). More important, substantial genetic contributions were Developmental stability
observed at both unity and diversity levels, suggesting that sepa- The final conclusion is that individual differences in EFs show
rate sets of genes contribute to the variability in common EF some stability during development. In our research, this con-
versus updating-specific and shifting-specific abilities. Such clusion has emerged from two lines of longitudinal analyses.

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12 Miyake, Friedman

The first concerns the 6-year stability of EFs in the twin worse shifting-specific ability (.42 SDs worse) than did the
sample, measured at ages 17 and 23, during which many twins worse-self-restraint group. Together with other longitudinal
moved out of their parents’ homes and started to live sepa- data (Mischel et al., 2011; Moffitt et al., 2011), these results
rately. Preliminary results indicate that, despite such major suggest that individual differences in self-regulation and EF
life changes, the age-17/age-23 correlations are substantial at abilities are relatively stable developmentally. Considering
the level of latent variables (.82 for common EF, 1.00 for that all participants’ overall self-regulation and EF abilities
updating-specific ability, and .93 for shifting-specific ability). undoubtedly improved substantially during this 14-year span,
The second line of evidence takes advantage of the fact that this example illustrates that such stability of individual differ-
we have been tracking our twin sample from their infancy. ences does not necessarily mean no change in EF abilities
Specifically, we have been trying to identify early measures within individuals.
that could predict later individual differences in EFs. The ear- The evidence of worse shifting-specific ability associated
liest precursor we discovered is a simple measure of self- with better childhood self-restraint may be counterintuitive,
restraint during toddlerhood (Friedman et al., 2011). In this but it illustrates something we alluded to earlier: The two com-
study, self-restraint was assessed with a prohibition task, in ponents of shifting ability—common EF and shifting-specific
which a child was shown an attractive toy (a glitter wand) and abilities—sometimes show opposing patterns of correlations
then told not to touch it for 30 seconds, a task that has concep- with other constructs. As Goschke (2000) suggested, the abil-
tual similarities to the well-known delay-of-gratification tasks ity to actively maintain a single task goal may indeed be a
(Mischel et al., 2011) and requires active goal maintenance force that makes it difficult for individuals to flexibly switch
(e.g., maintaining a goal of not touching a toy). to a different goal.
Based on growth modeling of four testing occasions (ages
14, 20, 24, and 36 months), we identified two distinct develop-
mental trajectories, shown in Figure 4. Remarkably, this group Current and Future Research Directions:
difference was still evident at age 17: The better-self-restraint Specifying the Biological Basis of EFs
group demonstrated significantly better common EF (by .60 In this review, we presented four general conclusions that con-
standard-deviation, SD, units), virtually no difference in the cisely capture what we have learned about individual differ-
updating-specific ability (.05 SDs better), and significantly ences in EFs. As we illustrated here, individual differences in

1.0

0.9
Probability of Not Touching

0.8
Group with better self-restraint
0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3
Group with worse self-restraint
0.2

0.1

0.0
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Age in Months

Fig. 4. Growth trajectories of the two groups identified in the latent class growth model illustrating
the development of self-restraint ability, as measured by a simple prohibition task (Friedman et al.,
2011). In this task, a child is shown an attractive toy and then told not to touch it for 30 seconds.
One group (55% of the sample) showed better self-restraint than the other group (45%), and this
group difference was significant at all four time points (14, 20, 24, and 36 months of age). As explained
in the main text, this group difference was also reflected in their performance of executive function
(EF) tasks, assessed 14 years later at age 17. For simplicity, the figure shown here is based on the data
from dichotomous scoring of the prohibition task performance (pass or fail). The analyses and results
reported in the Friedman et al. (2011) article take into account the durations for which each child was
able to not touch the toy.

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Individual Differences in Executive Functions 13

EFs are highly relevant to many different subdisciplines of An ultimate goal of this computational modeling is to
psychological science and hence could have broad implica- develop hypotheses for testing specific genes that contribute
tions for both basic and applied research. In this regard, we are to individual differences in these EFs. Although previous stud-
currently examining how individual differences in EFs relate ies have examined the roles of particular genetic variants
to various important phenomena in psychology, such as cogni- (especially within the dopamine system), the effects are typi-
tive control in depression and anxiety (Altamirano, Miyake, & cally small and often do not replicate (Barnes et al., 2011).
Whitmer, 2010), the expression and control of implicit racial One promising approach is to test aggregate effects of multiple
bias, and the regulation of substance use and eating behavior. genes that, when combined, have larger effects on biological
We believe that the unity/diversity framework described parameters. Because the model can simulate the effects of
here provides a useful basis for examining individual differ- multiple genetic variants acting independently or even jointly,
ences in EFs in future research. To make the framework even it can provide a strong theoretical framework with which to
more useful, however, we have been developing the main develop detailed hypotheses regarding the genetic influences
ideas computationally and trying to link the behavioral, cogni- underlying the unity and diversity of EFs.
tive, and genetic levels of our theoretical explanations more
tightly. We end this article by describing such current efforts. Recommended Reading
To better understand the neural and genetic mechanisms Barnes, J. J. M., Dean, A. J., Nandam, S., O’Connell, R. G., &
underlying individual differences in EFs, we are using neural- Bellgrove, M. A. (2011). (See References). Provides an in-depth
network modeling in the context of the prefrontal-cortex review of recent molecular genetic (polymorphism) research
basal-ganglia working-memory (PBWM) model developed by examining the genetic correlates of EFs, including response inhi-
O’Reilly and colleagues (O’Reilly & Frank, 2006). PBWM bition, in both clinical (e.g., ADHD) and nonclinical populations.
provides a biologically plausible model of the brain areas Braver, T. S., Cole, M. W., & Yarkoni, T. (2010). Vive les differences!
involved in EFs, which exhibit specific properties constrained Individual variation in neural mechanisms of executive control.
by known biology. The prefrontal-cortex layer can actively Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 20, 242–250. Provides a con-
maintain relevant information through persistent activation cise review of recent cognitive neuroscience research (including
and recurrent connectivity. Because it can bias lower-level neuroimaging work) on individual differences in EFs.
activity through its connections to posterior-cortex layers, Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive
which do not have these same active maintenance mecha- function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333,
nisms, it is particularly suited to maintaining goals and using 959–964. Provides a concise yet broad-scope review of various
these goals to bias ongoing processing. Information is flexibly intervention efforts to improve children’s EF abilities.
gated into the prefrontal-cortex layer through the basal- Friedman, N. P., & Miyake, A. (2004). The relations among inhibi-
ganglia layers, which learn what information is relevant tion and interference control functions: A latent-variable analy-
through dopaminergic reward-learning mechanisms. sis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 18, 893–900.
Using this domain-general PBWM model, we have been Reports a study demonstrating that different types of inhibition
simulating the EF tasks used in the Friedman et al. (2008) do not necessarily correlate with one another and, hence, should
study and manipulating model parameters to test our hypoth- not be treated interchangeably.
eses about the mechanisms influencing individual differences Miyake, A., Emerson, M. J., & Friedman, N. P. (2000). Assessment
(see Chatham et al., 2011, for a detailed report of our simula- of executive functions in clinical settings: Problems and recom-
tion of the n-back task, one of the updating tasks in our EF mendations. Seminars in Speech and Language, 21, 169–183.
battery). For example, in this ongoing work, to simulate indi- Provides a readable tutorial on various challenges facing the
vidual differences in hypothesized common EF mechanisms measurement of EFs and offers some concrete recommendations.
of actively maintaining goals and thereby biasing lower-level
processing, we manipulated parameters that influence the Acknowledgments
strength of representations in the prefrontal-cortex layer of We thank Tiffany Ito, Yuko Munakata, Phil Zelazo, and two anony-
the model and how strongly the prefrontal cortex connects mous reviewers for providing useful comments on an earlier draft of
with posterior areas. Consistent with our hypothesis that goal this article.
maintenance is important for all EFs, these manipulations
affected all the modeled tasks. In contrast, manipulations of Declaration of Conflicting Interests
other parameters in the prefrontal-cortex layer that influenced The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
how long representations persist after they are no longer the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
needed affected only the shifting tasks, consistent with our
hypothesis that the shifting-specific factor may reflect the Funding
ease of transitioning to new representations in the prefrontal The research described in this article was supported by grants from
cortex. Hence, we have begun to replicate the unity/diversity the National Institutes of Health (MH063207, MH079485,
pattern observed behaviorally with this biologically con- HD010333, DA024002, & AA011998) and the National Science
strained model. Foundation (BCS0847872).

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14 Miyake, Friedman

Notes Hall, P. A., Fong, G. T., Epp, L. J., & Elias, L. J. (2008). Execu-
1. For example, a commonly postulated EF, planning, is a more tive function moderates the intention–behavior link for physical
complex and higher-level construct than those we study and is likely activity and dietary behavior. Psychology & Health, 23, 309–326.
to implicate all three EFs. Each of the three EFs, in turn, could be Jurado, M. B., & Rosselli, M. (2007). The elusive nature of executive
decomposed into multiple subprocesses (e.g., monitoring, item addi- functions: A review. Neuropsychology Review, 17, 213–233.
tion, active maintenance, and item deletion for updating) and studied Klauer, K. C., Schmitz, F., Teige-Mocigemba, S., & Voss, A. (2010).
at this more fine-grained level if appropriate tasks are available to tap Understanding the role of executive control in the Implicit Asso-
individual differences in those subprocesses. ciation Test: Why flexible people have small IAT effects. Quar-
2. Interesting to note, individual differences in cognitive abilities,
terly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 595–619.
such as IQ, are most strongly related to updating ability (Friedman
Mischel, W., Ayduk, O., Berman, M. G., Casey, B. J., Gotlib, I. H.,
et al., 2006). In fact, both common EF and updating-specific ability
are equally strongly related to IQ (Friedman et al., 2008), suggesting Jonides, J., . . . Shoda, Y. (2011). “Willpower” over the life span:
that common EF is not the same as so-called general intelligence (g). Decomposing self-regulation. Social, Cognitive, and Affective
3. The original publication of this study (Young et al., 2009) reported Neuroscience, 6, 252–256.
that, among the three EFs, inhibition correlated most strongly with Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter,
behavioral disinhibition. The result reported here is based on a reanaly- A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive
sis of the data using the unity/diversity framework. functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks:
A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100.
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