The Association Between Classroom Descriptive Norms, Relationship Quality and the Development of Adolescents’ Executive Functioning: A Longitudinal Perspective

Despite work demonstrating that executive function development is influenced by the social environment during childhood, little is known about these processes during adolescence either inside or outside the classroom. This study examined the relationship between executive function development and two social-contextual factors, namely the impact of classroom descriptive norms regarding executive functioning, and perceived social support from teachers and peers. Self-report data was collected from 425 early adolescents ( M age T1 = 13.28; SD = 0.80, 47.1% female) at two timepoints approximately one year apart. Multilevel analyses showed that individual levels of executive functioning were a stronger predictor of executive function development than classroom levels of executive functions. Social support from teachers and peers was not related to executive function development. While these findings offer an initial suggestion that executive function development may occur relatively independently of the social environment, we offer suggestions for future studies to explore this relationship in more detail.