Executive functioning and developmental psychopathology Integrating dynamics, experimental and modeling approaches

Mental health problems often emerge during adolescence, a developmental period marked by major psychological and social changes. Executive functions (EF), including inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, develop substantially during this period and may play a key role in the emergence of psychopathology. This thesis investigates how EF and mental health problems influence one another across multiple timescales, using longitudinal cohort data, daily experience sampling, experimental tasks, and methodological innovations.
The first part examines long-term developmental processes. One study showed that social drinking motives predicted heavier adolescent alcohol use, which in turn contributed to later alcohol-related problems. Using an 8-year high-risk cohort study, we found that EF impairments predicted subsequent psychopathology in early adolescence, whereas later in development EF and symptoms exhibited reciprocal influences. A moderated cross-lagged panel network approach further revealed how working memory and risk-taking not only predicted psychopathology but also moderated the way symptoms influenced one another over time.
The second part examined short-term dynamics. Momentary attentional control was associated with positive and negative affect, although smartphone-based attention tasks did not predict future affect. Experimental work showed value-modulated attentional capture for reward cues, but this was not associated with mental health outcomes.
The final part addresses methodological challenges. Symptom-level brain-behavior network models revealed links between neural markers and individual depressive symptoms, which were obscured when using total scores. Comparisons of longitudinal models highlighted risks of conflating between- and within-person effects. The thesis concludes with preregistration guidelines for longitudinal network analyses to improve transparency and robustness.