Early childhood is a key period for the development of self-regulation skills. Inhibitory control is one of the self-regulation skills that are necessary in academic and social contexts to achieve better results. Studies have shown that older children’s inhibitory control improves when a reward is presented. However, types of rewards and individual differences have never been fully investigated in a controlled situation. 149 children aged 4 to 5 years from a low socioeconomical background were assessed to measure inhibitory control (IC) in two different conditions embedded in a tablet game: IC with a predictive reward and IC with a non-predictive reward. Additionally, a measure reported by parents on their children’s temperament was analysed. Results showed that (1) inhibition was higher in the predictive condition, (2) girls performed better than boys in both inhibition games, and (3) boys, whose temperament is characterised by a higher level of sociability had a better performance in the non-predictive reward condition. Moreover, boys whose temperament is characterised by a high energy level have poorer performance in the same task. In educational terms, having more background in the subject of rewards can allow more appropriate planning according to the objective, temperament characteristics and sex of the children.

幼儿期是培养自我调节能力的关键时期。抑制控制是在学术和社会环境中获得更好结果所必需的自我调节技能之一。研究表明，当给予奖励时，年龄较大的儿童的抑制控制能力会提高。然而，奖励的类型和个体差异从未在受控情况下得到充分研究。对 149 名社会经济背景较低的 4 至 5 岁儿童进行评估，以测量平板电脑游戏中嵌入的两种不同条件下的抑制控制 (IC)：具有预测性奖励的 IC 和具有非预测性奖励的 IC。此外，还分析了父母报告的关于孩子气质的一项措施。结果表明 (1) 在预测条件下抑制更高，(2) 女孩在两种抑制游戏中都比男孩表现更好，(3) 性格特征为较高社交能力的男孩在非预测性奖励条件下表现更好。此外，气质高能量的男孩在相同任务中的表现较差。在教育方面，对奖励的主题有更多的背景，可以根据孩子的目标、气质特征和性别进行更适当的规划。