SLEEP DISTURBANCE, EATING HABITS, COGNITIVE CONTROL, AND AGGRESSION IN ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the direct and mediated relationship between sleep disturbance, healthy food habits, cognitive control, and aggression in adolescents. It was hypothesized that sleep disturbance would have a positive relationship with aggression and healthy food habits would have a negative relationship with aggression. A secondary hypothesis was formulated that cognitive control would mediate the relationship of sleep disturbance and food habits with aggression. To conduct the study, a correlational research design was used. The sample of the study comprised of 157 adolescents in age range of 12-18 years; they were selected from secondary and higher secondary grades from different private and government schools and colleges of Lahore. The sample were selected through cluster random sampling technique. The Adolescent Food Habits Checklist, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Color word interference test taken from Delis Kaplan Executive functions system (D-KEFS; Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001), and Aggression Scale (Mathur & Bhatnagar, 2004) were used to assess the healthy food habits, sleep disturbance, level of cognitive control, and the level of aggression respectively. Pearson product movement correlation analysis and mediation model using Baron and Kenny’s guidelines were calculated to assess study objectives. The results showed that sleep disturbance were positively correlated with aggression and healthy food habits were negatively correlated with aggression. Moreover, the healthy food habits were negatively correlated with error measure of cognitive control (more errors represented poor cognitive control). Furthermore, the findings indicated that cognitive control (error measure) mediated the link between healthy food habits and aggression (Soble z test = -1.74, p <.05). Limitations, implications, and future directions of the current study were discussed.