ABSTRACT Children’s self-regulation abilities are key predictors of educational success and other life outcomes such as income and health. However, self-regulation is not a school subject,

and knowledge about how to generate lasting improvements in self-regulation and academic achievements with easily scalable, low-cost interventions is still limited. Here we report the

results of a randomized controlled field study that integrates a short self-regulation teaching unit based on the concept of mental contrasting with implementation intentions into the school

curriculum of first graders. We demonstrate that the treatment increases children’s skills in terms of impulse control and self-regulation while also generating lasting improvements in

improve important abilities and children’s educational career path. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

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Article Open access 14 December 2022 MINDSET AND PERCEIVED PARENTAL SUPPORT OF AUTONOMY SAFEGUARD ADOLESCENTS’ AUTONOMOUS MOTIVATION DURING COVID-19 HOME-BASED LEARNING Article Open access

28 January 2023 A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL CONTROLLED STUDY OF A SCHOOL-BASED MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMME TO IMPROVE THE SELF-ESTEEM OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN Article Open access 27 April 2022 DATA

AVAILABILITY The data for this publication have been collected in a project that has compiled a large set (and combination) of children’s abilities, preferences and family (sociodemographic)

characteristics (Supplementary Sections 1.3 and 1.4) and thus represents highly sensitive data. This dataset cannot be made available for data protection reasons. In addition, parental

consent for data usage only covers strictly scientific purposes. The restriction to scientific purposes was also necessary to comply with data protection requirements, and use of the data

for strictly scientific purposes cannot be guaranteed if the dataset is made (publicly) available. Not all the data collected in this project are analysed for this publication; see

Supplementary Section 1.4 for details. Researchers interested in replicating our findings can get access to the dataset after filling out a research agreement with us. We confirm that in the

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educational authorities as well as all parents and children for their participation in the project. We are also thankful to countless excellent research assistants who made this field study

possible. Moreover, we thank M. Wolf for support and provision of code in conducting the multiple testing correction. We are grateful for generous financial support that allowed us to

conduct this project: All authors acknowledge support by the Jacobs Foundation (project 2013-1078-00). E.F. acknowledges support from the University Research Priority Program of the

University of Zurich on Equality of Opportunity (project U-302-01-01). D.S. acknowledges support by the university research priority programme ‘Interdisciplinary Public Policy’ at Johannes

Gutenberg University Mainz (project FI 2/2014-2016). E.M.B. acknowledges support by the German Research Foundation (BE 5436/1-1). H.H. acknowledges support by the German Academic Scholarship

Foundation and the Research Council of Norway (FAIR, project 262675). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the

manuscript. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * These authors contributed equally: Daniel Schunk, Eva M. Berger, Henning Hermes, Kirsten Winkel. AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Law

and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany Daniel Schunk * German Council of Economic Experts, Wiesbaden, Germany Eva M. Berger * DICE (Düsseldorf Institute for

Competition Economics), Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany Henning Hermes * School of Social Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken,

Germany Kirsten Winkel * Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Ernst Fehr Authors * Daniel Schunk View author publications You can also search for this author

inPubMed Google Scholar * Eva M. Berger View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Henning Hermes View author publications You can also search for

this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Kirsten Winkel View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ernst Fehr View author publications You can also

search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS E.F. and D.S. initiated and supervised the study throughout all stages. E.F., D.S., E.M.B., and K.W. conceptualized the study and

all authors developed the field design. E.M.B., H.H., D.S., and K.W. developed intervention materials and outcome measures for the study. H.H. conducted the field experiment with input from

E.M.B., E.F., D.S., and K.W.; E.M.B. and H.H. performed the data analysis with input from E.F., D.S., and K.W.; all authors were involved in the interpretation of the results and all

authors wrote the paper. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Daniel Schunk. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. PEER REVIEW PEER REVIEW

INFORMATION _Nature Human Behaviour_ thanks Angela Duckworth, Dieuwer Ten Braak and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. ADDITIONAL

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agreement and applicable law. Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Schunk, D., Berger, E.M., Hermes, H. _et al._ Teaching self-regulation. _Nat Hum Behav_ 6,

1680–1690 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01449-w Download citation * Received: 19 October 2021 * Accepted: 22 August 2022 * Published: 13 October 2022 * Issue Date: December 2022

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