DEV - Temperament

Lecture

Pediatric Approach (Thomas & Chess)

Definition: Temperament best viewed as a general term referring to the how of behaviour.

Differs from ability, which refers to what and how well of behaving, and from motivation, which accounts for why a person does what he is doing.

Temperament, by contrast, concerns the way in which an individual behaves. 

Components:

• Activity level
• Regularity
• Approach-withdrawal
• Adaptability
• Threshold of responsiveness
• Intensity of reaction
• Quality of mood
• Distractibility
• Attention Span

3 way typology of children:

• Easy
• Difficult
• Slow-to-warm-up

Personality Tradition (Diamond; Buss & Plomin)

We define temperament as a set of inherited personality traits that appear in early life. 

Two defining characteristics:

• The traits are genetic in origin, like other psychological dispositions that are inherited (intelligence, eg)
• Traits appear in infancy - more specifically, during first year of life - which distinguishes temperament from other groups of personality traits, both inherited and acquired. 

Constituents:

• Emotionality
• Activity
• Sociability

Individual Differences

Constitutionally based individual diffs in emotional, motor and attentional reactivity and self-regulation. 
Temperamental characteristics are seen to demonstrate consistency across situations, as well as relative stability over time.

Constituents:

• Fearful distress/inhibition
• Irritable distress
• Attention span and persistence
• Activity level
• Positive affect/approach
• Rhythmicity
• Agreeableness/adaptability

Commonalities:

• Individual diffs rather than normative characteristics
• Set of traits, rather than a trait itself
• Temperamental dimensions reflect behavioural tendencies that are pervasive across situations, and show stability over time
• Emphasis on biological underpinnings of temperament 
• Emerges early in life - in purest form 

Disagreements:

• Differing boundaries for temperament 
• Differing constituents (cf. activity level and emotionality)
• relationship between temperament and personality construed differently 

Stability of Easy/Difficult Temperament (Korn, 1984)

• Longitudinal extension of Thomas & Chess' New York Longitudinal Study into adulthood
• 39 boys & 44 girls followed up into adulthood
• Prediction of "difficulty" impressive from age 3 & 4…