Assignment:
Question of the Day:
Do babies have unique personalities?
What is temperament?
• "Biological individual differences in attentional, motor, and emotional reactivity and self-regulation that are exhibited in different contexts in response to stimulation" (Bornstein et al., 2015)
• Independent from individuals' motivation, thoughts, abilities, etc.
• Moderately heritable
Measuring Temperament via Maternal Reports (Infant Behavioral Questionnaire)
• Widely-used scale developed by UO Prof. Mary Rothbart!
• When given a new toy, how often did the baby get very excited about getting it?
• When put into the bath water, how often did the baby splash or kick?
• How often during the last week did the baby startle to a sudden or loud noise?
• When placed on his/her back, how often did the baby fuss or protest?
• How often during the last week did the baby stare at a mobile, crib bumper or picture for 5 min or longer?
Temperament Approach #1: Dimensional (Rothbart, 2007)
• Biologically-based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation
• Fearfulness
• Irritability
• Positivity
• Activity
• Persistence (attention span)
• Rhythmicity (regularity of biological functions)
• Study tip: match these to the questionnaire items on previous slide!
Broad Temperament Dimensions
• Effortful Control
• Negative Affect
• Extraversion/Surgency (or Positive Affect)
But - Self-Regulation (Effortful Control) Develops!
• 6-18 mos: can avoid negative stimuli, engage in self-soothing (e.g., sucking one's thumb)
• After 18 mos: can distract attention
• Other cognitive strategies: replace with alternative or reappraise
• 3-5 yrs: can hide emotions
• From infancy: learn culturally-specific display rules about when to express or suppress emotions
Change vs Consistency in Development (Bornstein et al., 2015)
• Two kinds of developmental consistency:
• Individual-order consistency (stability)
• Group mean-level consistency (continuity)
• Research question: do any of the following moderate developmental stability of temperament across infancy?
• Age?
• Gender?
• Birth order?
• Term status?
• SES?
Temperament and Personality (Rothbart, 2007)
• Temperament relates to personality
• Extraversion (Extraversion/Surgency or Positive Affect)
• Neuroticism (Negative Affect)
• Conscientiousness (Effortful Control)
Temperament Approach: Categorical (Thomas & Chess, 1977)
• Easy (40%)
• Difficult (10%)
• Slow-To-Warm-Up (15%)
• Average
• These are profiles - like constellations of temperamental qualities that tend to cluster together predictably.
Why do we care about temperament? (Sanson et al., 2010)
• Direct effects on outcomes like mental health, prosocial behavior, behavioral conduct and aggression
• Indirect (mediating) effects on outcomes (through environment)
• Interaction effects - "goodness of fit" between child and environment
• Moderating effects - temperament moderated by environment, or temperament moderates other variables
Differential susceptibility hypothesis (Belsky et al., 2007)
• Dandelion - hardy and resilient, minimal environmental effects
• Orchids - extreme temperamental characteristics, max environmental effects (both good AND bad)
Psychopathology, Peer Relations, and Prosocial Behavior
• Temperament also relates specifically to social development (Sanson et al., 2010)
• Internalizing (inhibition, negative affect)
• Externalizing (negative affect, reactivity, poor attention)
• Peer relations (inhibition/shyness, social withdrawal and anxiety, peer rejection)
• Prosocial behaviors