Lecture 7 - Temperament Based Parenting Interventions

Temperament and Personality

Infants: Temperament

Adults: Personality (personality develops out of temperament)

Emotion regulation and temperament are strongly related; temperament at infancy can predict later anxiety, but not perfectly

Temperament

- individual differences in reactivity and regulation in affect, activity, and attention

- enduring characteristics with which each person is born

- constitutionally-based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation

Infant and Child Temperament Development

- Mary Rothbart

- Development of temperament in infants by identifying emotional reactions and the individual differences

Measuring Infant and Child Temperament Development

- Infant Behavior Questionnaire to study differences of temperament in young children

- Standardized laboratory assessments of temperament

Origin of Temperament

- Temperament traits emerge early in life and are relatively stable over development (-> temperament is indication of personality)

- temperament is shaped by complex interactions between genetic and environmental factory

Personality

- an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, behaving, and acting

- makes a person unique

Dimensions of Personality

Big 5:

1. Openness to experience (e.g. intellectually curious, creative, imaginative, interested in art, ect.)

2. Conscientiousness (e.g. working thoroughly, doing duty well, careful, diligent, taking obligations seriously, efficient, organized, ect.)

3. Extraversion (e.g. outgoing, enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, enjoy social interactions, ect.)

4. Agreeableness (e.g. kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, considerate, ect.)

5. Neuroticism (e.g. moody, anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed, mood, ect.)

OCEAN

-> traits are observable in adults

Clusters of Temperament Traits: Regulated

Temperament Traits:

- low activity, anger, and approach

- high inhibition and attention focus

- overcontrolled

- reserved

- easy to handle at home, school, ect. (+)

Children benefit from:

- Encouragement to try new things

Association with Big 5:

- high on conscientiousness

- low on extraversion

Clusters of Temperament Traits: High Reactivity

Temperament Traits:

- high on anger, approach, fear, and shyness

- low activity, inhibition, and attention focus

- experience life intensively (lot of emotions)

- easily overwhelmed

- difficult to deal with at home or in classroom (-)

Children benefit from:

- consistent positive interactions

Association with Big 5:

- high on neuroticism

Clusters of Temperament Traits: Bold

Temperament Traits:

- high activity and approach

- low fear and shyness

- easy exciteable

- jump into tasks with little hesitation

- confident

- natural curiosity

- show little concentration

- easy to handle at home, school, ect. (+)

Children benefit from:

- organized and structured activities

Association with Big 5:

- high on extraversion

- high on openness to experience

Clusters of Temperament Traits: Average

Temperament Traits:

- Average on all temperament traits

+ Easygoing

- But maybe also: unmotivated / uninterested

- These children may fly under the radar, they may need extra attention to make sure they don't disengage from activities

Association with Big 5:

- Average

Clusters of Temperament Traits: Well - Adjusted

Temperament Traits:

- average on all temperament traits

- high on inhibition

- high on attention focus

+ Easygoing

+ get along well at school and home

Children benefit from:

- require attention but also get attention themselves

Association with Big 5:

- Average

- high on consciousness

Temperament - Long-term associations

- there are associations between infant temperament and later personality

- Emotion regulation and temperament are strongly related; temperament at infancy can predict later anxiety, but not perfectly

Study on Temperament and its Long-term associations

Jerome Kagan:

- 20% of children are born with high reactivity temperament

- by adolescence, about 1/3 of this group shows signs of social anxiety -> focus on this group considering prevention of mental disorders

More likely biological features:

- sympathetically more reactive cardiovascular system

- asymmetry of cortical activation in EEG favoring a more active right frontal area

- more power in the EEG in the higher frequency range

- a narrower facial skeleton

Behavior Genetics and Temperament

Can genes and environment be studies separately from each other?

Influence of genes is:

- passive

- evocative

- active (niche picking = choose environments that complement heredity)

Niche Picking

People choose environments that complement their heredity

'Goodness of Fit' in Relation to Temperament

Optimal Match between a child's temperamental characteristics and the expectations, demands, and opportunities of their environment

Temperament and Child Care

Dealing with Children:

- Awareness of parents, caregiver, teacher, ect. of the evocative aspect of genetic traits and genetic based traits (like temperament)

- interaction based on temperament of a child

Differential Susceptibility

- some individuals remain stable, under whatever circumstances ("dandelions")

- other individuals are vulnerable under negative conditions, but can excel under positive conditions ("orchids")

Temperament and Parenting

Temperament shapes and is shaped by the context in which children develop:

- Children interpret and respond to their environment differently

- Children evaluate themselves relative to others differently

- Children select and structure their environments differently

- Children need different parental discipline styles

- Children elicit different responses from their parents

-> parents should adapt parenting style to child's temperament

Evidence - Based Family Interventions

- Evidence-based interventions are practices or programs that have peer-reviewed, documented empirical evidence of effectiveness. Evidence-based interventions use a continuum of integrated policies, strategies, activities, and services whose effectiveness has been proven or informed by research and evaluation.

Temperament - Based Intervention Programs

Cool Little Kids

Goals:

- Avoidance of parent-blaming

- Acknowledgement of different temperaments, emotions, etc. -> often problems due to interactions of different temperaments between parents, and the child

- Problem behaviors are not unchangeable, not deliberate attempts to upset people, not a punishments that one deserves

INSIGHTS:

- Recognize, reframe, respond

- Scaffold and Stretch

- Gain Compliance and Competence

- Enhance empathy skills

- Learn how to resolve dilemmas

- Resolve real dilemmas

Temperament - Based Interventions - 3 Rs

1. Recognize: Recognize differences in children's reactions

2. Reframe: Reframe perspectives so that each reaction style has strenghts and areas of concern

3. Respond: Differentiate caregiver responses that are optima, adequare, and counter-productive

Temperament - Based Interventions - 2 Ss

1. Scaffold:

- Scaffold a child when he/she encounters challenging situations

- structuring and simplifying the environment in relation to child's temperament (e.g. removing challenges)

- adjust behavior to level of child

2. Stretch:

- If manageable with support, gently stretch the child so that he/she can better regulate emotional, attentional, and behavioral reactions (if child succeeds -> 'stretch' the situation)

- caregivers stretch and develop with the child

Temperament - Based Interventions - 2 Cs

Gaining Compliance and Competence

- Apply discipline strategies for non-compliant behavior

- contract with individual children who have repetitive behavior problems

- Foster social competencies

- positive parenting (warmth, affection, praise, attention, goal setting, monitoring)

- parental discipline (non-physical including time outs, loss of privileges, and experiencing natural consequences, being strict in a consistent and appropriate way)

Temperament - Based Interventions - Enhance Empathy Skills

with the help of puppets, understand that people have different temperaments that make some situation easy to handle while others are challenging

Temperament - Based Interventions - Learn How to Resolve Dilemmas

Work with puppets, facilitator, and teacher to learn self-regulation strategies by resolving hypothetical dilemmas using stoplight

Temperament - Based Interventions - Resolve Real Dilemmas

Apply the same problem-solving process and self-regulation strategies to dilemmas that the children experience in their daily lives

Evidence-based Family Interventions vs. Temperament-based interventions

- Evidence-based family interventions fail for ~30% of families or families drop out (~50%)

- Temperament-based interventions: children show less behavioral problems after intervention

Benefits of Parenting Interventions that are Temperament-Based

- individual is central

- sees child in its environment, temperament

- dilemma solving

- emphasizes positive parenting

- parental discipline

- Fostering self-regulation/giving control: Scaffolding, Stretching

Risk - Focused Programs

type of intervention program that focuses most on reducing risk exposure

Example: extra help for parents

Deficit Based Approach

Focuses on identifying and servicing needs

Asset Based Approach

- Builds on the assets that are found in the community and mobilizes individuals, associations, and institutions to come together to realise and develop their strengths

- Asset Based Development categorizes asset inventories into five groups, Individuals, Associations, Institutions, Place Based and Connections

- Stimulate Protective Factors

Example: self-control training

*Asset - Gewinn

Process-Oriented Programs

- target hypothetical mechanism

- Centers around the idea of 'process': a meaningful, connected pattern over time that can be observed and tracked through non-intentional signals

- can be applied in contexts including individual therapy and working with groups

- applying psychology to world issues including socioeconomic disparities, diversity issues, social conflict, and leadership