Infant Development - Temperament

What are Hippocrates’ four different temperaments?

• Sanguine

• Choleric

• Melancholic

• Phlegmatic

Temperament

• affective biases in the way (style) infants respond to the environment

• early individual differences related to later personality (related to each other but not identical)

• present from early in infancy

• relatively stable across early development

• largely due to biological (neurobiological) factors

Tapestry Metaphor

Temperament are the threads of the tapestry of personality

How do researchers assess temperament?

• parent questionnaires/parent observations

• teacher questionnaires

• experimenter observations

What are the 9 dimensions of temperament?

• activity level

• rhythmicity

• distractibility

• approach/withdrawal

• adaptability

• attention span/persistence

• intensity

• responsiveness

• quality of mood

What are the three temperament styles?

• difficult (10%)

• Easy (40%)

• slow to warm up (15%)

Inhibited Temperament (Behavioral Inhibition) considered risk factor for the development of:

• anxiety

• depression

• substance abuse

Kagan’s Suggestions for Parents

1. Acknowledge your child’s temperamental bias and do not assume that either your rearing practices or the child’s willfulness is the only reason for his or her behavior.

2. Acknowledge your child’s malleability and capacity for change. An infant’s biology does not determine what she will become 10 or 20 year later. Temperament is not destiny.

3. Accommodate parenting goals to child’s own wishes. A regimen of rearing that takes account of both the parent’s hopes and the child’s desires can be found, if parents are willing to search for it.