Temperament

1. Stability of adult personality

   Annotations:

   • Stability at childhood - 　 It does not imply that everyone’s personality is genetically fixed at birth and completely stable, nor does it rule out the possibility of major changes in adulthood .  

1. The garrulous - outgoing, talkative, vivacious
2. The mean - selfish, miserly
3. The tactless - insensitive, clumsy
4. The flatterer - using compliments to achieve own ends
5. The dissembler - deceitful, evasive
6. The avaricious - grasping, covetous
7. Hippocrates (460–377 BC) temperament terms
   1. Choleric - easily aroused
   2. Phlegmatic - cool & detached
   3. Sanguine- impulsive
   4. Melancholic - depressive
   5. anxiety vs calmness
   6. impulsivity vs reflectivity
8. Myers Briggs personality test to categorise people as
   1. Thinkers, Feelers, Sensers, Intuiters
9. The big 5 personality theory
   1. Neuroticism - Stability
   2. Extraversion - Introversion
   3. Agreebleness - Disagreebleness
   4. Openess to experience - Resistance to change
   5. Conscientiousness - laxity

Annotations:

• Infants of same parents can be very different in personality behavioural styles

1. Emotional responses, mood

   Annotations:

   • reaction to people and settings, the childs tolerance and response to internal states, hunger, boredom
2. Attentional orientation patterns

   Annotations:

   • how quickly a child can be comforted when distressed and how easily distracted when completing an activity
3. Motor activity

   Annotations:

   • The vigour and frequency of activity and the ability to modify the activity appropriately
4. Summary

   Annotations:

   • Aspects of temperament in children are examples of what psychologists call ‘traits’, that is, common psychological dimensions along which people vary. The notion that there may be ‘types’ of children may be based on specific profiles of traits. There are three broad characteristics that have been proposed as descriptors of temperament: emotional responses, attentional orientation and motor activity. Stability and continuity are two distinct aspects of individual differences. Stability refers to the extent to which individual differences remain constant over time. Continuity refers to the way in which a particular characteristic may be consistently linked to another characteristic at a later age or ages. There is a developmental progression in the components of temperament that becomes apparent as the child gets older.

1. Temp. is the child's behaviour in diff. situations at diff. times
2. Temp. diff. are shown to b influenced by diff. genetics between children
3. Temp. diff. can be detected during the 1st yr of life
4. Temp. shows increasing stability as the child gets older

Annotations:

• Measuring temperament has most often been done by asking mothers to observe/record their children’s behaviour. There are issues regarding the reliability of parental reports. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that mothers’ reports agree reasonably well with results of direct observation of children.

Annotations:

• Thomas and Chess produced the first systematic theory of temperament. The nine dimensions of the Thomas and Chess framework may not be independent, so a less complex theory might be preferred. ‘Difficult temperament’ is a useful category to identify some children who are at risk of later behaviour problems. Buss and Plomin’s three dimensional framework (Emotionality, Activity and Sociability) has the advantage of being simpler than that of Thomas and Chess and of being related to a theory of adult personality. Kagan has identified behavioural inhibition to unfamiliarity as one of the most stable temperament dimensions. Dunn and Kendrick provide examples of how temperament and social context both influence the child’s behavioural responses to the arrival of a new sibling.  

Annotations:

• Temperament can directly influence other aspects of development, for example, attentional variation has an impact on cognitive development. Temperamental variation influences the parent’s response to the child. The goodness of fit between a child’s temperament and parental style can have an impact on the child’s attachment and long-term social adjustment. A child’s vulnerability to the adverse effects of life events can be influenced by temperament. Temperament can have a marked effect on the type and range of experiences to which the child is exposed.  

Annotations:

• First, infant behaviour shows systematic characteristics and regularities. Infants show a co-ordination and adaptation in their behaviour which is consistent with there being systems regulating behaviour from a very early age. But temperament is not primarily concerned with the organization of behaviour itself but rather with broad differences in the way behaviour is organized in different individuals. The range and scope of these temperamental differences has not yet been agreed upon but all schemes include at least some aspects of the Emotionality, Activity and Sociability framework put forward by Buss and Plomin, plus possible attentional ability variations as suggested by Bates. These temperament differences may be in part influenced by genetic differences between children but then so are many other behavioural 　 　 characteristics. Equally there are biological effects on temperament that are not influenced by genetic differences, for example, the possibly medium-term effects of illness and the effects of prematurity and low birth weight. Temperamental characteristics can be identified during the first 2 years of life but stabilities into even middle childhood are only modest. Temperamental differences do affect the child’s development, partly through their impact on the response of caregivers towards the child. In this sense they may play an important part in the child’s influence on their own development, a transactional process. Temperament’s role in influencing the child’s response to stressful events and a broader range of experiences is an ongoing topic for research.