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
.
Character types or traits
The garrulous - outgoing,
talkative, vivacious
The mean - selfish, miserly
The tactless - insensitive, clumsy
The flatterer - using compliments to achieve
own ends
The dissembler - deceitful, evasive
The avaricious - grasping, covetous
Hippocrates (460–377 BC)
temperament terms
Choleric - easily
aroused
Phlegmatic - cool
& detached
Sanguine- impulsive
Melancholic - depressive
anxiety vs
calmness
impulsivity vs
reflectivity
Myers Briggs personality test to
categorise people as
Thinkers, Feelers, Sensers, Intuiters
The big 5 personality theory
Neuroticism
- Stability
Extraversion - Introversion
Agreebleness -
Disagreebleness
Openess to experience -
Resistance to change
Conscientiousness - laxity
Infant personality
Annotations:
Infants of same parents can be very different in personality behavioural styles
Measured Dimensions of
temperment
Emotional responses, mood
Annotations:
reaction to people and settings, the childs tolerance and response to internal states, hunger, boredom
Attentional orientation patterns
Annotations:
how quickly a child can be comforted when distressed and how easily distracted when completing an activity
Motor activity
Annotations:
The vigour and frequency of activity and the ability to modify the activity appropriately
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.
Defining temperament
Temp. is the child's behaviour in
diff. situations at diff. times
Temp. diff. are shown to b influenced
by diff. genetics between children
Temp. diff. can be detected during the
1st yr of life
Temp. shows increasing
stability as the child gets older
Measure temp.summary
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.
Four Temp. theories
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.
Influence of temperament on development
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.
Conclusion
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.