Temperament, Development, and Personality

Understanding temperament is central to our understanding of development, and temperament constructs are linked to individual differences in both personality and underlying neural function. In this article, I review findings on the structure of temperament, its relation to the Big Five traits of personality, and its links to development and psychopathology. In addition, I discuss the relation of temperament to conscience, empathy, aggression, and the development of behavior problems, and describe the relation between effortful control and neural networks of executive attention. Finally, I present research on training executive attention. KEYWORDS—temperament; development; personality; neural networks; attention training What are the origins of human personality? Are they chiefly the result of the child’s reinforcement history? The child’s learned attributions about the social world? The child’s genes? Or is there more to understand than would result from a simple choice between nature and nurture? Concepts of temperament are necessary to understand the origins of personality development. Temperament describes the initial state from which personality develops and links individual differences in behavior to underlying neural networks. Temperament and experience together ‘‘grow’’ a personality, which will include the child’s developing cognitions about self, others, and the physical and social world, as well as his or her values, attitudes, and coping strategies. From early infancy, children show considerable variability in their reactions to the environment. One child is fearful, has only a brief attention span, and cries even at moderately stimulating play; another child enjoys vigorous play, is not easily distracted, and seeks out exciting events. These reactions, together with the mechanisms that regulate them, constitute the child’s temperament. Temperament is defined as individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity measured by latency, intensity, and recovery of response, and self-regulation processes such as effortful control that modulate reactivity (Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981). These differences are biologically based and are linked to an individual’s genetic endowment (Posner, Rothbart, & Sheese, 2007). The study of temperament is as old as the Hindu Upanishads and as recent as yesterday’s studies in molecular genetics. Considerable advances have been made in recent years in our understanding of the structure of temperament, its development, and its relation to aspects of personality and neural structure (see reviews by Posner & Rothbart, 2007a; Rothbart & Bates, 2006). In this article, I present a general description of temperament followed by a more detailed discussion of the broad temperament construct of effortful control (EC). EC describes children’s ability to choose a course of action under conditions of conflict, to plan for the future, and to detect errors. This construct emerged initially from sophisticated psychometric studies of parent reports and has also been measured in the laboratory (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). EC has been linked to important developmental outcomes, including the development of conscience and of behavior problems. In addition, EC is related to the executive attention network as identified in imaging studies. It also involves specific genes (Posner et al., 2007). Here, I review the research on the structure of temperament, its relation to the Big Five personality traits, and its links to outcomes in personality and psychopathology (Rothbart & Posner, 2006). I describe the links between EC, executive attention, and brain networks related to executive attention and discuss their modifiability by experience. THE STRUCTURE OF TEMPERAMENT Many psychologists are aware of the nine dimensions of temperament identified by the New York Longitudinal Study, taken from interviews with parents about their infants (Thomas & Chess, 1977). These included activity level, approach/withdrawal, intensity, threshold, adaptability, rhythmicity, mood, attention span persistence, and distractibility. More recently, Address correspondence to Mary K. Rothbart, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1227; e-mail: [email protected]. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Volume 16—Number 4 207 Copyright r 2007 Association for Psychological Science psychometric studies have refined these categories (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Temperament dimensions that have now emerged show strong similarities to the structure of temperament in other animals, including the defensive reactions of fear and anger, approach reactions of activity and pleasure to high intensity stimulation, and attentional scales of duration of orienting in infancy and of EC in toddlerhood. Recent research with the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey, & Fisher, 2001), a parent report measure for children 3 to 7 years of age, also identified three broad dimensions of temperament described in Table 1 and depicted in Figure 1. These dimensions of temperament are related to the Big Five personality factors of Extraversion (extraversion/surgency), Neuroticism (negative affectivity), and Conscientiousness (EC). The Openness and Agreeableness factors have been found to relate to the adult temperamental dimensions of perceptual sensitivity and affiliation (Evans & Rothbart, 2007). It is important to remember, however, that temperament theory goes beyond a list of unrelated traits or broad dimensions. Of central importance are the interactions between children’s reactive impulses and their efforts to control them. In particular, researchers are interested in the relations among EC, extraversion/ surgency, and negative affectivity. Very similar broad dimensions of temperament have been found across cultures, and different correlations among these dimensions in the United States and China are shown in Figure 1 (Ahadi, Rothbart, & Ye, 1993). In the United States, but not in China, children high in EC showed lower negative affectivity. In China, but not in the United States, children high in EC showed lower extraversion/surgency. These differences may be related to culturally valued behaviors (low distress in the United States; low outgoing behavior in China), guiding development. Basic biological processes of temperament appear to be shared across cultures, but outcomes vary depending on cultural values and the child’s experiences. DEVELOPMENT OF TEMPERAMENT Temperament characteristics can be seen in the newborn and measured in the fetus. The newborn shows distress and avoidant movements, and by 2 to 3 months, approach reactions are evidenced in smiling, laughter, and body movement. Physical approach is seen when developing motor systems permit, usually by 4 to 6 months. Anger or frustration is seen at 2 to 3 months, and fear in the form of behavioral inhibition appears to be differentiated from general distress proneness by 7 to 10 months. Fear in infancy predicts children’s later fearfulness and low aggression; anger predicts later higher frustration and aggression. Fear thus appears to act as a control on both approach and aggression (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Fear is a reactive dimension that also contains regulatory components (behavioral inhibition or withdrawal from threatTABLE 1 Definitions of Temperament in the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire and the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire Broad dimensions/ Temperament scales Scale definitions Effortful control Attention Control The capacity to focus attention as well as to shift attention when desired Inhibitory Control The capacity to plan future action and to suppress inappropriate responses Perceptual Sensitivity Detection or perceptual awareness of slight, low-intensity stimulation in the environment Low-Intensity Pleasure Pleasure derived from activities or stimuli involving low intensity, rate, complexity, novelty, and incongruity Negative affectivity Frustration Negative affect related to interruption of ongoing tasks or goal blocking Fear Negative affect related to anticipation of distress Discomfort Negative affect related to sensory qualities of stimulation, including intensity, rate, or complexity of light, movement, sound, or texture Sadness Negative affect and lowered mood and energy related to exposure to suffering, disappointment, and object loss Soothability Rate of recovery from peak distress, excitement, or general arousal Extraversion/surgency Activity Level of gross motor activity including rate and extent of locomotion Low—Shyness Behavioral inhibition to novelty and challenge, especially social High-Intensity Pleasure Pleasure derived from activities involving high intensity or novelty Smiling & Laughter Positive affect in response to changes in stimulus intensity, rate, complexity, and incongruity Impulsivity Speed of response initiation Positive Anticipation Positive excitement and anticipation for expected pleasurable activities Affiliation Desire for warmth and closeness with others, independent of shyness or extraversion Note. Subscales are grouped according to their broad dimensions. In Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire only. 208 Volume 16—Number 4 Temperament, Development, and Personality