an overview of temperament and development

An Overview of Temperament and Development through Eysenck’s and Kagan’s Approaches

By Tanya-Maria GeritsidouThe American College of Greece

What is Temperament?Thomas and Chess (1977)

described it as a behavioral style, referring to the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ or ‘why’ of behavior

General consensus across theories and approaches defines temperament as those personality traits that meet certain commonly accepted criteria

Criteria for Temperament TraitsMust appear as early as possible

in human development (preferably in infancy)

Must present strong links to physiological and biological processes

Must be likely to be heritableMust show adequate continuity

and persistence throughout the development of personality

Some Important Points about Temperament (Zentner & Bates, 2008)

Goodness Of Fit:Psychological

development isn’t only influenced by the individual’s temperament, but also by how much it fits the culture and practices of the society the person is part of.

Parental Response: Psychological

development isn’t only influenced by the individual’s temperament, but also by the adequacy of the parental responses to this temperament.

TEMPERAMENT COMPONENTS AND TYPOLOGY

What Traits and Categories are we Talking About?

Behavioral Inhibition (Fear)Kagan describes it as a

behavioral pattern where the individual shows shyness, fear, withdrawal and/or timidity to stimuli that are unknown, unfamiliar or pose some kind of risk.

Its core feature is an intolerance to uncertainty

Connected to the processes of the amygdala (Moehler et al., 2008)

Irritability / Frustration (Zentner and Bates, 2008)Irritability refers to how easily an infant is upset

to minor discomforts in relation to othersWe measure it by how frequent and intense is the

displayed negative affect (crying, more intense movement, etc) and how much difficulty the infant presents to his/her caretakers (resistance to comfort, demandingness in cries, etc)

Frustration is a negative affect in reaction to interruption of ongoing tasks, or blocking of behaviors related to approach & goal attainment

Has been attributed to differences in neural circuits regarding responses to unconditioned punishers

Positive EmotionalityIt is the behavioral system responsible for

the processing of information regarding potential rewards

When we talk about positive emotionality we refer to measurement of frequency and/or intensity of positive emotions (eagerness, approach, interest, joy, positive anticipation, etc)

Has been linked to neural circuits such as the midbrain dopamine systems and systems controlling locomotion such as the nucleus accumbens (Rothbart, 2007)

Activity Level(Buss and Plomin, 1984)It is defined as the total energy

output (i.e. the amount of movement) measured in a response

Elements include: Frequency of activity per time unit (e.g.

talking speed) Duration (time spent in energetic activity

in relation to peers) Reaction to “forced idleness” and its

resulting restlessness

Effortful ControlIt is the ability to inhibit a

dominant response and/or activate a subdominant response, to plan, to detect errors, and to attain goals (Rothbart & Bates, 1998)

It consists of : Attentional control: the ability to maintain

attention on a task but also shift attention when needed)

Inhibitory control: the ability to suppress inappropriate action (delay of gratification, resistance to temptation, etc)

What are these temperament components predictors for?Behavioral inhibition anxiety,

withdrawal, shyness Irritability/Frustration poor task

orientation, aggression, angerPositive Emotionality social potency,

approach, reward & novelty seekingEffortful Control self-regulatory

competence, cognitive competence, distractibility/attention span

Activity Level energy and liveliness

Temperament TypologiesThomas and Chess

Easy Slow to Warm Up Difficult

Kagan High – reactive (frequent motor activity and crying at

unexpected appearance of unfamiliar stimulus) Low – reactive (minimal motor activity and crying at

unexpected appearance of unfamiliar stimulus)Eysenck

Introverts vs Extroverts Neurotic vs Emotionally stable people Psychopaths vs Sociopaths

TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

How does this add to developmental insights?

Developmental Aspects of Temperament

Temperament itself develops.Different systems of temperament and

regulation develop and are activated over time:

Emotional and Motor Reactivity

Behavioral Inhibition (reactive/emotional)

Effortful Control (self- regulative)

Temperament Stability and Change

Temperament remains stable during stages, and changes between stages.

These stages can be considered/studied within specific age ranges, or across several time intervals.

Interaction of Regulatory Systems of Temperament

The systems that develop compete with each other and regulate each other, making temperament a result of their constant interaction and competition

This interaction is important for the internalization of societal and cultural expectations and conscience.

Failure in the normative development of any of these systems increases the risk for development of behavioral problems.

Kagan’s Biotypical Approach to Temperament

The approach is inductive rather than theory-driven

Studied behavioral inhibition to unfamiliarity vs. lack of it by taking neurological/biological measurements of infants in assorted longitudinal studies

Kagan’s Biotypical Approach to TemperamentResults yielded the typology of

◦ high-reactive infants◦ low-reactive infants

High Reactive infants were three times more likely than Low Reactive infants to develop anxiety symptoms by age 7 years (1999)

High Reactive infants reported more bouts of sadness, frequent heart-rate changes and systolic blood pressure at ages 11 and 15 years (2004; 2007)

Kagan’s Biotypical Approach to TemperamentHR and LR infants are distinctive categories,

not extremes of a continuum, with different physiological and psychological factors (2008)

A great variety of different personalities may emerge from either category depending on encountered environments (e.g. social class, culture, family, historical era) but the temperament will impose certain restraints on possible outcomes

Eysenck’s Biosocial Theory of Personality (1967; 1990)

Temperament PersonalityFactors (traits) of Personality are organized in a

hierarchy, where the top tier is occupied by the Superfactors (or Supertraits) of Temperament. They are stable across time and situation and very unlikely to change.


The PEN Model: Comprised of 3 personality dimensions

◦Psychoticism (P)◦Extraversion (E) ◦Neuroticism (N)


Psychoticism (P)Associated with aggression and the risk of

experiencing a psychotic episode or break with reality

High in P Aggressiveness Interpersonal hostility / coldness Amoral reasoning / lack of empathy Sensation seeking

Believed to be associated with levels of dopamine


Extraversion (E)Associated with arousal and positive affect

(sociability, impulsivity, liveliness, action-seeking)There is an optimal level of arousal. Big deviation

from that optimal level leads to deterioration of task performance

People overaroused and jittery introverts (seeking less stimulation)

People underaroused and bored extroverts (seek more stimulation)

Based on cortical arousal and correlation with grey matter/white matter volume


Neuroticism (N)Associated with anxiety, and response to

stressors and frustration (negative affect)High in N

Negative affect to minor stressors Low effortful control Risk for phobias, panic attacks, depression

Based on activation thresholds in the sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for the fight/flight response (low threshold high in N; high threshold low in N)

Kagan and Eysenck’s PEN model

In a study by Muris et al. (2007) Kagan’s Behavioral Inhibition Scale (BIS) was tested against Eysenck’s PEN model:

Behavioral inhibition correlated strongly with high neuroticism (N)

CONTRIBUTIONS OF TEMPERAMENT TO DEVELOPMENT

Drawing some conclusions and making some thoughts

Implications in learning processes and methods (e.g. extroverts are more susceptible to reward and introverts more susceptible to punishment)

Implications in the importance of caregiver treatments according to children’s temperament (e.g. providing appropriate stimulation according to an infant’s reactivity)

Implications in proper parenting skills for good socialization

Thank you for your excellent display ofEffortful Control!

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an overview of temperament and development

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