6- Temperament Flashcards
Approaches to temperament
- Pediatric Approach
- Personality Tradition
- Individual Differences
Define Pediatric Approach
Temperament may best be viewed as a general term referring to the how of behaviour. It differs from ability, which is concerned with the what and how well of behaving, and from motivation, which accounts for why a person does what he is doing.
Temperament concerns the way in which an individual behaves.
(Thomas & Chess, 1977)
Pediatric Approach constituents
- Activity level
- Regularity
- Approach-Withdrawal
- Adaptability
- Threshold of responsiveness
- Intensity of reaction
- Quality of mood
- Distractibility
- Attention Span
Thomas and Chess
3 Way typology of children
Easy
Difficult
Slow to warm up
Define Personality Tradition
We define temperament as a set of inherited personality traits that appear early in life.
Two defining characteristics.
First, the traits are genetic in origin, like other psychological dispositions that are inherited
Second, the traits appear in infancy – more specifically, during the first year of life – which distinguishes temperament from other groups of personality traits, both inherited and acquired.
(Buss & Plomin, 1987)
Personality Tradition constitutes
- Emotionality
- Activity
- Sociability
Individual Differences Definition
Constitutionally based individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation. Temperamental characteristics are seen to demonstrate consistency across situations, as well as relative stability over time.
(Rothbart & Bates, 1998)
Individual Differences constitutes
- Fearful distress/inhibition
- Irritable distress
- Attention span and persistence
- Activity level
- Positive affect/approach
- Rhythmicity
- Agreeableness/adaptability
Commonalities in approaches
- Temperament refers to individual differences rather than normative characteristics.
- Temperament refers to a set of traits, rather than to a trait itself.
- Temperamental dimensions reflect behavioural tendencies that are pervasive across situations, and show some stability over time.
- There is an emphasis on the biological underpinnings of temperament.
- Temperament emerges early in life – perhaps in its purest form.
Disagreements in approaches
- Differing boundaries for temperament.
- Differing constituents (cf. activity level and emotionality).
- Relationship between temperament and personality construed differently.
Stability in temperament is mediated by
Primarily by genetic factors
Environmental factors account for much of the change seen from age to age
What is the Clinical Approach of Temperament
Discussions started by Thomas & Chess
Historically, temperament a departure from the “tabula rasa” idea – so recognition of temperament primary
Introduced “goodness of fit” concept
Advocate an interactionist, idiographic approach
What is the goodness of fit
When the child’s capacities, motivations and temperament are adequate to master the demands, expectations and opportunities of the environment.
What is the poorness of fit
When the child’s characteristics are inadequate to master the challenges of the environment, and this leads to maladaptive functioning and distorted development.
Temperament and adjustment
Prior 1992
Relationships are generally moderate in strength; prediction from infancy is weak, increasing by early childhood.
Difficult and active babies are at increased risk for colic, sleep problems, excessive crying, and abdominal pain.
Temperamental difficulty is associated with both externalising and internalising problems.
