Emotional Development: Temperament

Question 1

What individual differences are evident in emotion?

Answer 1

temperament

Question 2

What is temperament?

Answer 2

• a consistent style or pattern of behavior
• biologically based individual differences in emotional characteristics and other behaviors

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Question 3

temperament’s main characteristics?

Answer 3

–show consistency across situations

-relatively stable over time

Question 4

What do we mean by goodness-of-fit?

Answer 4

degree to which a child’s temperament is compatible with the expectations of the social environment (including the family environment)

— poor goodness-of-fit likely to result in adjustment problems for children

Question 5

What can we learn from the research of Young, Fox, & Zahn-Waxler (1999) about the relation between temperament and helping behaviors?*

Answer 5

• children who are temperamentally shy are often reluctant to help others, particularly people they don’t know well
• children know how to help but are too inhibited to follow through

Question 6

Explain the stability of temperament? What is an example?

Answer 6

• temperament is somewhat stable throughout infancy but becomes more stable in the preschool years
• EX: Sam, and inhibited 3-year-old, is more likely to be shy as a 12-year-old and seek friends and people who are introverted like him

–EX: the baby that was so intense and inhibited when initially presented with a toy in the lab, 10 years later is sitting in the chair extraordinary rigid, shy, and inhibited

Question 7

what is the role of culture in temperament?

Answer 7

people in all cultures are likely to experience many similar emotions, research shows that the degree to which different emotions are expresses varies considerably across cultures

–the experience emotions is universal, the expression is based on culture

Question 8

Can temperament impact other aspects of development? What?*

Answer 8

• personality
• adolescence outcomes: smoked; dropped out of HS; teenage parent

-adulthood outcomes: health related; substance abuse; criminal conviction

Question 9

What are the temperament dimensions according to Rothbart, 2007?

Answer 9

• surgency/ extraversion
• negative affect
• effortful control

Question 10

surgency/ extraversion dimension

Answer 10

refers to the extent to which a child is generally happy, active, vocal, and regularly seeks interesting stimulation

–activity level & positive affect

Question 11

Negative affect dimension

Answer 11

refers to the extent to which a child is angry, fearful, frustrated, shy, and not easily soothed

• -fearful distress/ behavioral inhibition
• irritable distress

Question 12

effortful control

Answer 12

refers to the extent to which a child can focus attention, is not readily distracted, and can inhibit response

• -attention span
• -persistence & distractability

Question 13

What did Stright et al (2008) show about temperament/parenting interactions?

Answer 13

–the relationship between temperament and outcomes depends on the quality of parenting

–children who have a difficult temperament benefit most from good parenting quality parenting, and if they don’t have it they suffer more