19.6: Temperament, Culture, and Environment

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Amanda Taintor

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Factors Effecting Temperament

Thomas and Chess also studied temperament and environment. One sample consisted of white middle-class families with high educational status; Puerto Rican working-class families made up the other sample. They found several differences. Parents of middle-class children were more likely to report behavior problems before the age of 9, and the children had sleep problems. This report may be because children start preschool between the ages of 3 and 4. De Vries (1974) followed Masai (tribe in East Africa) infants and mothers for several years during a period of famine. The researcher found that Masai infants who were more demanding were more likely to survive during periods of environmental stress than infants who were more docile. The researcher suggested that infants who were more aggressive and demanding – or in temperament terms, more difficult – were more likely to be fed and have their needs met than docile infants who might have been easier to ignore. The findings from these cross-cultural studies of temperament demonstrate how interaction between ecology, temperament, and culture impact an individual.[2]

[1] Human Development by Human Development Teaching & Learning Group is licensed under a CC BY- NC-SA 4.0,

[2] Culture and Psychology by L D Worthy; T Lavigne; and F Romero is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licens