14.11: Temperament and Personality

While temperament is determined by genetics and emotions develop through maturation, the early interactions we have with the adults that care for us as infants and toddlers are very important for healthy emotional development.

Perhaps you have spent time with a number of infants. How were they alike? How did they differ? How do you compare with your siblings or other children you have known well? You may have noticed that some seemed to be in a better mood than others and that some were more sensitive to noise or more easily distracted than others. These differences may be attributed to temperament. Temperament is the innate characteristics of the infant, including mood, activity level, and emotional reactivity, noticeable soon after birth. Temperament in children is similar to what might be considered personality in adults, except with a larger biological component to temperament.

In a 1956 landmark study, Chess and Thomas (1996) evaluated 141 children’s temperament based on parental interviews. Referred to as the New York Longitudinal Study, infants were assessed on 10 dimensions of temperament including:

• activity level
• rhythmicity (regularity of biological functions)
• approach/withdrawal (how children deal with new things)
• adaptability to situations
• intensity of reactions
• sensitivity or threshold of responsiveness (how intense a stimulus has to be for the child to react)
• quality of mood
• distractibility
• attention span or persistence

Based on the infants’ behavioral profiles, they were categorized into three general types of temperament:

Table - Types of Temperament

Categories of temperament

Type	Percentage	Description
Easy	40%	Able to quickly adapt to routine and new situations Remains calm Easy to soothe Usually in positive mood
Difficult	10%	Reacts negatively to new situations Has trouble adapting to routine Usually negative in mood Cries frequently
Slow-to-warm-up	15%	Low activity level Adjusts slowly to new situations Often negative in mood

As can be seen the percentages do not equal 100% as some children were not able to be placed neatly into one of the categories. Think about how each type of child should be approached to improve interactions with them. An easy child requires less intervention, but still has needs that must not be overlooked. A slow-to-warm-up child may need to be given advance warning if new people or situations are going to be introduced. A child with a difficult temperament may need to be given extra time to burn off their energy.

Jerome Kagan’s research focused on the reactivity dimension of temperament. Based on research with 4-month old infants, Kagan found that some children were relaxed, curious and interested when presented with a new toy or loud sounds. He called these children uninhibited and predicted that these characteristics would enable them to become outgoing toddlers. On the other hand, about 15% of the infants in his study reacted with negativity to novel sounds and objects. They showed greater muscle tenseness (even when “relaxed”) and were easily upset by newness. Kagan called these children inhibited and predicted that they would become shy as toddlers.

A caregiver's ability to work well and accurately read the child will influence a goodness- of-fit, meaning their styles match and communication and interaction can flow. Parents who recognize each child’s temperament and accept it, will nurture more effective interactions with the child and encourage more adaptive functioning.[1]

For example, an adventurous child whose parents regularly take her outside on hikes would provide a good “fit” to her temperament. Remember that parenting and child-rearing is bidirectional; both caregivers and children influence each other’s behaviors.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): This adventurous child’s parents provide a good “fit” to her temperament.[2]

Parenting Is Bidirectional

Not only do parents affect their children, children influence their parents. A child’s characteristics, such as temperament, affect parenting behaviors and roles. For example, an infant with an easy temperament may enable parents to feel more effective, as they are easily able to soothe the child and elicit smiling and cooing. On the other hand, a cranky or fussy infant elicits fewer positive reactions from his or her parents and may result in parents feeling less effective in the parenting role (Eisenberg et al., 2008). Over time, parents of more difficult children may become more punitive and less patient with their children (Clark, Kochanska, & Ready, 2000; Eisenberg et al., 1999; Kiff, Lengua, & Zalewski, 2011). Parents who have a fussy, difficult child are less satisfied with their marriages and have greater challenges in balancing work and family roles (Hyde, Else-Quest, & Goldsmith, 2004). Thus, child temperament is one of the child characteristics that influences how parents behave with their children.

Personality

Temperament does not change dramatically as we grow up, but we may learn how to work around and manage our temperamental qualities. Temperament may be one of the things about us that stays the same throughout development. In contrast, personality, defined as an individual’s consistent pattern of feeling, thinking, and behaving, is the result of the continuous interplay between biological disposition and experience.

Personality also develops from temperament in other ways (Thompson, Winer, & Goodvin, 2010). As children mature biologically, temperamental characteristics emerge and change over time. A newborn is not capable of much self-control, but as brain-based capacities for self- control advance, temperamental changes in self-regulation become more apparent. For example, a newborn who cries frequently doesn’t necessarily have a grumpy personality; over time, with sufficient parental support and increased sense of security, the child might be less likely to cry.

In addition, personality is made up of many other features besides temperament. Children’s developing self-concept, their motivations to achieve or to socialize, their values and goals, their coping styles, their sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, as well as many other qualities are encompassed into personality. These qualities are influenced by biological dispositions, but even more by the child’s experiences with others, particularly in close relationships, that guide the growth of individual characteristics. Indeed, personality development begins with the biological foundations of temperament but becomes increasingly elaborated, extended, and refined over time. The newborn that parents gazed upon thus becomes an adult with a personality of depth and nuance.[3]

Culture and Personality/Temperament

The term culture refers to all of the beliefs, customs, ideas, behaviors, and traditions of a particular society that are passed through generations. Culture is transmitted to people through language as well as through the modeling of behavior, and it defines which traits and behaviors are considered important, desirable, or undesirable.

Within a culture there are norms and behavioral expectations. These cultural norms can dictate which personality traits are considered important. The researcher Gordon Allport considered culture to be an important influence on traits and defined common traits as those that are recognized within a culture. These traits may vary from culture to culture based on differing values, needs, and beliefs. Positive and negative traits can be determined by cultural expectations: what is considered a positive trait in one culture may be considered negative in another, thus resulting in different expressions of personality across cultures. In fact you could also argue that the entire conceptualization of personality and temperament are culturally driven.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): A family from a non-Western culture -while nuclear families are common in Western cultures, in other cultures “families” include aunts, uncles, older cousins and others often living close by or together.[4]

Considering cultural influences on personality is important because Western ideas and theories are not necessarily applicable to other cultures (Benet-Martinez & Oishi, 2008). There is a great deal of evidence that the strength of personality traits varies across cultures, and this is especially true when comparing individualist cultures (such as European, North American, and Australian cultures) and collectivist cultures (such as Asian, African, and South American cultures). People who live in individualist cultures tend to believe that independence, competition, and personal achievement are important. In contrast, people who live in collectivist cultures tend to value social harmony, respectfulness, and group needs over individual needs. These values influence personality in different but substantial ways; for example, Yang (2006) found that people in individualist cultures displayed more personally-oriented personality traits, whereas people in collectivist cultures displayed more socially-oriented personality traits.[5]

Cross cultural studies (Desmairais, et al, 2019; Gartstein et al, 2006; Krassner et al, 2017) find that there are indeed differences in temperament between children in different countries. There are differences along the lines one would expect - greater differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, but also differences between individualistic Western cultures.

Gender and Personality

In much the same manner that cultural norms can influence personality and behavior, gender norms (the behaviors that males and females are expected to conform to in a given society) can also influence personality by emphasizing different traits between different genders.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): A female infant wearing stereotypically feminine clothing and accessories – we start the gender typing process often very early.[6]

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): A male infant wearing stereotypically masculine clothing.[7]

Ideas of appropriate behavior for each gender (masculine and feminine) vary among cultures and tend to change over time. For example, aggression and assertiveness have historically been emphasized as positive masculine personality traits in the United States. Meanwhile, submissiveness and caretaking have historically been held as ideal feminine traits. While many gender roles remain the same, others change over time. In 1938, for example, only 1 out of 5 Americans agreed that a married woman should earn money in industry and business. By 1996, however, 4 out of 5 Americans approved of women working in these fields. Today I have several female friends who are the sole earners in their marriages, while their husbands are stay-at-home. This type of attitude change has been accompanied by behavioral shifts that coincide with changes in trait expectations and shifts in personal identity for men and women.[8]

Many Gen-Z'ers in fact would say that these constitute ideas of heteronormativity. The individuals of this generation (which is the first to never know a world without the internet) value uniqueness and yet are highly collaborative. In their experience and views, Gen Zers are more comfortable than any previous generation with using gender neutral pronouns and requiring official forms to have an alternative other than male or female.

Personality in early childhood

Parents often scrutinize their child’s preferences, characteristics, and responses for clues of a developing personality. They are quite right to do so, because temperament is a foundation for personality growth. But temperament (defined as early-emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation) is not the whole story. Although temperament is biologically based, it interacts with the influence of experience from the moment of birth (if not before) to shape personality (Rothbart, 2011). Temperamental dispositions are affected, for example, by the support level of parental care. More generally, personality is shaped by the goodness of fit between the child’s temperamental qualities and characteristics of the environment (Chess & Thomas, 1999). For example, an adventurous child whose parents regularly take her on weekend hiking and fishing trips would be a good “fit” to her lifestyle, supporting personality growth. Personality is the result, therefore, of the continuous interplay between biological disposition and experience, as is true for many other aspects of social and personality development.

Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): A girl enjoying nature – this girl might be engaged in this delicate activity reinforcing a gender stereotype and it might also be that her personality is more gentle and quiet than her sisters who love to climb trees.[9]

Indeed, personality development begins with the biological foundations of temperament but becomes increasingly elaborated, extended, and refined over time. The newborn that parents observed in wonder upon becomes an adult with a personality of depth and nuance.

Interaction of genes and environment in personality development

There are individual differences in emotional expression, reactivity and attention and how these are regulated. Temperament is a very good predictor of cognition and social function. Consider attentional strategies that are used for regulating emotions and also predict cognitive development and learning. For example, shy and inhibited children show anxiety in social situations which discourage interactions. Children showing anger and inattention often show problem behaviors in general.

How temperament ends up affecting personality and development over time and with age is influenced by a number of different factors. Genes play a role in dopamine production which is involved in emotional regulation. Gene activity influences neural activity which involves cognitive function which is involved in emotional regulation which affects development of temperament. Further prenatal exposure to drugs can lead to difficulties with regulating attention, as also harsh parenting leads to poorer temperamental outcomes in emotional regulation. Conversely difficult children elicit more punitive parenting in general, while more sociable children elicits more warmth so the directionality of factors is important.

References:

Desmarais, E., Majdandžić, M., Gartstein, M. A., Bridgett, D. J. & French, B. F. (2019) Cross-cultural differences in temperament: Comparing paternal ratings of US and Dutch infants. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 16(2), 137-151. doi: 10.1080/17405629.2017.1356713

Gartstein, M.A., Gonzalez, C., Carranza, J.A. et al. (2006). Studying cross-cultural differences in the development of infant temperament: People’s Republic of China, the United States of America, and Spain. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev, 37, 145–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-006-0025-6

Krassner, A. M., Gartstein, M. A., Park, C., Dragan, W., Lecannelier, F. & Putnam, S. P. (2017) East–west, collectivist-individualist: A cross-cultural examination of temperament in toddlers from Chile, Poland, South Korea, and the U.S., European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14(4), 449-464. doi: 10.1080/17405629.2016.1236722

Pew Research Center (2020). Gender and Gen Z. Online

Attributions:

Child Growth and Development by Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond, 2019, is licensed under CC BY 4.0 (adapted by Bhadha, 2023)

[1] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[2] Image is licensed under CC0 1.0

[3] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[4] Image by Theodor Goutas on Unsplash

[5] Lifespan Development - Module 4: Infancy by Lumen Learning references Psyc 200 Lifespan Psychology by Laura Overstreet, licensed under CC BY 4.0

[6] Image by Abdullah Shakoor on Pixabay

[7] Image is licensed under CC0 1.0

[8] Lifespan Development - Module 4: Infancy by Lumen Learning references Psyc 200 Lifespan Psychology by Laura Overstreet, licensed under CC BY 4.0

[9] Image by Khanh Steven on Unsplash

Parenting and Family Diversity Issues by Diana Lang, 2020, published by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0