Development of Temperament in Infancy and Childhood

Gagne, Jeffrey R.; Goldsmith, H. Hill

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-0933-0_1

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 129 publications

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“…Temperamental traits have a biological basis and are relatively stable across development while also being influenced by external factors (Goldsmith et al, 1987). Behavior genetic studies examining temperament have found consistent evidence for significant heritability of temperamental traits such as activity level, behavioral inhibition, anger, effortful control, and positive affect (Gagne & Goldsmith, 2020). Rothbart’s three secondary factors of temperamental effortful control, negative affectivity, and surgency/extraversion have emerged as particularly robust and widely used (Clark et al, 2020; Kotelnikova et al, 2016; Rothbart et al, 2001).…”

Section: The Role Of Child Temperamentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parent versus child influences on differential parent warmth and discipline within twin pairs.

Weisbecker,

DiLalla

2024

Developmental Psychology

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Parenting behaviors have long been recognized as crucial to children's healthy development. However, examinations of the etiology of these behaviors are less prevalent. The current study investigated the driving forces behind parental warmth and discipline, particularly whether they are related more to traits within the parent or reactions to characteristics of the child. To explore this question, three robust factors of child temperamenteffortful control, negative affectivity, and surgency/extraversion-and five parent personality traits were examined in association with parent behaviors through differential parenting within 185 four-year-old twin pairs (370 children; 56% girls; 90% White; predominantly middle class). Genetic analyses showed that parents tend to treat both children similarly in terms of parental warmth, but they treat children less similarly in terms of discipline, regardless of child zygosity. Multilevel linear regressions showed that within twin pairs, the child with higher effortful control received less discipline from parents than their cotwin. Analyses also showed that parent agreeableness was significantly related to parent warmth above and beyond other personality traits and child temperament. This study clarified the direction of effects and genetic contributions to parenting behaviors, supporting previous literature that discipline acts in reaction to the child, whereas warmth is more driven by parent personality. This research suggests the importance of focusing on child temperament and parent personality as they relate to parenting behaviors, allowing clinicians and parents to more effectively correct maladaptive parenting behaviors and encourage healthy and adaptive parenting behaviors, thus promoting positive outcomes for children. Public Significance StatementThis study clarified associations of parenting behaviors, indicating that children with lower effortful control than their siblings elicit more discipline from parents, whereas parental warmth is associated with parent personality (especially higher scores on agreeableness). If clinicians assess for these temperament and personality traits, they may be better able to effectively address the parent-child relationship, thus leading to improved outcomes for families.

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Section: The Role Of Child Temperamentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parent versus child influences on differential parent warmth and discipline within twin pairs.

Weisbecker,

DiLalla

2024

Developmental Psychology

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“…A plausible genetic hypothesis is that biologically based temperamental factors evident from early childhood influence the development of both adult personality and TPs, together with environmental factors (Stolarski et al, 2021). Models of temperament (Caspi & Shinar, 2006; Matthews et al, 2009) link multiple dimensions to genetic bases (Gagne & Goldsmith, 2020; Takahashi et al, 2007), and well‐being across the lifespan (Nes & Roysamb, 2015). The influential temperament model of Rothbart and Bates (2006) identifies three biologically based dimensions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral genetics of temporal framing: Heritability of time perspective and its common genetic bases with major personality traits

Stolarski

Zawadzki

Matthews

et al. 2023

Journal of Personality

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ObjectiveThe present study aimed to provide a seminal behavioral genetic analysis of time perspectives (TPs). Moreover, we intended to investigate the magnitude of genetic vs. environmental components of the well‐established assocations between TPs and personality features.BackgroundIndividual differences in temporal framing processes, referred to as TPs, are vital psychological and behavioral outcomes. Although proponents of TP theory emphasize mainly environmental origins of the tendencies to adopt certain TPs, research provides evidence for marked associations between the temporal dimensions and major personality traits that are known to be heritable. Hence, it was essential to empirically verify these claims.MethodThe article reports an analysis of genetic and environmental components of variance in TPs based on a study adopting a twin design, conducted on a sample of 393 pairs of twins (135 monozygotic and 258 dizygotic).ResultsMultivariate Cholesky decomposition supported an EA model assuming impacts of both unshared environmental factors (E) and additive genetic factors (A) across all TP dimensions, suggesting that the effects of shared environment on TPs are plausibly negligible. Heritability indices of TPs ranged between 0.51 for Present‐Fatalistic and 0.62 for Present‐Hedonistic, suggesting that the majority of the variance in TPs stems from genetic influences. Substantial genetic correlations were found between TPs and the Big Five personality traits.ConclusionsThe findings provide further evidence for conceptualizing TPs as biologically based personality traits and challenge the claims that TP is mainly a product of culture, education, and personal experiences.

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“…Shared environmental factors explain only a small portion of variance in most temperament dimensions, with the possible exception of positive affect, particularly when assessed via parent rating (Flom, Wang, Uccello, & Saudino, 2018). Regarding age‐to‐age rank‐order stability, temperament stability is primarily accounted for by genetic factors and rank‐order change is due to nonshared environmental and/or genetic factors (Gagne & Goldsmith, 2020; Saudino & Wang, 2012). Specifically, common genetic effects operate across age and explain rank‐order stability in parent‐rated anger from 12 to 36 months (Gagne & Hill Goldsmith, 2011), observed shyness from 14 to 20 months (Cherny et al., 2001), parent‐rated behavioral inhibition, shyness and fear‐related traits from 14 to 36 months (Schmitz et al., 1999), parent‐rated activity level from 14 to 24 months (Saudino, Plomin, & DeFries, 1996), activity level assessed by actigraphs from ages 2 to 3 years (Saudino, 2012), and parent‐rated effortful control from 2 to 3 years (Gagne & Saudino, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic and environmental influences on temperament development across the preschool period

Liu

Zheng

Ganiban

et al. 2022

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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Background: Preschoolers' temperament characteristics are associated with children's long-term development. Such links underscore the importance of understanding factors that shape temperament during preschool. This is the first study to examine genetic and environmental sources of developmental growth in three temperament dimensions: surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control, during the preschool period. Methods: Biometric latent growth curve modeling was used to examine genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental contributions to the invariant level of and developmental growth in temperament, using a sample of 310 same-sex twin pairs (MZ = 123, DZ = 187) assessed at 3, 4, and 5 years of age. Temperament was assessed using primary caregiver's report on the Child Behavior Questionnaire-Short Form. Results: All three temperament dimensions demonstrated linear increases from ages 3 to 5 years. The invariant levels of all three temperament dimensions were explained by genetic and nonshared environmental factors. Growth in surgency was fully explained by nonshared environmental factors, while growth in negative affectivity was mainly explained by genetic factors. Growth in effortful control was explained by genetic and nonshared environmental factors, although neither were significant due to large bootstrap standard errors. For negative affectivity and effortful control, the genetic factors that contributed to developmental growth were independent from those associated with their invariant levels. Conclusions: Collectively, these findings indicate that both genetic and nonshared environmental factors play important roles in the invariant levels of temperament. Findings also accord a critical role of children's nonshared environment in the development of surgency and to a lesser extent negative affectivity and effortful control. It is also notable that novel genetic effects contribute to developmental growth in negative affectivity and effortful control as children age, emphasizing the importance of integrating developmental models in genetic research.

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Development of Temperament in Infancy and Childhood

Cited by 4 publications

References 129 publications

Parent versus child influences on differential parent warmth and discipline within twin pairs.

Parent versus child influences on differential parent warmth and discipline within twin pairs.

Behavioral genetics of temporal framing: Heritability of time perspective and its common genetic bases with major personality traits

Genetic and environmental influences on temperament development across the preschool period

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