Structure of observed temperament in middle childhood

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Highlights

  • We derived a four-factor structure of observed temperament in middle childhood.

  • Factors include: PE/sociability, disinhibition/anger, sadness, fear/behavior inhibition.

  • Disinhibition/anger was positively related to externalizing child problems.

  • Sadness was positively related to internalizing and externalizing child symptoms.

  • Fear/behavior inhibition was negatively related to child CD symptoms.

Abstract

Although much is known about the structure of adult temperament and personality, significantly less is known about the structure of child temperament. We examined the structure of child temperament in 205 seven-year-olds using observational measures. Exploratory factor analysis identified factors representing positive emotionality/sociability, disinhibition/anger, fear/behavioral inhibition, and sadness. The predictive validity of these dimensions was evaluated by examining their associations with children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms: positive emotionality/sociability showed positive associations with ADHD symptoms, disinhibition/anger showed positive associations with externalizing symptoms, fear/behavioral inhibition showed negative associations with ADHD and CD symptoms, and sadness showed positive associations with both internalizing and externalizing problems. These associations were consistent with extant literature on temperament and psychopathology, supporting the validity of the structure obtained.

Introduction

A vast body of research has accrued on both the nature and structure of adult personality and temperament.1 In the 20th century, taxonomies were developed using factor analysis, producing an array of models that differed in terms of the number of core traits identified (e.g., McCrae and Costa, 1997, Tellegen, 1985, Watson and Clark, 1993). However, there is general consensus that these models are not mutually exclusive and that they can be arranged hierarchically (Markon, Krueger, & Watson, 2005). At the broadest level, Markon et al. (2005) and others (e.g., Digman, 1997, Zuckerman et al., 1988) have reduced adult temperament to two superfactors, alpha and beta, with alpha comprised of negative emotionality (NE; with fear, anger, and sadness as the lower-order facets) and disinhibition (versus constraint), and beta comprised of positive emotionality (PE). These are broadly consistent with three-factor temperament models (e.g., Eysenck, 1967, Tellegen, 1985, Watson and Clark, 1993) that identify dimensions capturing individual differences in PE, NE, and disinhibition (i.e., impulsivity). Furthermore, disinhibition can be parsed into the relatively narrow traits of disagreeableness and low conscientiousness, which align with agreeableness and conscientiousness from the Five Factor Model (FFM; Digman, 1990, McCrae and Costa, 1997). Additionally, PE can be separated into two relatively narrow facets that represent extraversion and openness to experience, thus yielding a full FFM (Markon et al., 2005). Numerous studies analyzing an array of measures of adult temperament have yielded findings consistent with this hierarchical structure (DeYoung, 2006, Digman, 1997, McCrae et al., 2008, Zuckerman et al., 1988).

In contrast, much less is known about the structure of child temperament, since structural models of youth temperament have a much shorter history. Contemporary research on child temperament focuses largely on the model of Rothbart (2007), which conceptualizes child temperament as individual differences in emotional reactivity and self-regulation (i.e., the ability to modulate reactive processes). This model is based on factor-analytic studies that derived three broad dimensions of child temperament: extraversion/surgency, negative affectivity and effortful control (EC; Ahadi et al., 1993, Rothbart et al., 2001). Extraversion and negative affectivity reflect the aforementioned reactive dimensions of temperament, whereas EC reflects the regulatory dimension. This model maps well onto various three-factor models of personality based on adult samples (Eysenck, 1967, Tellegen, 1985, Watson and Clark, 1993).

There is also evidence for models of early temperament/personality that map well onto the FFM found in adult samples; for example, (Caspi and Shiner, 2006, Shiner and Caspi, 2012) proposed a hierarchical model encompassing traits from the preschool years into adulthood containing five higher-order dimensions, using FFM labels for temperament and personality. Several researchers have provided evidence for the five-factor structure from parent-report measures in older children and adolescents (e.g., Barbaranelli et al., 2003, John et al., 1994), teacher-reports (e.g., Barbaranelli et al., 2003, Digman and Shmelyov, 1996, Goldberg, 2001, Graziano and Ward, 1992, Mervielde et al., 1995), and self-reports (e.g., Barbaranelli et al., 2003, De Fruyt et al., 2000, Markey et al., 2002). Despite several attempts at recovering the same structure in younger samples (e.g., Abe, 2005, Abe and Izard, 1999, Halverson et al., 2003, Tackett et al., 2008, Tackett et al., 2012), the evidence for a five-factor model is unclear (e.g., De Pauw and Mervielde, 2010, De Pauw et al., 2009, Measelle et al., 2005, Mervielde et al., 1995). Hence, while there is general support for the conceptual similarity of the three- and five-factor adult personality models and traits and those found in younger samples, the extent of this support varies somewhat across child age.

However, an unresolved but potentially important issue in the work on the structure of childrens’ individual differences concerns the methods used to gather information on children’s temperament. While self-report is the predominant method used in research on adult personality (although see Borkenau, Riemann, Angleitner, and Spinath (2001) and Durbin, Schalet, Hayden, Simpson, and Jordan (2009) for important examples of observational work on adult personality), a diverse array of methods has been used in child temperament research. That being said, the vast majority of research on the structure of child temperament has relied on parent report methods, which yield a number of important advantages. For example, such methods capitalize on parents’ extensive exposure to their children’s behavior across diverse settings, and parent reports are affordable, efficient to administer and have reasonable predictive validity for temperament later in childhood (Pauli-Pott et al., 2003, Rothbart et al., 2001, Rothbart and Bates, 2006). However, parent reports may be subject to mood state and/or availability biases (Durbin et al., 2007, Durbin and Wilson, 2012, Hayden et al., 2010, Rothbart and Bates, 2006), and they have typically shown low convergent validity with teacher reports and observational and laboratory measures (Durbin et al., 2007). Several authors have shown that parents’ reports of child behavior are influenced by parents’ symptoms and personality traits (De Los Reyes and Kazdin, 2005, Durbin and Wilson, 2012, Youngstrom et al., 1999). Despite being expensive and time-consuming to administer, laboratory measures of child temperament (e.g., Gagne et al., 2011, Goldsmith et al., 1995) have several advantages, such as reducing rater bias through standardized coding procedures, and the use of standardized stimuli facilitating observation of child behaviors that may be present at a lower frequency rates in naturalistic settings (Durbin et al., 2007).

Given the low convergence found between laboratory and parent-report measures of child temperament, it may be the case that the two methods will lead to different conclusions regarding the nature of the structure of child temperament. However, we know of only one study, that of Dyson, Olino, Durbin, Goldsmith, and Klein (2011), that has investigated the structure of observational measures of child temperament. These researchers used a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques to derive a five-factor model of observed child temperament in 559 preschoolers. The final model showed some overlap with that proposed by Rothbart (2007), in that factors reflecting positive affect/interest, dysphoria, and impulsivity/constraint were extracted, which bear similarity to the extraversion/surgency, negative affectivity, and EC factors from Rothbart’s model. However, a fourth factor, sociability, was also derived, which was subsumed within the extraversion/surgency factor in Rothbart’s model. Dyson et al. (2011) concluded that some traits such as sociability and positive affect/interest, as well as dysphoria and fear/inhibition, do not coalesce into their respective higher-order factors (extraversion and neuroticism) until later in life.

With these issues in mind, the present study had several goals. First, we aimed to extend the extremely limited extant literature on the nature and structure of observed child temperament. As noted, other than Dyson et al. (2011), we know of no other published research using standardized observations to characterize the structure of child temperament. Dyson and colleagues’ findings suggest both similarities and differences in the structure of temperament in young children relative to adult temperament. We extended this work by examining children in middle childhood, thus potentially providing further clues about possible developmental transitions in the structure of temperament. In addition, since there is no consensus on the nature and number of primary temperament traits in childhood, we wanted to make a contribution to identifying these traits based on a method (i.e., observational measures) that may confer some advantages over informant reports.

We did not make specific predictions regarding the number of temperament dimensions we expected to find in our older sample of children for several reasons. While a clear three-factor structure consisting of extraversion/surgency, negative affectivity, and EC has been found in multiple samples of preschoolers based on parent report (Rothbart et al., 2001), the paucity of research using observed methods, and the general lack of research on the nature of temperament in middle childhood, makes formulating a priori hypotheses difficult. Having said that, a small, distinct literature focused on developmental changes in children’s NE (Camras et al., 1998, Izard et al., 1995) led us to tentatively propose that we might find further differentiation of NE in our older sample than Dyson et al. (2011) did in their preschool-aged sample.

Our next goal was to assess the predictive validity of the derived temperament dimensions in our sample. As a key goal of personality research is to predict important behavior and outcomes, models that lack the capacity to do so are limited in value. In light of the large literature relating adult temperament to psychopathology (e.g., Clark, 2005, Fowles and Dindo, 2009, Ready and Clark, 2002), we examined the associations between observational temperament dimensions and internalizing (i.e., depressive and anxious) and externalizing child symptoms (i.e., symptoms of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder; ODD, and conduct disorder; CD). Based on the previous work implicating NE as a broad risk factor for psychopathology (e.g., Clark, 2005), we expected to find significant associations between child temperament dimensions related to NE that factor analysis might reveal and both internalizing and externalizing child symptoms. Specifically, we expected an association with any anger-related dimensions that might emerge and externalizing problems (e.g., Kim et al., 2007, Morris et al., 2010, Tackett et al., 2012) and sadness and fear-related dimensions and internalizing problems (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2009, Kagan, 1998). Finally, as per the tripartite model (e.g., Clark, 2005), we expected to see an association between lower levels of any PE-related dimensions that might emerge and child symptoms of depression.

Section snippets

Participants

A community sample of 205 seven-year-old children (46% male, Mage = 7.41 years, SD = .30) and their parents (Mage mothers = 37.48 years, SD = 8.96; Mage fathers = 40.43 years, SD = 11.50) were recruited through a psychology department database, and advertisements placed in local newspapers and online bulletin boards. Child participants were Caucasian (87.80%), Asian (1.95%) or other ethnicity (7.80%); 2.45% of the sample was missing ethnicity data. Approximately half (50.24%) of the families participating

Bivariate correlations

Two participants were excluded due to missing data on all observation variables, resulting in a sample of 203 participants with complete data. Table 1 displays bivariate correlations between the observed variables. Significant correlations were found between facial, vocal, and bodily affective expressions within each affective category (i.e., PA, anger, sadness, and fear). In addition, sociability, activity and impulsivity showed significant positive correlations with both PA and anger facets,

Discussion

We extended the very limited work on the structure of observed child temperament by examining the structure of observational measures of child temperament in middle childhood. Findings suggested a four-factor structure of observed temperament in this age group, comprised of PE/Soc, Dis/Anger, fear/BI, and sadness, while the latter two factors showed a clear structure, several variables loaded on both PE/Soc and Dis/Anger. Overall, both our model and that of Dyson et al. (2011) show some

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    This project was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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