Temperament

Temperament refers to individual characteristics that are assumed to have a biological or genetic basis and that determine the individual’s affective, attentional and motor responses in various situations. For example, temperament can affect young children’s mood and emotions, how they approach and react to situations, their level of fear, frustration, sadness and discomfort, etc. These responses also play a role in subsequent social interactions and social functioning. A temperamental bias refers to a distinctive profile of feelings and behaviours that originate in the child’s biology and appear early in development.

An important dimension of temperament is effortful control, defined by Rothbart as “the ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant response.” Effortful control includes the abilities to voluntarily manage attention and inhibit or activate behaviour as needed to adapt to the environment, especially when the child does not particularly want to do so.

Temperament’s influence on developmental pathways and outcomes has now been recognized, even in areas that have traditionally been seen as almost exclusively the result of socialization, such as conduct problems, empathy and the development of conscience.