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PSYCHOLOGY LIBRARY EDITIONS: EMOTION Volume 3 TEMPERAMENT This page intentionally left blank TEMPERAMENT Early Developing Personality Traits ARNOLD H. BUSS AND ROBERT PLOMIN Psychology Press Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published in 1984 This edition first published in 2015 by Psychology Press 27 Church Road, Hove BN3 2FA and by Psychology Press 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Psychology Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1984 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-84872-780-9 (Set) eISBN: 978-1-315-73911-3 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-138-81664-0 (Volume 3) eISBN: 978-1-315-74570-1 (Volume 3) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. TEMPERAMENT: EARLY DEVELOPING PERSONALITY TRAITS ARNOLD H. BUSS University of Texas ROBERT PLOMIN University of Colorado LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES,PUBLISHERS 1984 Hillsdale, New Jersey London Copyright © 1984 by LawrenceErlbaum Associates,Inc. All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproducedin any form, by photostat,microform, retrieval system, or any other means,without the prior written permissionof the publisher. LawrenceErlbaum Associates,Inc., Publishers 365 Broadway Hillsdale, New Jersey07642 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Buss, Arnold Herbert, 1924- Temperament:early developingpersonality traits. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Temperament. 2. Personalityin children. 3. Arousal (Physiology) 4. Emotions. I. Plomin, Robert, 1948- II. Title. BF798.B868 1984 155,4'13 84-13636 ISBN 0-89859-415-4 Printed in the United Statesof America 10987654321 Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Evolution and Development 5 Evolution and Early Developing Traits 5 Culture and Early Developing Traits 10 Constitution and Early Environment 11 Continuity and Change 14 3. The Pediatric Approach 16 Description of the Measures 17 Evaluation of the Measures 19 Conceptual Issues 24 Individual Differences in Neonates 31 4. Arousal 32 Three Kinds of Arousal 32 Temperament as Affect 38 Reactivity and Self-Regulation 40 Temperament as "Behavioral Inhibition" 42 Arousal and Temperament 44 5. Emotionality 45 Inheritance 48 Emotionality as Distress 50 v vi CONTENTS Differentiation of Fear and Anger 50 Theory of Emotionality 54 Summary Comments 62 6. Sociability 63 Interaction Social Rewards 63 The Nature of Sociability 71 Infancy 73 Behavior with Peers 76 Shyness 77 Extraversion and Neuroticism 80 Concluding Remarks 82 7. Theory and Measurement of EAS 84 Definition and Criteria 84 Impulsivity 86 Influence of EAS on Environment 88 Measuring EAS 92 8. Behavioral Genetics 105 Major Methods 106 Genotype-Environment Correlation 109 Structural Models 110 Developmental Behavioral Genetics 111 Environment: Familial and Individual 111 Differential Heritability 112 Temperament-Environment Interaction 115 9. Heredity and the EAS Temperaments 118 Parental Ratings 119 Observations 131 Measures Other Than Ratings 138 Conclusions 139 10. Continuity, Environment, and the EAS 142 Continuity 142 Heritability and Stability 143 Stability of the EAS Temperaments 143 Environment 146 Individual Experiences 151 Temperament and Environment 153 11. Concluding Comments 155 Broad versus Narrow Temperaments 157 Future Directions 161 CONTENTS vii References 164 Author Index 177 Subject Index 183 This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction The modernhistory of temperamentdates back only three decadesto the book Personalityand Temperamentby Diamond (1957). Unlike the other personality texts of that era, it emphasizedthe constitutionalorigins of personality: A crucial problem in the study of personalityis to determinewhat are the most fundamentalrespects in which individuals differ from each other. All attemptsto do this on the basis of observationof adult human behavior, no matter how sophisticatedin either a statisticalor a clinical sense,have the common failing that they are unable to distinguish betweenthe essential foundationsof individuality and its cultural elaboration.(pp. 3-4) Theseessential foundations would not be restrictedto humans,for 'The humanbeing, whateverelse he may be, is first of all an animal, and must be understoodas such" (p. 4). Diamondwent on to describefour temperamentsshared by all primates and to some extent, by social mammals: fearfulness, aggressiveness, affiliativeness, and impulsiveness.He conductedno researchon human behavior, however, nor did he provide any instruments to assesshis temperaments.Furthermore, the 1950swere markedby a deepand perva- sive environmentalismwhich, in this country at least, rejectedthe possi- bility of built-in tendenciesand the relevanceof animal behaviorfor the understandingof humanpersonality. In this atmosphere,Diamond's con- tribution was ignored and subsequentlyhas rarely beenmentioned. From a different perspective,pediatric researchersof three decades ago were rebelling againstthe psychoanalyticapproach and the environ- mentalismthat dominatedchild development.Their new approachhigh- lighted the 1960s, especially two books by Thomas, Chess, and their colleagues(1963, 1968). Theseinvestigators sought thepersonality traits that were both relatedto problemsof early childhood and likely to lead to later problems or adjustment. They delineated nine temperamentsin young children and assessedthese temperaments by interviewing parents; the interviews were later complementedby parentalquestionnaires. The pediatric approachhas generatedan outpouring of research,and it cur- rently dominatesthe areaof temperament. 1 2 1. INTRODUCTION In parallel with the first two developments, behavioral genetics emergedas a strong trend in the 1960s. Following the lead of Diamond and earlier behavioralgenetics research, we publisheda theory of tem- peramentin 1975. This was a return to the personalityapproach to tem- perament, again with an emphasis on tendencies that have an evolutionaryheritage. We provided measuresof the temperaments,dem- onstratedtheir heritability, and suggestedtheir courseof development. Thus the recent history of temperamentis highlighted by four books: Diamond'sin the 1950s,that of Thomas,Chess and their colleaguesin the 1960s, and our book and another by Thomas and Chess in the 1970s. Meanwhile, developmentalpsychology surged forward and became a major force in psychology. The most recent manifestationof this trend has beena focus on infancy. During the pastfew years,infancy research- ers have been investigatingindividual differencesin infancy and calling these personality traits temperaments.Their articles and book chapters signal the era of the 1980s. The presentera is markedby threemajor perspectivesof temperament: pediatrics, individual differences in infants, and inherited personality traits that appearearly in life. Whateverthe diversity of theseperspec- tives, they convergeon personalitytraits that developearly in life, hence the title of this book. Tendenciesthat start in infancy, whetherpersonality or other tendencies,are thought to be constitutionalin origin. This broad term comprisesinheritance, prenatal events, and postnatalevents. Though suchbreadth is convenient,its vaguenessposes problems for its scientific usefulnessand this merits discussion.This we have done in Chapter2, which also outlines temperamentin our mammalianand primate ances- tors. Presumably,temperament evolved in our forebearsand was main- tained during the evolution of the human species,for it is difficult to believe that most constitutionaltendencies are uniquely human. Approachesto temperamentother than our own may be divided into two groups. The first consists of the pediatric approach of Thomas, Chess, and their colleagues(1963, 1968, 1977) and that of Brazelton (1973). The theory of Thomas and Chesshas led to more published re- searchthan any other perspectiveand thereforewarrants a chapterof its own, with the brief addition of Brazelton'swork at the end of Chapter3. The secondgroup of approachesto temperamentderives from an inter- est in individual differencesamong infants. Infants differ in many ways, but one of the most striking dimensionsof variation is arousal. Even neonatesvary in their sleep-wakefulnesscycle, their alertness when awake,and their level of distresswhen they are hungry or uncomfortable. Arousal, especiallyemotional arousal,tends to consistof diffuse behav- ioral reactionswhich require little from the young organismin the way of learningor skill. Suchdiffuse reactionsoccur early and thereforemay be RECENT HISTORY 3 regardedas constitutional in origin. Any investigatorwho observesin- fants even briefly will see that they vary considerablyin their emotional reactions.It is thereforeno surprisethat studentsof individual