What Is Temperament
Now? Assessing Progress in
Temperament Research on the Twenty-Fifth
Anniversary of Goldsmith et al. (1987)
Rebecca L. Shiner,
1
Kristin A. Buss,
2
Sandee G. McClowry,
3
Samuel P. Putnam,
4
Kimberly J. Saudino,
5
and Marcel Zentner
6
1
Colgate University,
2
Pennsylvania State University,
3
New York University,
4
Bowdoin College,
5
Boston
University, and
6
University of York (UK)
ABSTRACT—
The now-classic article “What Is Tempera-
ment? Four Approaches” by H. H. Goldsmith et al.
(1987) brought together originators of four prominent
temperament theories
—Rothbart, Thomas and Chess,
Buss and Plomin, and Goldsmith
—to address founda-
tional questions about the nature of temperament. This
article reviews what has been learned about the nature of
temperament in the intervening 25 years, It begins with
an updating of the 1987 consensus definition of tempera-
ment that integrates more complex current findings. Next,
4 “progeny” trained in the original temperament tradi-
tions assess contributions of their respective approaches.
The article then poses essential questions for the next gen-
eration of research on the fundamentals of temperament,
including its structure, links with personality traits, inter-
action with context, and change and continuity over time.
KEYWORDS—
childhood development; temperament change;
personality traits; environmental effects; genes
At the 1985 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Devel-
opment, H. Hill Goldsmith convened a roundtable conversation
among leading temperament researchers to address foundational
questions about the nature of temperament. Following the round-
table, many of the panelists summarized the discussion in
a now-classic 1987 article, “What Is Temperament? Four
Approaches.” This seminal article highlighted four compelling
temperament theories
—those of Goldsmith, Mary Rothbart,
Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess, and Arnold Buss and Robert
Plomin
—and articulated the key questions to be addressed by
this burgeoning field: How should temperament be defined and
distinguished from related individual differences? What are its
key elements? How does it develop?
In this article, we reflect on what has been learned about the
nature of child temperament in the 25 years since the publica-
tion of this important paper. We begin by updating the 1987
consensus definition of temperament in light of new research.
Next, four “progeny” trained in each of the original tempera-
ment traditions assess progress in key aspects of their respective
theories. Finally, we pose essential questions for the next gener-
ation of research on temperament.
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEFINITION OF
TEMPERAMENT
The fundamental question addressed in Goldsmith et al. (1987)
is stated in the title of the article: What is temperament? This
question has been debated for centuries, and the scholars
featured in the 1987 article continued the debate by offering
different definitions. At the end of the 1987 article, the com-
mentator Robert McCall shared a definition of temperament that
attempted to integrate the four approaches:
Temperament consists of relatively consistent, basic dispositions
inherent in the person that underlie and modulate the expression of
activity, reactivity, emotionality, and sociability. Major elements of
This article was inspired by two panel discussions organized by
Rebecca L. Shiner: Society for Research in Child Development
2009 biennial meeting, Denver, CO, and the 2010 Occasional Tem-
perament Conference, Brunswick, ME.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Rebecca L. Shiner, Department of Psychology, Colgate University,
13 Oak Dr., Hamilton, NY 13346; e-mail: rshiner@colgate.edu.
© 2012 The Authors
Child Development Perspectives © 2012 The Society for Research in Child Development
DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2012.00254.x
Volume 0, Number 0, 2012, Pages 1–9
CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES
temperament are present early in life, and those elements are likely
to be strongly influenced by biological factors. As development
proceeds, the expression of temperament increasingly becomes
more influenced by experience and context. (p. 524)
This definition articulates many of the shared assumptions
about temperament that have guided research over the past
25 years. However, new findings and approaches have offered
new perspectives on many of these guiding assumptions. First,
not all temperament traits are stable early in life, perhaps
because new temperamental systems that control or inhibit the
more reactive aspects of temperament emerge only later in
infancy; as these control systems come on-line, they may change
the expression and stability of the more reactive traits (Rothbart,
2011). Temperament traits become more consistent with age,
showing substantial stability by at least the preschool years
(Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). Further, due to maturational pro-
cesses occurring between infancy and later childhood, stability
often may be heterotypic rather than homotypic. For example,
visual exploratory behavior in infancy predicts novelty seeking
in adolescence, possibly representing two developmentally
specific expressions of a common process (Laucht, Becker, &
Schmidt, 2006; see Schwartz et al., 2011, for a similar example
involving behavioral inhibition).
Second, most temperament researchers would agree that the
particular traits included in the definition do constitute individ-
ual differences in temperament (see, e.g., the definition offered
by Zentner & Bates, 2008). However, the 1987 list leaves out
dimensions of attention and self-regulation, which have turned
out to be important individual differences that emerge in basic
form in infancy, derive in part from developing biological sys-
tems, and modulate the development of more reactive emotional
systems (Rothbart, 2011). In short, temperament researchers
recognize now that affective and cognitive processing are highly
integrated systems (Derryberry & Tucker, 2006; Forgas, 2008)
and that, therefore, some aspects of temperament
—such as
attention and executive control
—involve individual differences
in domains traditionally considered more cognitive in nature.
Third, the field’s understanding of the joint workings of bio-
logical factors and experience in development has become more
complex. The definition argues that temperamental differences
are strongly influenced by biology at the start, but become more
influenced by environmental experiences with time. This dichot-
omy between biological and environmental influences is not
tenable. Before a child’s birth, the intrauterine environment has
already influenced the expression of each child’s genetic mate-
rial (Huizink, 2012), and experiences continue to shape gene
expression after birth (Champagne & Mashoodh, 2009). Both
genetic and environmental factors influence temperament from
infancy onward, and new genetic influences on temperamental
traits arise later in development (Saudino & Wang, 2012). Thus,
temperament should no longer be viewed as biologically derived
at birth and later shaped by experience; rather, it should be
viewed as the result of biological and environmental factors
working together throughout development.
Taken together, the newest work on temperament suggests an
alternative definition: Temperament traits are early emerging
basic dispositions in the domains of activity, affectivity,
attention, and self-regulation, and these dispositions are the
product of complex interactions among genetic, biological, and
environmental factors across time. As McCall noted in his com-
mentary on the four temperament approaches, “Definitions are
not valid or invalid, confirmable or refutable. Instead, they are
more or less useful” (p. 524). It is important that the field not be
dogmatic in adherence to a single definition of temperament. As
new findings accumulate, additional basic dispositions may
be identified, and an amended definition may prove to be more
useful.
ASSESSING PROGRESS IN THE FOUR ORIGINAL
TEMPERAMENT TRADITIONS
All four approaches articulated in the Goldsmith et al. (1987)
article have yielded important insights over the past 25 years.
Some tenets of the theories have received robust support,
whereas other aspects have required modification. In the follow-
ing section, “progeny” of the four temperament traditions offer
their assessment of the specific contributions of each approach:
the structure of temperament and importance of self-regulatory
traits (Rothbart), goodness of fit and the application of tempera-
ment concepts (Chess and Thomas), the interplay of genetic and
environmental factors in development (Buss and Plomin),
and the significance of the emotional nature of temperament
(Goldsmith).
Putnam: The Rothbart Approach
Of the perspectives presented in the 1987 article, Rothbart’s
was perhaps the most broad, emphasizing motor and emotional
reactivity as well as attentional processes that serve to regulate
initial reactive tendencies. This inclusive stance was manifest in
the links made between temperament and biological reactivity
and self-regulation from the start (Rothbart & Derryberry, 1981)
and in the questionnaire, observation, and laboratory measures
developed by Rothbart and colleagues over subsequent years
(Goldsmith & Rothbart, 1991; Posner & Rothbart, 2007; Put-
nam, Ellis, & Rothbart, 2001). Rothbart (2011) has recently
integrated biological and environmental influences on tempera-
ment with the development of conscience, personality, and psy-
chopathology.
Rothbart and colleagues developed questionnaire measures
with over 20 fine-grained facets of temperament indicated in
earlier temperament measures and in the animal temperament,
emotional development, and adult personality literatures. In
addition to promoting more detailed measurement of tempera-
ment facets, these instruments have enabled examination of the
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Rebecca L. Shiner et al.
higher order factor structure of temperament. An important
insight into temperament structure since the 1987 article is that
temperament differences are organized hierarchically across the
lifespan. Particular facets of temperament tend to covary, and
the covariation among those traits is accounted for by higher
order factors with greater breadth. Three higher order factors are
consistently identified from questionnaires: Surgency (including
activity level, sociability, and pleasure expressed in anticipation
of reward or during high-intensity activities); Negative Affectiv-
ity (including anger, sadness, fear, physical discomfort, and
recovery from distress); and a factor labeled Regulatory Capacity
in infants and Effortful Control in older individuals (including
the ability to focus attention, demonstrate satisfaction during
low-intensity activities, and, in older children, to exercise inhib-
itory control). Across the lifespan, in multiple cultures, and
through both self and other reports, the results of these factor
analyses converge considerably. Furthermore, the structure
obtained with Rothbart’s measures bears similarities to those
emerging from other temperament batteries (e.g., Halverson,
Kohnstamm, & Martin, 1994) and personality inventories
(e.g., Tellegen, 1985). By providing a common taxonomy of
traits, derivation of these factors has enhanced communication
among temperament researchers and provided conceptual build-
ing blocks for the study of personality, social development, and
adjustment.
The intercorrelations among facet scales comprising the
factors are strong but not large enough to indicate redundancy.
These higher order factors appear to represent robust and ele-
mentary components of temperament, but each facet within a
factor is expected to also link to unique underpinnings and out-
comes. In addition, traits may contribute to the particular mani-
festations of other higher order traits or facets, so that an
individual who is high in general negativity may react to loss
with anger if high in Surgency, whereas a person who is similar
in negativity, but low in Surgency might react with sadness in
the same situation. The factors are not perfectly orthogonal, and
some higher order traits appear to be influenced by common
underlying facets. For instance, shyness loads heavily (in differ-
ent directions) on Surgency and Negative Affectivity, suggesting
that it is shaped by individual differences in opposing approach
and inhibition processes.
Of the three broad dimensions, Effortful Control has received
particularly intense attention over recent decades (Eisenberg,
Smith, & Spinrad, 2011). Research on Effortful Control illus-
trates the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of temperament
study, which, in this case, integrates perspectives from develop-
mental cognitive neuroscience. Rothbart, in collaboration with
Michael Posner, has identified neural networks of executive
attention that appear to underlie individual differences in infant
attention, connecting attentional control to emotional and behav-
ioral regulation and setting the stage for the study of
Gene
9 Environment interaction (see Rueda, Posner, & Roth-
bart, 2011). Increased consideration of regulatory mechanisms
reflects an enhanced appreciation for the developmental nature
of temperament. Whereas initial theory emphasized early
appearing traits and stability from infant behavior onward, it is
now clear that neural systems underlying attention continue to
develop into adulthood. These changes can, in turn, contribute
to resilience, modifying the trajectories of more reactive traits
(Shiner & Masten, 2012). Because later emerging control of
attention and behavior can also moderate connections between
reactivity and adjustment outcomes, these dimensions of temper-
ament represent important new directions for basic research and
advances in intervention and treatment of psychopathology.
McClowry: The Chess and Thomas Approach
In 1987, Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas were at the fore-
front of naturalistic studies of childhood temperament and the
practical applications derived from them. They focused on varia-
tions in children’s typical behavioral style that emerged early in
infancy, and presumed that such differences have an endogenous
biological basis (Thomas & Chess, 1977). In their well-known
New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS), Chess and Thomas (1984)
developed an influential list of nine temperament traits based on
a content analysis of prior interviews with parents of infants. They
asserted that many children fall into three types based on their
combinations of traits: easy, difficult, and slow to warm. Chess
and Thomas’s work helped to convince researchers, practitioners,
and parents that children vary biologically from one another from
early in life and that these differences operate in transaction with
the environment to influence social relationships and adjustment.
Chess and Thomas’s clinical wisdom continues to inspire practi-
tioners and educators to develop, implement, and test the efficacy
of temperament-based interventions.
Recent study has addressed Chess and Thomas’s claims about
both temperament traits and temperament types. Mounting evi-
dence from a large number of psychometric studies indicates
that, although Chess and Thomas’s original nine dimensions
highlight clinically important aspects of temperament (e.g.,
mood and activity), they are not empirically distinct (Pauw &
Mervielde, 2010). In contrast, Chess and Thomas’s typology
(easy, difficult, and slow to warm) has received some empirical
support through the application of more sophisticated statistical
methodologies
(e.g.,
person-centered
analytic
techniques;
Lacourse et al., 2002). In this newer work, the types are labeled
“resilient,” “undercontrolled,” and “overcontrolled” (Caspi &
Shiner, 2006). Some researchers and practitioners have substi-
tuted other, more descriptive labels for the term “difficult child,”
such as “resistant to control” (Bates, Pettit, Dodge, & Ridge,
1998) or “high maintenance” (McClowry, 2002), recognizing
that particular constellations of traits are not necessarily “diffi-
cult” for all parents (Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns,
& Peetsma, 2007).
Theoretical advances in the field have expanded the concept
of “goodness of fit,” which is at the core of temperament-based
intervention. Chess and Thomas (1984) defined goodness of fit as
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What Is Temperament Now?
3
the consonance between a child’s temperament and the
demands, expectations, and opportunities of the environment.
The onus of intervention, as originally conceived by Chess and
Thomas, was on advising parents and other caregivers to modify
the environment to create a better fit with a child’s particular
temperament. From a pragmatic perspective, goodness of fit can
be more complicated to enhance when children get older and
engage in educational and community settings that lack flexibil-
ity to accommodate to temperament variations (McClowry, Rodri-
guez, & Koslowitz, 2008). Studies demonstrating that children’s
self-regulation is malleable (Kochanska & Aksan, 2006) offer
alternative paths for providing goodness of fit. Rather than modi-
fying the environment, an expanded goodness-of-fit approach
applies temperament-based strategies to scaffold and stretch
children’s emotional, attentional, and behavioral repertoires.
With practice, children and adults can implement such strategies
when they experience temperamentally challenging situations.
Another advance since 1987 is the development of tempera-
ment-based interventions that have demonstrated efficacy in
enhancing adaptation across the lifespan and in a variety of set-
tings (McClowry et al., 2008). For example, after attending the
Cool Little Kids Program, temperamentally inhibited preschool
children who had a parent with an anxiety disorder showed a
reduction in observed and parent-reported behavioral inhibition,
relative to a comparable group of children placed on a wait list
(Kennedy, Rapee, & Edwards, 2009). Another intervention,
INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament, targeted urban pri-
mary-grade children and their parents and teachers. Compared
to children in an attention control group, children in INSIGHTS
showed a significant reduction in disruptive behaviors at home
and at school (McClowry, Snow, Tamis-LeMonda, & Rodriguez,
2010). Temperament-based interventions continue to benefit
from the Chess and Thomas approach. Current clinical applica-
tions also have benefited from interventions that, although not
specifically labeled temperament based, have demonstrated that
they enhance children’s self-regulation (e.g., Duckworth &
Allred, 2012).
Saudino: The Buss and Plomin Approach
Buss and Plomin’s approach comprises three dimensions (emo-
tionality, activity, and sociability) that are enduring across age
and situation and, perhaps most important to their theory, are
genetically influenced. A fourth dimension
—impulsivity, refer-
ring to the low end of a trait comprising emotional and behav-
ioral control, persistence, and planfulness
—was dropped from
their original theory because it did not appear to be genetically
influenced. However, recent findings indicate that the compo-
nents of impulsivity are heritable and thus meet Buss and
Plomin’s criteria for a temperament dimension (Buss, 1995;
Gagne & Saudino, 2010).
Several important advancements stemming from behavioral
genetics research have informed the study of temperament.
In 1987, most behavioral genetics studies focused on simply
showing whether or not temperament dimensions were geneti-
cally influenced. This research was important because it
addressed the issue of temperament’s constitutional foundation,
but it was theoretically limited. Recent methodological advance-
ments have allowed the field to go beyond heritability estimates
to address more interesting questions. For example, longitudinal
quantitative genetic analyses explore genetic and environmental
contributions to phenotypic continuity and change across age.
These methods inform about developmental processes by assess-
ing the extent to which genetic and environmental effects on a
trait persist across age and whether new genetic and environ-
mental influences emerge across time. Studies of early tempera-
ment typically find that stability is due to genetic factors and
change is largely environmental; however, for some dimensions
there is also evidence of genetic contributions to developmental
change (Saudino & Wang, 2012).
Multivariate analyses exploring genetic and environmental
sources of covariance between variables provide novel informa-
tion about cross-situational and contextual effects, method
effects, and links between temperament and developmental out-
comes. Studies of the same temperament dimension assessed
across different situations (e.g., shyness in the laboratory and in
the home) find that genetic factors explain cross-situational con-
sistency, but behavioral differences across situations are due to
both genetic and environmental effects (Cherny et al., 2001).
Similarly, temperament assessed via different methods within
the same situation shows measure-specific genetic effects, signi-
fying that different measures engage different temperamental
processes (Saudino, 2009). Multivariate analyses can also
address mechanisms linking temperament and developmental
outcomes by assessing the extent to which associations between
the two domains are due to common genetic and
/or environmen-
tal factors. Although there are some exceptions, links between
temperament and behavior problems are primarily a result of
common genetic influences (Lemery-Chalfant, Doelger, & Gold-
smith, 2008), suggesting that temperament may convey a genetic
risk for maladaptive outcomes. Analyses of temperament dimen-
sions as possible endophenotypes for clinical disorders may,
therefore, be fruitful.
Inclusion of measured environments in behavioral genetics
research makes it possible to elucidate environmental mecha-
nisms relevant to temperament. For example, to some extent,
the environments that children experience (e.g., parenting)
reflect their genetically influenced temperaments, indicating
genotype
–environment correlations (Boivin et al., 2005). Explo-
ration of genotype
–environment interactions finds that parenting
behaviors can moderate the heritability of temperament and,
although shared or family-wide environmental influences on
temperament are typically modest, they may have significant
effects when the child experiences poor parenting (Krueger,
South, Johnson, & Iacono, 2008).
Finally, advances in molecular genetic techniques make it
possible to identify specific genes associated with temperament
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Rebecca L. Shiner et al.
and provide a first step in understanding how genes influence
temperament. In recent years, there has been a flurry of molecu-
lar genetic studies of temperament-related behaviors (see
Saudino & Wang, 2012). The results are mixed, with many
failures to replicate, but genes linked to dopaminergic and sero-
tonergic functions have been associated with temperament.
Studies of genotype
–environment interactions have identified
specific genes that moderate environmental influences on tem-
perament (e.g., Ivorra et al., 2010), indicating that the impact of
specific environments on temperament can differ across geno-
types.
Clearly, much has changed in the field’s understanding of the
genetic and environmental influences on temperament since
1987, but the Buss and Plomin approach helped point research-
ers to this important aspect of temperament development.
Buss: The Goldsmith Approach
Deeply rooted in the functionalist perspective on emotion, Gold-
smith’s approach, developed in collaboration with Joseph Campos,
considers individual differences in propensities to experience and
express emotional behavior to be a defining feature of tempera-
ment (Goldsmith et al., 1987; Goldsmith & Campos, 1982). Gold-
smith focuses on temperament dimensions that correspond to
discrete emotions (e.g., anger vs. fear) in contrast to those
approaches that only consider emotionality as a single dimension;
this approach has generated some important findings.
Goldsmith’s perspective has shaped the way individual differ-
ences in emotional behavior are conceptualized. The expression
and regulation of the primary emotions have been robust predic-
tors of a variety of socioemotional, clinical, and adjustment out-
comes (Goldsmith, Lemery, & Essex, 2004). For example,
extreme fearfulness has received a great deal of study as a risk
factor for social anxiety (Buss, 2011). Goldsmith’s approach, as
well as the affective dimensions of Rothbart’s model, falls within
a larger body of research on affective style, a broader construct
used to define any trait-level individual differences in affective
phenomena (e.g., trait differences in EEG asymmetry; Davidson,
2000) and personality theories focused on emotions (e.g., posi-
tive and negative emotionality; Tellegen, 1985). Thus, it can be
argued that, as Goldsmith points out in the 1987 article, the
study of individual differences in emotions would exist “without
the construct of temperament” (p. 516). However, emotion-based
temperament perspectives differ in their focus on early appear-
ance, biological mechanisms, and developmental processes
accounting for stability and change in trajectories of these traits.
In addition, it is common for emotion researchers to characterize
these differences using several parameters (e.g., rise time, peak
intensity, duration; Davidson, 2000; Rothbart & Derryberry,
1981). Thus, from this perspective, it is not temperament as
broadly conceptualized (e.g., emotionality) that relates to out-
comes (e.g., anxiety disorders); rather, specific facets of emotions
(e.g., fear reactivity) account for these temperament
–outcome
relations.
One example of the contribution arising from the focus on
emotion components of temperament is the surge in research
examining links between individual differences in affective
behavior and psychobiological reactivity. Study in this area has
examined peripheral physiology, such as cardiac reactivity
(Buss, Davidson, Kalin, & Goldsmith, 2004) and neuroendocrine
measures, such as cortisol (Fortunato, Dribin, Granger, & Buss,
2008) and neural processes (Davidson & Rickman, 1999). The
importance of this topic is highlighted in an SRCD monograph
(Dennis et al., 2012) reviewing cutting-edge study on emotion
and physiology.
KEY REMAINING QUESTIONS ON THE NATURE OF
TEMPERAMENT
Although temperament researchers have made considerable
progress since the publication of Goldsmith et al. (1987), some
fundamental questions remain only partially answered. In the
following section, we pose five questions on the nature of
temperament for the next generation of temperament researchers.
How Is Temperament Structured?
Although temperament research has clarified the broad outlines
of childhood traits, this study has been hampered by the use of
competing models. Pauw, Mervielde, and Leeuwen (2009) exam-
ined the joint structure of preschoolers’ temperament traits
across questionnaires from the Rothbart, Buss and Plomin, and
Chess and Thomas models and found that, although the ques-
tionnaires converged on a general set of traits, each model
added valuable, nonoverlapping information. Future measures
could assess temperament traits more thoroughly by incorporat-
ing constructs from different models. Insights into temperament
structure can also come from observational systems (Buckley,
Klein, Durbin, Hayden, & Moerk, 2002) and laboratory tasks
(Buss & Goldsmith, 2000), as well as person-centered analyses
that complement variable-oriented techniques. In addition,
future research should investigate whether traits become reorga-
nized in different periods of life. Changes in the structure of
traits may reflect changes in the underlying mechanisms and
therefore may provide clues about biological and psychological
processes underlying the traits.
What Is the Relation Between Temperament and
Personality Traits?
In the 1987 article, almost all the theorists used existing knowl-
edge about adult personality traits to guide their thinking about
possible temperament traits. Yet, there remains confusion about
how temperament and personality traits, such as the Big Five,
are related. A common metaphor for thinking about personality
development has been that young children display genetically
influenced temperament traits and that life experiences “layer”
personality traits onto the early biological temperament (a view
akin to the definition of temperament offered by McCall). An
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What Is Temperament Now?
5
alternative possibility is that temperament traits in childhood
and the Big Five traits in adulthood may be manifestations of
the same basic dimensions (Clark & Watson, 2008; McCrae
et al., 2000; Rothbart, 2011; Shiner & De Young, in press).
From this point of view, personality traits are broader in content
because biological maturation and expanding experiences per-
mit the expression of new facets of the underlying traits. If this
second possibility is correct, temperament research could be
enhanced by measuring traits more broadly as children get older
(Shiner & Caspi, 2012). For example, Effortful Control could
expand to include tendencies toward orderliness, dependability,
and achievement motivation. Other traits identified in personal-
ity trait research may be considered as possible temperament
traits. Individual differences in children’s empathy and kindness
may reflect early temperament differences in the Big Five trait
of Agreeableness (Knafo & Israel, 2012; Shiner & De Young, in
press) or a similar trait labeled Affiliativeness by Rothbart
(2011). Likewise, differences in children’s curiosity, imagination,
and sensory sensitivity
—aspects of Openness to Experience—
may reflect temperamental differences in a biological system
promoting active exploration of the environment (Shiner & De
Young, in press).
How Do Temperament Traits and Context Interact to
Predict Behavior in Specific Situations?
Although temperament has been assumed to show consistency
across situations, sometimes behaviors considered to reflect an
underlying trait show limited cross-situational consistency (Buss,
2011). The classic approach to handling this problem is to average
behavior across situations, but this solution could obscure mean-
ingful differences if behavior across situations derives from differ-
ent underlying traits. An alternative is to take the eliciting context
into consideration. For example, by capitalizing on this approach,
a pattern of observed fear across six episodes characterized by
high fear in low-threat situations but typical fear levels in high-
threat episodes (i.e., dysregulated fear), was shown to be a stronger
predictor of anxiety than was behavioral inhibition averaged
across varied situations (Buss, 2011). Thus, contextual informa-
tion should help reveal elements or basic processes that may be
considered in temperament domains we have yet to discover.
How Do Temperament and the Environment Interact to
Shape Developmental Outcomes Over Time?
As noted, Chess and Thomas put forth the idea of “goodness of
fit,” suggesting that the environment moderates the outcomes of
children’s early individual differences. Several replicable pat-
terns of interactions between temperament and contextual factors
have been identified as influencing whether temperament will
remain stable or change and whether other adjustment outcomes
will be negative or positive (Bates, Schermerhorn, & Petersen,
2012; Lengua & Wachs, 2012; Rothbart & Bates, 2006). For
example, a toddler’s level of fearfulness becomes either a regula-
tory advantage or disadvantage, depending on the context.
Fearful children develop internalized self-controls best with
mothers who use gentle child disciplinary strategies, whereas
fearless children develop best with mothers who are warm and
responsive yet firmer (Kochanska & Aksan, 2006). A new line of
study documents a different type of interaction
—differential sus-
ceptibility
—in which a trait, such as infant irritability, confers
especially positive development in response to good environ-
ments and negative development in bad environments (Belsky &
Pluess, 2009; van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2012).
Studies that examine specific genetic and environmental mecha-
nisms of risk and resiliency will be useful in addressing ques-
tions about differential susceptibility and questions about
temperament
–environment interactions more generally. Future
study will benefit from exploring the transactions between chil-
dren and their contexts, explicating not only the ways that chil-
dren are influenced by their contexts but also the ways that
children shape their contexts (Bates et al., 2012; Lengua &
Wachs, 2012). The role of culture in temperament development
is another important topic for further investigation (Chen, Yang,
& Fu, 2012).
How Are Changes in Temperament Related to Biological
and Psychological Processes?
In the 1987 article, the theorists were particularly interested in
the question of whether temperament shows continuity over
time. We know now that at the behavioral level, children and
adults do show rank-order continuity over time, but significant
change occurs as well (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). Although
researchers remain interested in temperamental continuity, they
are now eager to understand the specific biological and psycho-
logical processes underlying temperamental discontinuity. Inter-
vention programs have been designed to modify children’s
typical patterns of behavior, including their self-regulation abili-
ties, emotional competence, and coping skills (Blair & Diamond,
2008; Duckworth & Allred, 2012; McClowry & Collins, 2012).
If more basic research can identify the processes underlying
temperament discontinuity, these processes can be harnessed to
support the development of resilient outcomes for children at
risk by virtue of their temperaments or their environments. Tem-
perament instruments could potentially be used as screening
tools to identify children at risk for negative outcomes and as
follow-up measures to assess progress. Parents, teachers, clini-
cians, and policy makers have much to gain by understanding
the processes leading to temperament change.
CONCLUSION
The 1987 article by Goldsmith et al. helped galvanize the field
of temperament and established key questions for this area of
research. Looking back on this article, its prescience in outlin-
ing the issues that would be central to the field of temperament
for the next 25 years is remarkable. Although little was known
then about the long-term outcomes of temperament traits, there
Child Development Perspectives, Volume 0, Number 0, 2012, Pages 1–9
6
Rebecca L. Shiner et al.
are now well-documented connections between temperament
and a wide variety of critical life outcomes
—relationships, aca-
demic achievement, health, and psychopathology (Zentner &
Shiner, 2012). Temperament clearly has an impact on the course
of individuals’ lives. The next 25 years of temperament research
undoubtedly will continue to pursue sophisticated answers to
questions about the nature of temperament; we hope that this
basic research increasingly will be applied to improve the qual-
ity of children’s lives.
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