Data from 508 Caucasian children in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development shows that the DRD4 (but not 5-HTTLPR) polymorphism moderates the effect of child-care quality (but not quantity or type) on caregiver-reported externalizing problems at 54 months and in kindergarten and teacher-reported social skills at kindergarten and…

Fifty 8-month-old infants participated in a study of the interrelations among cognition, temperament, and electrophysiology. Better performance on a working memory task (assessed using a looking version of the A-not-B task) was associated with increases in frontal-parietal EEG coherence from baseline to task, as well as elevated levels of…

Associations between maternal sensitivity to infant distress and nondistress and infant social-emotional adjustment were examined in a subset of dyads from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (N = 376). Mothers reported on infant temperament at 1 and 6 months postpartum, and maternal sensitivity to distress and nondistress were observed at 6…

Studied the early development of inhibited approach through the observation of 48 infants. Subjects (aged 6.5, 10, and 13.5 months) were observed longitudinally as they reached for toys under high- and low-novelty/intensity conditions. Predictions that temperament would affect reaching behavior (with happy children reaching more quickly and…

Four current approaches to understanding temperament are discussed. Theorists representing four postions--Goldsmith, Buss and Plomin, Rothbart, and Thomas and Chess--outline their views by reponding to six common questions. Commentaries highlighting differences and similarities between the positions are offered by Hinde and McCall. (Author/BN)

A differential susceptibility hypothesis proposes that children may differ in the degree to which parenting qualities affect aspects of child development. Infants with difficult temperaments may be more susceptible to the effects of parenting than infants with less difficult temperaments. Using latent change curve analyses to analyze data from the…

Observed 193 children at 4.5 years who had been classified at 4 months as high or low reactive to stimulation for signs of inhibited or uninhibited behavior. Children classified as high reactive were less spontaneous and less sociable than low-reactive children, but only a small proportion maintained a consistently inhibited or uninhibited…

Parents completed the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ), and their depression and anxiety were measured, during pregnancy and the postpartum period. The ICQ scores formed two components in the mothers' analysis, and one in the fathers'analysis. Predictors of postpartum ICQ scores were the postpartum ICQ components and the anxiety and…

Temperament of nine-month olds was assessed by means of questionnaires and two laboratory visits. Mothers' and fathers' agreement on questionnaire scales was low, and their factor structures differed. In laboratory measures, fearfulness and pleasure showed cross-situation generality, short-term stability, and convergence with questionnaire scales.…

Investigated the usefulness of Carey's Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire in the Chinese culture and used the questionnaire to assess the temperamental characteristics of Chinese babies. While the general pattern of results resembled data from Carey's American sample, differences were found, which could be interpreted in terms of response…

Temporal stability of play behavior and its consistency among toys differing in complexity was assessed by observing 40 eight-month-old infants. The relationship of stability of play to temperament was examined. Findings support the idea that behavioral consistency in infancy is similar to that reported for older children. (RH)

Investigated relationships between mothers' perception of infants temperament at 6 months and their behavior toward their infants at 6 and 12 months of age among 40 firstborn Israeli infants. Temperamental intensity ratings were related to auditory stimulation and contingent positive vocalization for girls and to increased physical contact for…

Using a version of the "learned helplessness" paradigm, assesses mothers' performance on a solvable task following pretreatments that involved exposure to an infant cry but that differed in the mothers' ability to exert control over termination of the cry. Proposes that learned helplessness models are relevant to the study of…

A total of 114 infants at three age levels (11, 18, and 28 weeks) were rated by their mothers on a termperament questionnaire and subjected to a habituation procedure. Results suggest that subject loss in habituation studies may be the result of nonrandom individual difference factors and not just the result of temporary fluctuations in state.…

Notes that 4-month olds who show a low threshold to become distressed and motorically aroused to unfamiliar stimuli are more likely than others to become fearful and subdued during early childhood, while infants who show a high arousal threshold are more likely to become bold and sociable. Considers implications for psychopathology and relation…