Examined predictive validity of measures of infant habituation and later aspects of temperament. Found babies who habituated sooner (fewer trials to criterion) at five months of age and had fewer peak fixations during habituation were rated by mothers as more active, intense, and negative in mood, and less persistent and adaptable. Age differences…

Administered The Matching Familiar Figures Test to 45 seven- and eight-year-olds to assess the relationship between cognitive style and temperamental variables such as distractibility, persistence, and mood. (HOD)

Research supported by the Cooperative Research Program, U.S. Office of Education. (DS)

Addresses the controversy regarding the conceptual overlap between difficult child temperament and behavior problems using treatment outcome study data. Forty mothers of preschool children were randomly assigned to either a temperament-focused parent-training program or a wait-list control group. Results suggest that the observed associations…

Describes the development of the School-Age Temperament Inventory (SATI) as a parental report of children ages 8 through 11 years. A total of 435 mothers and 228 of their spouses served as parent informants in its assessment. Suggests that the SATI has adequate validity and reliability for use in research and structured parenting programs,…

Examined the endorsement of interpersonal conflict resolution tactics and links to personality and teacher-related school adjustment. Subjects were 162 African, Mexican, and European American sixth through eighth graders. Across all three ethnic groups and both sexes, negotiation was consistently rated the best choice for dealing with…

Inhibitory self-control is proposed as a temperamental dimension. Soviet Theory suggests that internal inhibition provides the basis for verbally regulated inhibition and is determined by temperament. Investigators of this relationship found a significant correlation between performance on a measure of internal inhibition and the measures of…

Temperament development was studied in 39 full-term small-for-gestational-age infants and 30 full-term appropriate-for-gestational-age infants. Temperament was measured at 4, 8, and 12 months of age using a behavioral assessment procedure and questionnaire ratings. Findings indicated that restricted fetal growth negatively affects infant…

Summarizes several studies of a goodness of fit model of psychosocial functioning. This model proposes that better psychosocial functioning will take place when a person's temperament is in accord with environmental demands. The studies done to date provide some support for the model. (Author/CI)

Explores the effects of age spacing of siblings on three general personality dimensions: locus of control, introversion/extroversion and neuroticism. Subjects were 191 college students enrolled in four introductory psychology courses. (MP)

Evaluates objective/subjective factor model of parent reports of child characteristcs. A total of 27 mother-report scales were collected when children were 6, l3, 24, and 36 months old; scales measured various contructs of temperament, mother-child relationship, child competence, and problem behavior. Factor analysis of scales indicated that…

A total of 133 children was assessed at ages one, two, three, four, and five, in the teen period, and in young adulthood. Difficult/easy temperament scores in the earlier periods were compared with the later young adult scores. Ages three and four were found to be better predictors of young adults' temperament than were ages one, two, and five.…

Examination of stories invented by four- and five-year olds indicated that narrative skill was a better predictor of the inclusion of conflict and psychological causation in a story than was age. Plotted narratives included conflict and psychological causation more often than did less-structured narratives. (BC)

Examined change and consistency in emotionality among children, ages 4 to 12, every 2 years for 8 years. Data revealed that: early individual differences in emotionality and emotion regulation predict similar functioning years later; and that children become more emotionally regulated and less emotionally intense with age. (LBT)

Measures of visual alertness, irritability, and activity based on repeated observations in equivalent situational contexts showed good intersession stabilities, which were consistently higher than measures based on lengthier over-all session observations, and substantially higher than stabilities typically reported for measures of newborn…