Mary K. Rothbart’s three dimensions of temperament

Mary K. Rothbart views temperament as the individual personality differences in infants and young children that are present prior to the development of higher cognitive and social aspects of personality. ^[1] Rothbart further defines temperament as individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation that manifest in the domains of emotion, activity and attention. Moving away from classifying infants into categories, Mary Rothbart identified three underlying dimensions of temperament. ^[2] Using factor analysis on data from 3 -12 month old children, three broad factors emerged and were labelled surgency/extraversion, negative effect, and effortful control. ^[1]

Surgency/Extraversion

Surgency/Extraversion includes positive anticipation, impulsivity, increased levels of activity and a desire for sensation seeking. ^[3] This factor reflects the degree to which a child is generally happy, active, and enjoys vocalizing and seeking stimulation. ^[2] Increased levels of smiling and laughter are observed in babies high in surgency/extraversion. ^[1] 10-11 year olds with higher levels of surgency/extraversion are more likely to develop externalizing problems like acting out; however, they are less likely to develop internalizing problems like shyness and low self-esteem. ^[4]

Negative affect

Negative affect includes fear, frustration, sadness, discomfort, ^[3] and anger. ^[1] This factor also reflects the degree to which a child is shy and not easily calmed. ^[2] Anger and frustration is seen as early as 2 to 3 months. Anger and frustration, together, predict externalizing and internalizing difficulties. Anger, alone, is later related to externalizing problems, while fear is associated with internalizing difficulties. Fear as evidenced by behavioural inhibition is seen as early as 7-10 months and later predicts childrens’ fearfulness and lower levels of aggression. ^[5]

Effortful Control

Effortful control includes the focusing and shifting of attention, inhibitory control, perceptual sensitivity, and a low threshold for pleasure. ^[3] This factor reflects the degree to which a child can focus attention, is not easily distracted, ^[2] can restrain a dominant response in order to execute a non-dominant response, and employ planning. When high in effortful control, six to seven year olds, tend to be more empathetic and lower in aggressiveness. ^[3] Higher levels of effortful control at age seven also predict lower externalizing problems at age 11. ^[6] Children high on negative affect show decreased internalizing and externalizing problems when they are also high on effortful control. ^[5] Rothbart suggests that effortful control is dependent on the development of executive attention skills in the early years. In turn, executive attention skills allows greater self-control over reactive tendencies. Effortful control shows stability from infancy into the school years ^[5] and also predicts conscience. ^[7]

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