Appunti completi e schematizzati su tutto il corso di Individual differences Iin personality and temperament

NEURAL MODELS OF TEMPERAMENT

Emotion as an Information-Processing System

Emotions can be seen as broadly integrative systems that order feeling, thought, and action (LeDoux, 1989). They also represent the output of information processing networks assessing the meaning or affective significance of events for the individual. When there are individual differences in temperamental emotionality, there are thus differences in object perception thalamic connections as well. In neural processing of emotion, routes sensory information about object qualities of a stimulus through pathways (LeDoux, 1989). Simultaneously, information is routed to the limbic system and the amygdala, where memories of the affective meaning of the stimulus further influence the process. Later object processing can update the emotional analysis, but in the meantime, back projections from the amygdala can influence subsequent sensory processing. Output of the hypothalamus amygdala to organized autonomic reactions via the and

tocorpus striatummotor activation via the reflects the motivational aspect ofthe emotions (LeDoux, 1989).

Attention as a Control System

• Neuroimaging studies demonstrate connections between emotional processing networks and the executive attention system that allow the selection of emotional information for conscious processing so that we may or may not be aware of our emotional evaluations.
• Attentional systems can select for conscious processing aspects of emotional analyses, and emotion can also socialinfluence the focusing and shifting of attention.
• An important aspect of adaptation involves the appropriateness of a child's social interaction and the related acceptance of the child by others.
• Information about the state of others will thus be an important contributor to appropriate social action, and failure of this information to access action and consciousness can be a critical element in the development of disordered functioning.
• When attention is focused on threatening stimuli or

On the self, access to information about others is likely to be less accessible.

MEASUREMENT APPROACHES

Approaches to measuring temperament in children have included:

• caregiver reports-questionnaire (can tap the extensive knowledge base of caregivers, who have seen the child in many different situations over a long period of time; possible error: there may be perceptual or response biases in the informant). Questionnaires are also convenient—they are relatively inexpensive to develop, administer, and analyze, and allow the study of multiple variables. Parent reports have been extensively used in personality, clinical, and developmental research, including the study of temperament. At the same time, the validity of parent reports about children's temperament has been particularly questioned.
• self-reports for older children.
• naturalistic observations (can possess high degrees of objectivity and ecological validity, are expensive, and often show relatively low)

day-to-day reliability so that it becomes difficult for researchers to collect an adequate sample of relevant behaviours

structured laboratory observations allow the researcher to precisely control the context and specific elicitors of the child's behavior, as well as the time course and intensity of the child's reaction; limit the kinds of behavior that can be elicited, and the repeated testing necessary to measure a complex trait in the laboratory may be unfeasible or involve

TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Early theorists of temperament stressed the importance of finding stability of temperament over time. Thus, for Buss and Plomin (1975), to qualify as a "temperament," a characteristic must demonstrate stability from its early appearance to late in life. More recent approaches to the field, however, have noted that temperament itself develops, and the study of this development allows us a greater understanding of both normative and individual differences. Temperamental

measures can fail to show normative stability, for example, but genetically related individuals may show strong similarities in their patterns of change. These results have been found in behavioral genetics work on both activity level (Eaton, 1994) and behavioral inhibition (Matheny, 1989). Even for dimensions showing normative stability, expressions of temperament are likely to change over time. In measuring negative emotionality, for example, 6-year-olds spend much less time crying than do 6-month-olds, but worry a good deal more. To appropriately assess stability of temperamental characteristics, it is necessary to establish continuity in the temperament constructs studied across time. This review was organized according to the Five-Factor model, and began with studies of temperament and personality in infancy. Considerable stability was found in measures of these variables after about the age of 3 years, given evidence for the rapid development of executive attention and effortful

During the first 3 years of life, possibly related to early instability. As attention systems stabilize, controls over earlier more reactive tendencies may increase prospects for stability of temperament and personality. Beyond childhood, levels of stability continue to increase through adolescence and young adulthood, not peaking until after the age of 50.

Contributions of Temperament to Development

Temperament constructs are fundamental to thinking about trajectories of social-emotional and personality development. As not earlier, temperament is implicated in social learning, with some children more responsive to reward, others to punishment. Some children will be highly responsive to both. Temperament is also closely linked to the development of coping strategies. Thus, the practice and reinforcement of children's temperamentally based responses may serve to magnify initial differences through a positive feedback process. Individual differences in temperament also promote the

child's active seeking or avoiding of environments.niche picking."

these genotype/environment interactions as "Gray's (1991) theory, extraverts, high in positive affect and approach (the BAS),are seen as more susceptible to reward, and introverts, high in fear and shyness, topunishment (the BIS). This model suggests that care-giver treatment may havediffering developmental out-comes, depending on differences among children.

Thus, a positive and outgoing dis-position may serve as a protective factoreliciting the support of others in a high-risk environment.

In addition to the direct effects of developing control systems of fear and effortfulcontrol, children who develop a given control system early in life may have quitedifferent experiences than children who develop the system later (Rothbart & Der-ryberry, 1981). For example, the child who develops fear-related inhibition late is likelyto experience a greater number of interactions with potentially

but they may be carried over to new relationships when more positive expectations and coping methods are lacking. Thus, the experience of early criticism and rejection, which may have its strongest impact on children prone to distress, can have long-term consequences for problems in development. Mischel's anxious or defensive set, and Ayduk's (2004) analysis of RS describes an but alternatively, children's experiences with others may be generally of acceptance. If so, the child will be less likely to be on guard about rejection or to show a defensive perceptual set. Instead, the child's attention can be directed more broadly, allowing greater conscious awareness of the state and needs of others. More fearful, and irritable children may be more likely to develop such distress prone habits as RS, but after experiencing high levels of rejection, even a low distress-prone child would be likely to develop RS. Surgent and approaching children may also be more likely to expect acceptance,

but even the more distress prone child may lack the conditions for becoming sensitive to rejection when others are not critical and rejecting. This model stresses temperament-environment interactions for a number of social-emotional processes that are likely to be differentiated by context.

When repeatedly exercised, habitual activations of clusters of thoughts, emotions, and action tendencies to a particular stimulus or situation become very likely to occur and difficult to change. When mental habits involve distress, how might they be weakened or disconnections achieved in the habit? In Eastern traditions, this is done partly through diminishing the role of the ego so that situations can become less threatening to the self. Mental discipline and meditation also allow weakening of links between thoughts and emotions or thoughts and action tendencies.

Western therapy similarly works through the clients' patterns of reaction, attempting