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Exuberant and inhibited toddlers: Stability of temperament and risk for problem behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2008

Cynthia A. Stifter ,
Samuel Putnam  and
Laudan Jahromi
Cynthia A. Stifter*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Samuel Putnam
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College
Laudan Jahromi
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Cynthia S. Stifter, 105 White Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803; E-mail: tvr@psu.edu.
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Abstract

Temperament, effortful control, and problem behaviors at 4.5 years were assessed in 72 children classified as exuberant, inhibited, and low reactive as 2-year-olds. Exuberant toddlers were more positive, socially responsive to novel persons, less shy, and rated as having more problem behaviors, including externalizing and internalizing behaviors, than other children as preschoolers. Two forms of effortful control, the ability to delay a response and the ability to produce a subdominant response, were associated with fewer externalizing behaviors, whereas expressing more negative affect (relative to positive/neutral affect) when disappointed was related to more internalizing behaviors. Interaction effects implicated high levels of unregulated emotion during disappointment as a risk factor for problem behaviors in exuberant children.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Spring 2008 , pp. 401 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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Footnotes

This study was supported by a grant to the first author from the National Institutes of Mental Health (MH 50843). We thank the families who participated in the Emotional Beginnings Project.

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