Continuity and discontinuity of behavioral inhibition and exuberance: psychophysiological and behavioral influences across the first four years of life

Child Dev. 2001 Jan-Feb;72(1):1-21. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00262.

Abstract

Four-month-old infants were screened (N = 433) for temperamental patterns thought to predict behavioral inhibition, including motor reactivity and the expression of negative affect. Those selected (N = 153) were assessed at multiple age points across the first 4 years of life for behavioral signs of inhibition as well as psychophysiological markers of frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry. Four-month temperament was modestly predictive of behavioral inhibition over the first 2 years of life and of behavioral reticence at age 4. Those infants who remained continuously inhibited displayed right frontal EEG asymmetry as early as 9 months of age while those who changed from inhibited to noninhibited did not. Change in behavioral inhibition was related to experience of nonparental care. A second group of infants, selected at 4 months of age for patterns of behavior thought to predict temperamental exuberance, displayed a high degree of continuity over time in these behaviors.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation
  • Age Factors
  • Arousal / physiology
  • Child Behavior / psychology*
  • Child, Preschool
  • Electroencephalography
  • Female
  • Frontal Lobe / physiology
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Infant Behavior / psychology*
  • Inhibition, Psychological*
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Male
  • Motor Skills / physiology*
  • Parent-Child Relations
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Play and Playthings
  • Reaction Time
  • Temperament / physiology