The Long Shadow of Temperament

by Jerome Kagan, Nancy Snidman

We have seen these children--the shy and the sociable, the cautious and the daring--and wondered what makes one avoid new experience and another avidly pursue it. At the crux of the issue surrounding the contribution of nature to development is the study that Jerome Kagan and his colleagues have been conducting for more than two decades. In The Long Shadow of Temperament , Kagan and Nancy Snidman summarize the results of this unique inquiry into human temperaments, one of the best-known longitudinal studies in developmental psychology. These results reveal how deeply certain fundamental temperamental biases can be preserved over development. Identifying two extreme temperamental types--inhibited and uninhibited in childhood, and high-reactive and low-reactive in very young babies--Kagan and his colleagues returned to these children as adolescents. Surprisingly, one of the temperaments revealed in infancy predicted a cautious, fearful personality in early childhood and a dour mood in adolescence. The other bias predicted a bold childhood personality and an exuberant, sanguine mood in adolescence. These personalities were matched by different biological properties. In a masterly summary of their wide-ranging exploration, Kagan and Snidman conclude that these two temperaments are the result of inherited biologies probably rooted in the differential excitability of particular brain structures. Though the authors appreciate that temperamental tendencies can be modified by experience, this compelling work--an empirical and conceptual tour-de-force--shows how long the shadow of temperament is cast over psychological development.

Genres: Psychology, Parenting

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 23, 2004

About the author

Jerome Kagan was an American psychologist, who was the Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, as well as, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was one of the key pioneers of developmental psychology.
Kagan has shown that an infant's "temperament" is quite stable over time, in that certain behaviors in infancy are predictive of certain other behavior patterns in adolescence. He did extensive work on temperament and gave insight on emotion.
In 2001, he was listed in the Review of General Psychology among the one hundred most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century. After being evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively, Kagan was twenty-second on the list, just above Carl Jung.

Reviews

[Rodney Gomez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in the science of personality.

[Jane]

This book was a dream, it was smart and interesting and it made me understand so much more... as a kid and young woman tortured by her amygdala. My anxiety decreased with time, because I go to church and pray a lot to Jesus and I go to therapy but now I understand why I suffered so much as a child. I had a different kinda brain. This book was a dream... I loved this final paragraph at about the end of the book:

"But a rash of books published over the last 25 years claim that
unconflicted self-interest is to be expected, given our evolutionary
history. After pointing to examples of self-interest in many animal
species, these writers imply that because this motive is present
throughout nature, humans need not feel ashamed of consistently
catering to self. However, anyone with a modest knowledge of the
natural world and minimal inferential skill can find examples in
nature that support almost any ethical message desired. Those who
wish to sanctify marriage can point to pair-bonding gibbons; those
who think infidelity is more natural can nominate chimpanzees. To
argue that people are naturally sociable, cite baboons; to argue
that humans are for the most part solitary, focus on orangutans. If
you believe sex should replace fighting, celebrate the Bonobo chim-
panzee. If mothers should care for their infants, rhesus monkeys
are the model; if fathers should be the primary caretakers, point to
titi monkeys. If one feels that women should be in positions of
dominance, elephants are the species to emulate. If one feels that
men should dominate harems of beautiful women, elephant seals
will bolster the case. Nature has enough diversity to fit almost any
ethical taste."

Yup... I also think there is no right way to be, sometimes is ok to be cautious, but going to Jesus helped me tremeandously in overcoming my traumas and thriving in social situations.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8

So I guess... problem solved. Thank you, Bye.

[Wouter Zwemmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kagen en Snidman betogen dat mensen worden geboren met een zeker temperament, een persoonlijkheidsaanleg. Dat temperament bepaalt in hoge mate onze emoties en gedragingen. Niet volledig omdat mensen in hun leven (bij)leren.

Kagan en Snidman beschrijven uitgebreid onderzoek onder kinderen met opmerkelijke uitkomsten. Ze hebben twee typen temperamenten gevonden gebaseerd op activiteit van de amygdala: het verlegen, introverte en angstige type en het extraverte, sociale type met zelfvertrouwen. In grote lijnen verschillen de typen ook in fysiologie: het eerste is slanker, met een smaller gelaat en meer dan gemiddeld vaker blauwe ogen dan het tweede. De onderzoekers theoretiseren over de redenen daarvoor: waarschijnlijk leidt de genen-samenstelling die leidt tot de temperament-typen ook tot de geconstateerde uiterlijke kenmerken.

Kagen en Snidman hebben adviezen voor ouders. Onderschat niet de rol van ouders in de persoonlijkheidsvorming van het kind, kinderen vormen zich naar het voorbeeld van hun ouders. Tegelijkertijd, overschat de invloed ook niet, want voor een deel is de persoonlijkheid van het kind bepaald in het aangeboren temperament. Introverte kinderen moet niet overbeschermd worden van verandering en uitdaging, juist om het te leren daar mee om te gaan. Ouders van kinderen met een meer extravert temperament dienen het kind goed op te voeden in beheersing van agressie, ongehoorzaamheid en het respecteren van eigendommen, om te voorkomen dat het kind asociaal gedrag ontwikkelt.