Temperament Development in Early Childhood
Summary
Temperament refers to early-emerging individual differences in emotional reactivity and self-regulation that are observable in infancy and toddlerhood. These characteristic patterns, often described in terms of surgency (positive affectivity), negative emotionality and effortful control, arise from genetic predispositions and neurobiological maturation, yet are continually shaped by caregiving practices and broader environmental contexts. From the first months, infants display broad temperamental tendencies—some react to novelty with high arousal, others show calmer demeanours—but their day-to-day expressions fluctuate according to sleep, feeding, social interactions and stress. As the brain’s regulatory networks develop, children gradually acquire the capacity to modulate their emotional responses through attentional focusing and inhibitory control, supporting adaptive behaviour in social and learning environments. Mapping these developmental trajectories is crucial for understanding how early dispositions contribute to later social adjustment, cognitive skill acquisition and mental health, and for designing supportive interventions across diverse cultural settings.
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Temperament Development in Early Childhood publication trend
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Technical terms
Surgency/Positive affectivity: A dimension reflecting the propensity for high levels of activity, sociability and enjoyment of novel stimuli.
Negative emotionality: A trait indicating susceptibility to distress, fearfulness or frustration when encountering challenging situations.
Effortful control: The capacity to voluntarily regulate attention and behaviour, including inhibitory control and attentional focusing.
Within-person variability: Short-term fluctuations in an individual’s emotional or behavioural expressions, observed across days or weeks.
References
- How was your child’s temperament today and last week? Considering within-person variability in the measurement of infant temperament. European Journal of Personality (2024).
- Temperamental Development among Preterm Born Children. An RCT Follow-up Study. Children (2020).
- Associations between observed and reported infant negative affectivity, fear and self‐regulation, and early communicative development—Evidence from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. Infancy (2022).
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