PSYC 250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Stella Chess, Paul Ekman, Social Cognition
Document Summary
Psyc 250 temperament- individual di erences in responding to the environment. Temperament - traits, genetic, highly unchangeable, stable, life-birth-death. Child may look to parent in fearful situation, self-regulation. Some kids will just start to cry and do not have self-regulation. Kagan: argued that temperament was innate-early infant temperament could predict later dominant personality traits. Early traits dominate over or shape environmental in uences. This would mean that if you were a so-called happy baby you would likely retain that disposition throughout your lifespan. Problem: child is rendered a passive victim of their genetic inheritance since the role social factors play in directing genetic and neutral activity is largely ignored. Stella chess and alexander thomas (1977) conducted pioneering longitudinal research on infant temperament. Three categories (based on parents reports) (percentages come from the participants in their study): The remaining infants did not t into these categories (35%)
