Cognitive aspects of childhood temperament: Behavioral inhibition and threat.

摘要

Childhood temperament, an inherited predisposition for particular behavioral, emotional, or physiological qualities, has a lasting effect on child development. Some children (called high-reactive) are distressed in response to unfamiliar stimuli at 4 months of age, tend to respond to unfamiliar people and objects with behavioral inhibition in childhood, and have increased risk for developing anxiety symptoms (Kagan and Snidman, 2004). Previous research has suggested that anxious individuals are biased to preferentially process threatening information (Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1997). There is growing interest in the cognitive underpinnings of childhood temperament, but it is unknown whether high-reactive and inhibited children also display a cognitive bias favoring threat.; This dissertation presents three procedures that were conducted with adolescents (average age 14 years) who were participants in a longitudinal study of childhood temperament. Each procedure was designed to examine cognitive processing patterns in a particular domain. The first examined interpretation of ambiguous pictures. The second examined autobiographical memory reports in response to cue-words. The third examined selective attention to angry vs. happy faces with a visual probe task. For each procedure, it was hypothesized that high-reactive and/or inhibited children would preferentially process threatening information.; This dissertation offers mixed support for the hypothesis. High reactive/inhibited children, particularly boys, tended to report that people in pictures of ambiguous scenes were fighting more than low reactive/uninhibited children did. Low reactive/uninhibited children were more likely to offer interpretations related to positive emotions, such as fun, affection, happiness, and helping. While there were few differences in children's reports of autobiographical memories, inhibited children generally took longer to report memories related to specific cue words, particularly when the cue word typically evoked pleasant memories (such as the word excited ). There did not seem to be temperamental differences in selective attention to happy vs. angry faces. Rather, all children exhibited a small bias favoring angry faces.; While the results did not unanimously support the hypothesized information processing preference for threat, this research suggests that there may be some temperamental differences in cognitive patterns.