Infant Temperament and Early Childhood Behavior Problems: Variation in Effects by Family Socioeconomic Status

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Abstract

Numerous studies have linked children’s difficult temperament with poorer developmental outcomes, including increased behavioral problems at school entry. However, these studies have exclusively employed correlational studies that compare unrelated children who differ in mother-reported, or observer-rated, temperament. This approach leaves open the possibility that it is not difficult temperament that leads to poorer behavioral outcomes, but rather some other factor—such as maternal mental health— that is correlated with both temperament and behavioral problems that drives the association. Furthermore, no prior studies have examined whether associations between temperament and child outcomes may differ by socioeconomic status (SES). This is important because if the negative influence of difficult temperament on child outcomes is stronger for low-SES children, this puts these children—who are already at risk for poorer developmental outcomes—at an even greater disadvantage.

In this study, we address both questions, drawing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY), a nationally representative survey of youth ages 14 to 21 in 1979 who were re-interviewed regularly thereafter. Beginning in 1986, the NLSY began following all children of the female NLSY respondents to assess children’s development. We leverage the large number of sibling pairs that result from this study design by employing sibling fixed-effects models. These models control for unobserved family characteristics that do not vary between siblings and that typically bias the association between temperament and child outcomes in correlational OLS models.

Mothers reported on children’s difficult temperament in the first interview following each child’s birth (prior to age two). Child behavior was assessed using the total, internalizing and externalizing subscales of the Behavior Problems Index (Zill & Peterson, 1986), taken when children were age 5 (mean=61.88 months). Maternal education, our measure of SES, was taken from the year of each child’s birth.

We find that within families, more difficult temperaments predicted greater internalizing and externalizing behavior problems (Table 1). These effects were stronger for children of less educated mothers in the domain of externalizing, but not internalizing, behavior problems (Table 2). Findings were consistent across linear, logged, and binary measures of difficult temperament.

These findings demonstrate that difficult temperament has a negative effect on children’s behavior problems. They also provide the first piece of evidence that this effect for externalizing behavior problems is stronger for low-SES children, likely placing them at an even greater risk for poor developmental outcomes than their low-SES non-difficult temperament peers.

Authors

• Christina M Padilla, Georgetown University
  Presenting Author

• Caitlin Hines, Georgetown University

• Rebecca Ryan, Georgetown University