Temperament and Social Relationships: Multiple Methods for Understanding the Whole Child Across Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Social relationships are foundational for socioemotional development and psychological well-being. From birth, social interactions shape how children understand and navigate their social world. However, temperament, biologically-based individual differences in susceptibility to environmental experience and behavioral expression, may color how children engage in social interactions. Over time, differences in social engagement may impact social relationships and psychopathology risk. The presentations in the current symposium provide novel evidence for the role of childhood temperament in social relationships. The first presenter will examine how infant temperamental negative affect and behavior during infant-mother social interactions relate to infant emotion regulation, as measured by delta-beta coupling. The second presenter will examine how infant temperamental negative affect relates to trajectories of social attention during infancy and social behavior during a peer social interaction at 24-months. The third presenter will examine how infant exuberance relates to childhood self-regulation and peer relationships. The final presenter will examine relations between temperament/personality, sibling relationships and internalizing and externalizing problems across three samples of Dutch children from preschool age through adolescence. These studies span a variety of social relationships, temperament profiles and age ranges and use multi-method approaches to investigate the role of temperament in social relationships. Together, these studies will provide evidence from infancy and into adolescence for the role of temperament in social relationships and psychopathology risk.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chairs

• Alicia Vallorani, University of Maryland - College Park

• Berenice Anaya, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Individual Presentations

• Trajectories of Infant EEG Delta-Beta Coupling in the Context of Mother-Infant Dyadic Interactions: The Role of Infant Temperament in Coloring These Relations - Presenting Author: Berenice Anaya, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Vanessa LoBue, Rutgers University; Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Infant Temperamental Negative Affect Relates to Social Behavior with Peers but not Early Social Attention Trajectories - Presenting Author: Alicia Vallorani, University of Maryland - College Park; Kelley E Gunther, Yale University; Jessica Burris, University of Rutgers - Newark; Vanessa LoBue, Rutgers University; Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Temperamental Exuberance and Peer Relationships in Early to Middle Childhood - Presenting Author: Sarah B. R. Kravitz, Catholic University of America; Grace Imondi, The Catholic University of America; Kathryn A Degnan, Catholic University of America

• The Link Between Personality, Sibling Relationship Quality and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Three Developmental Periods - Presenting Author: Kirsten Buist, Utrecht University