Behavioural inhibition in the second year of life is a hypothesized predictor for shyness, social anxiety and depression in later childhood, adolescence and even adulthood. To search for the earliest indicators of this fundamental temperamental trait, this study examined whether behavioural characteristics in early infancy can predict behavioural…

Examined the relationship between temperament and craniofacial variation in 372 infants observed at ages 4, 14, and 21 months. Found that high-reactive 4-month olds, who are predisposed to becoming timid, inhibited toddlers, had smaller bizygomatic ratios (narrower faces) at both 14 and 21 months compared to their low-reactive peers. (MDM)

Longitudinal study of two cohorts of children selected in the second or third year of life as being extremely cautious and shy (inhibited) or fearless and outgoing (uninhibited) in regards to unfamiliar events revealed preservation of these two behavioral qualities through their sixth year. (PCB)

Investigates the preservation of inhibited and uninhibited behaviors in 100 children of 14, 20, 32, and 48 months. Children who had been extremely inhibited or uninhibited at 14 and 20 months differed significantly at 4 years of age in behavior and cardiac acceleration. (RJC)

Behavioral and physiological assessments of 41 seven-and-one-half-year-old children who had been selected to be inhibited or uninhibited at 21 months and observed again at four and five-and-one-half years revealed that each of the two original behavioral profiles predicted theoretically reasonable derivatives. Shy children remained shy, while…

Provides further support for the contention held by Thomas, Chess, and Korn (1982) that the concept of difficult temperament is not totally a construction of the parents. (MP)

Observed 193 children at 4.5 years who had been classified at 4 months as high or low reactive to stimulation for signs of inhibited or uninhibited behavior. Children classified as high reactive were less spontaneous and less sociable than low-reactive children, but only a small proportion maintained a consistently inhibited or uninhibited…

A group of 43 children classified as either behaviorally inhibited or uninhibited at 21 months were observed at four years of age in situations designed to evaluate behavior with an unfamiliar peer, heart rate and heart rate variability to cognitively challenging tasks, reluctance to answer difficult questions, and differential fixation of an…

This study examines infant temperament (inhibited and uninhibited styles) as a predictor of behavior in the kindergarten classroom. Thirty-one kindergarten children were observed in their classrooms for approximately 1.5 hours on each of four occasions between September and January. Fourteen children (8 girls, 6 boys) had been classified as high…

Research with young Caucasian children found that, in response to unfamiliar situations, about 15 percent were consistently shy or inhibited, while another 15 percent were consistently sociable or uninhibited, and that these traits persisted through age eight. Both physiological and environmental factors were found to influence these temperamental…

The development of two temperamental characteristics--the tendency to approach (uninhibited) and the tendency to avoid (inhibited) unfamiliar events--may be partially controlled by genetic predisposition. Discusses the results of a study indicating that the level of motor responses and crying in response to unfamiliar stimuli in four month olds…