Continuity and Discontinuity of Behavioral Inhibition and Exuberance: Psychophysiological and Behavioral Influences across the First Four Years of Life

Abstract

Four-month-old infants were screened (N = 433) for temperamental patterns thought to predict behavioral inhibition, including motor reactivity and the expression of negative affect. Those selected (N = 153) were assessed at multiple age points across the first 4 years of life for behavioral signs of inhibition as well as psychophysiological markers of frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry. Four-month temperament was modestly predictive of behavioral inhibition over the first 2 years of life and of behavioral reticence at age 4. Those infants who remained continuously inhibited displayed right frontal EEG asymmetry as early as 9 months of age while those who changed from inhibited to noninhibited did not. Change in behavioral inhibition was related to experience of nonparental care. A second group of infants, selected at 4 months of age for patterns of behavior thought to predict temperamental exuberance, displayed a high degree of continuity over time in these behaviors.

Fearful temperament and stress reactivity among preschool‐aged children

“…These analyses of temperament and stress reactivity were abstracted from a larger study focused on understanding the impact of child care quality assessed in family child care homes on children's physiology and behavior. Consequently, all of the children in the study attended family child care for at least 30 hours per week, an experience that has been associated with discontinuity in inhibition during childhood (Fox et al, 2001). Likewise, most of the children were Caucasian and had parents with at least a high school education.…”

Measuring the Plasticity of Social Approach: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of the PEERS Intervention on EEG Asymmetry in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Specifically, multiple studies (Davidson et al 1990;Davidson 1998;Sutton and Davidson 1997) have found that individuals who exhibit higher relative left-hemisphere dominance are characterized as higher in approach motivation and positive affective style, and that this characteristic may be protective against stress in at-risk children (Lopez-Duran et al 2012). In contrast, individuals who exhibit higher relative right-hemisphere dominance are characterized by withdrawal, negative emotional style, and poorer outcomes (Fox et al 2001;Miskovic et al 2010;Mitchell and Pössel 2011;Smith and Bell 2010). Although most studies have found these differences to pertain mainly to asymmetry of frontal cortical activity, two studies also found similar results at more temporal/central cortical locations (Davidson et al 1990;Sutton and Davidson 1997).…”

Resting state and personality component (BIS/BAS) predict the brain activity (EEG and fNIRS measure) in response to emotional cues

“…The studies associated with frontal asymmetry, for instance, include child temperament (Fox, Henderson, Rubin, Calkins, & Schmidt, 2001), self‐report measures of affect and personality (Tomarken & Davidson, 1994), social anxiety (Schmidt, 1999), or social status (Tomarken, Dichter, Garber, & Simien, 2004). Two main models were adopted to describe subjective asymmetries in brain activity within the frontal areas, that is the dispositional model of affective style, which postulates that people possess a general tendency to respond predominantly with either an approach or a withdrawal behavior independently from the situational differences (Balconi & Mazza, 2010; Davidson, 1998); the valence model, which supposes that cortical differences between the two hemispheres are attributable to positive versus negative valence of emotional conditions (Everhart, Carpenter, Carmona, Ethridge, & Demaree, 2003; Russel, 2003; Silberman & Weingartner, 1986).…”

“…Because the pattern of frontal EEG asymmetry at rest was found to be stable across time (Schmidt, Cote, Santesso, & Milner, 2003; Tomarken, Davidson, Wheeler, & Kinney, 1992) and its appearance early in life is predictive of personality aspects (Fox et al., 2001), some have argued that this metric represents a “trait‐like” marker of dispositional affective style (Davidson, 1993, 2000). …”