Abstract
We describe large-sample research using the Infant Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB; Goldsmith and Rothbart, 1996) in 1,076 infants at 6 and 12 months of age. The Lab-TAB was designed to assess temperament dimensions through a series of episodes that mimic everyday situations. Our goal is to provide guidelines for scoring Lab-TAB episodes to derive temperament composites. We also present a set of analyses examining mean differences and stability of temperament in early infancy, gender differences in infant temperament, as well as a validation of Lab-TAB episodes and composites with parent reported Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ; Rothbart, 1981) scales. In general, laboratory observed temperament was only modestly related to parent reported temperament. However, temperament measures were significantly stable across time and several gender differences that align with previous research emerged. In sum, the Lab-TAB usefully assesses individual differences in infant emotionality.
Highlights
Temperament is manifest in individual differences in emotional reactivity and regulation (Goldsmith et al, 1987; Goldsmith, 1993)
We describe the use of the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB), an internationally used method to assess infant and child temperamental dimensions
We address the following questions: (1) How do we construct scores for laboratory assessments of infant temperament? (2) What degree of convergence exists between laboratory and parent report infant temperament? (3) To what extent does gender relate to infant temperament, and are temperament dimensions stable from 6 to 12 months?
Summary
Temperament is manifest in individual differences in emotional reactivity and regulation (Goldsmith et al, 1987; Goldsmith, 1993). Researchers often use a more general measure of negative affect in early infancy, we believe that a broad dimension of proneness to distress is less useful than more focal dimensions of fearfulness, anger proneness, and sadness, which show differences in function, expression, and development (Campos et al, 1983; Clifford et al, 2015). Interest/persistence reflects the motivational system underlying many attentional systems and the notion of individual differences in the deployment of interest/persistence is often included as part of a broader dimension such as effortful control (Rothbart and Goldsmith, 1985) or task orientation (Matheny, 1980) These measures show stability across infancy (Rothbart et al, 2000; Auerbach et al, 2004) but should not be confused with the cognitive construct of visual attention used to mark the development of executive function (Colombo, 2002).
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