The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life (2020) by Jay Belsky and others is one the best books on child temperament and development you can get. The authors established three basic temperaments among three-year-olds and followed their development into adulthood in a longitudinal study.
Thomas and Chess distinguished three types of temperaments in early childhood: easy, difficult, and slow to warm up. The authors found five different types, with inhibited corresponding closely to “slow to warm up” and under-controlled corresponding to “difficult”:
This procedure enabled us to identify five types of children in a person-centered way.
Undercontrolled children, who comprised 10 percent of the Dunedin sample, were irritable and distractible, and appeared not to enjoy their experiences at the university lab at age three. They had a difficult time focusing on the tasks they were asked to complete, including sitting still. They also behaved impulsively rather than taking their time to reflect on what was being asked of them. These children therefore proved quite similar to Chess and Thomas’s “difficult” child.
Inhibited children, who made up 8 percent of the sample, were shy, fearful, barely communicative, at least verbally, and became upset when dealing with the unfamiliar examiner. Like their undercontrolled counterparts, they were also very distractible, having difficulty sustaining attention, but they were not impulsive. These children therefore proved quite similar to Chess and Thomas’s “slow-to-warm-up” child.
Confident children, who comprised 27 percent of the sample, were especially willing and eager to tackle and explore the activities that they were asked to engage in. They displayed little or no concern about separating from their parents, which was required for some of the testing. Interpersonally, they were very responsive to the examiner. In other words, they seemed to adjust very quickly to the laboratory context and the demands made on them. These children therefore proved quite similar to Chess and Thomas’s “easy” child.
Reserved children, who made up 15 percent of the sample, were uncomfortable with the testing situation, being shy, fearful, and self-critical. Unlike inhibited children, however, they were reasonably responsive when dealing with the examiner, and their discomfort did not interfere with their doing what was asked of them. So, despite being somewhat timid, they were able to orient toward and focus on the tasks they confronted.
Finally, well-adjusted children, who comprised 40 percent of the sample, were capable of being reserved and in control when it was required of them. They were reasonably self-confident and attempted to cope with difficult tasks, but they did not become unduly upset when a task (such as completing a puzzle) proved too difficult for them. They did display some initial hesitancy during testing, however, but warmed up and became friendly after a while.
The majority of children are well-adjusted and if you have a well-adjusted child there is usually not much you have to worry about. Such children are also called “dandelions”. Things are different for the undercontrolled and inhibited temperaments:
Overall, at age eighteen, the five groups of children differed on half the individually measured personality dimensions, but it was young adults who had been categorized as either undercontrolled or inhibited as toddlers who proved most similar to themselves fifteen years earlier by the time they finished or should have been finishing high school. Let’s consider the continuity in development we observed in the undercontrolled children before proceeding to address the developmental legacy of early inhibited temperament.
As young adults, the formerly undercontrolled toddlers showed limited behavioral restraint or control. At age eighteen, they described themselves as danger seeking and impulsive and were the least likely of all young adults to avoid harmful, exciting, and dangerous situations or to behave in reflective, cautious, careful, or planful ways—thinking and reflecting before doing. They also experienced and expressed a great deal of negative emotion in that they were prone to respond negatively—and strongly—to many everyday events. Thus, if they lost a game or if a friend proved unhelpful when assistance was sought, these youths were very likely to get upset and even lose their tempers. Additionally, they characterized themselves as mistreated and victimized, likely to be betrayed by others, and to be the targets of false rumors.
Belksy et al. characterised the undercontrolled toddlers/young adults as “moving against the world”. What about the inhibited children?
In adulthood, they proved to be overcontrolled, restrained behaviorally, and manifesting a nonassertive interpersonal orientation. As young adults, they preferred safe activities to dangerous ones more than all other eighteen-year-olds did. They also were the most cautious, most careful, and least impulsive. For example, when asked if they would take a risk if friends challenged them to do something scary—such as jump off a big boulder into a lake—they indicated that even the disrespect of their peers would not be sufficiently motivating to make them engage in such an activity. On what could be regarded as a more positive note, these formerly inhibited toddlers were the most likely of all young adults to refrain from taking advantage of others and were least likely to be aggressive toward others. Notably, though, they lacked social potency in that they were the least forceful and decisive of all eighteen-year-olds; they were not interested in influencing others or assuming leadership roles—in the classroom, on a team, or even when out with friends. As in the case of young adults who were undercontrolled as three-year-olds, these formerly inhibited children provided support for the claim “show me the child and I’ll show you the man.” Indeed, we came to view them as “moving away from the world” in both early childhood and young adulthood.
The “undercontrolled” and “inhibited” temperaments can therefore be seen as being located on opposite ends of a social spectrum, with undercontrolled being too assertive and risk-taking and “inhibited” being too overcontrolled, fearful and not assertive enough. The kids in between can therefore be labelled “well-adapted”. By now it should be clear that the “undercontrolled” group had the highest risk of delinquency, unemployment and anti-social behaviour in young adulthood.
From the point of evolutionary psychology these three temperaments are a kind of puzzle. Ideally all children should be well-adapted and show little antisocial (underdeveloped) or asocial (inhibited) behaviour in their community, but this is clearly not the case. Of course, there is always some variation in any trait, but these traits seem too systematic to be mere variations, i.e. there is a good chance that they may be adaptive in some environments.
These environments are most likely our ancestral modes of subsistence: foraging, farming and herding. Children, who have mostly got “farmer genes” are adapted to hierarchy and obedience and therefore easily adapted for modern life (family structure, school, workplace). However, the same isn’t true for foragers and pastoralists who are both highly egalitarian. For forager this is true also for outgroup members whereas pastoralists typically have status-differences between groups (social dominance orientation).
Pastoralists have a system of shifting alliances that can scale up or down (clans). Consequently, pastoralist types have a higher risk of becoming antisocial:
Thus, if they lost a game or if a friend proved unhelpful when assistance was sought, these youths were very likely to get upset and even lose their tempers. Additionally, they characterized themselves as mistreated and victimized, likely to be betrayed by others, and to be the targets of false rumors.
Farmer types would be not only be more adapted to a modern farmer world with its 9-5 routine jobs, but also be much higher in delayed gratification than pastoralist or forager types.
Well-adapted farmer types therefore should have the following traits:
- High self-control (delayed gratification)
- High level of compliance with authority (parents, teachers, boss, etc.)
- High work ethic
- Low impulsiveness and lower risk for addiction
All in all, it should be clear by now that farmer type children are well-adapted dandelion children who will likely prosper anywhere in our modern world, be it school or different workplaces. Pastoralist and forager type children are more like tulip and orchid children, who may eventually turn out beautiful flowers or just fade away, with forager type children more likely to withdraw from society (the Japanese hikikomori are very likely an example) and pastoralist type children become increasingly aggressive.
However, temperament is not fate. When people are allowed to be themselves they tend to give their best. A lot of pastoralist types are hugely popular football players or performers, a lot of forager type people are successful scientists or tech entrepreneurs (the geeky, socially awkward ones at least). If parents, teachers and society, in general, is aware of our evolutionary differences we can all help make this world a little better.
Check out my book for more background information on mapping human nature:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LSF98WV
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