Skip to main content Skip to search
Personality and behavior in parents of tempermentally inhibited and uninhibited children
Developmental Psychology
Format: Journal Article
Publication Year: 1994
Pages: 346-354
Library/Archive: (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved
Sources ID: 22672
Visibility: Private
Zotero Collections: Contexts of Contemplation Project
Abstract: (Show)

Parents of 53 children categorized as behaviorally inhibited or uninhibited at age 30 mo were assessed on measures of affectivity, personality, and behavior. Parents of inhibited children showed lower extraversion, higher avoidance and shyness and faster drawing times on a task involving uncertainty than did parents of uninhibited children. Faster speed on the uncertainty task was interpreted as evidence of increased anxious responding. The Extroversion, Avoidance, Shyness, and Sociability scales loaded heavily on a single factor, the scores of which differed significantly by group. Child behavioral inhibition (BI) negatively correlated with maternal scores on the Extroversion scale and the extracted factor, and positively correlated with maternal scores on the Avoidance scale. BI correlated with both maternal and paternal scores on the uncertainty task in the predicted direction. Low parental extraversion, high paternal avoidance and shyness, and parental tendency toward anxious responding were associated with BI in children.

Zotero Collections 
Subjects: 
Contexts of Contemplation Project