Integrative Perspectives on The Person-Context Interplay Through The Lens of Temperament

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Background

Temperament is accorded a prominent role in psychology as the biologically-based mechanism by which individuals contribute to their own learning and development, distinct from higher-order personality traits involving specific thoughts (e.g., values, conceptions of self). Temperament comprises inborn proclivities to respond in certain ways to one’s surroundings (e.g., emotional reactivity), that, in turn, elicit responses from others, giving rise to reciprocal patterns of transactions. Although temperament does not dictate one’s destiny, certain dispositional traits confer vulnerability to adverse outcomes, thought to depend on the ‘goodness-of-fit’ between individuals’ dispositions and requirements of the surroundings. Temperament influences the ‘fit’ through its contribution to multiple interrelated layers of the person-context dynamic, including moment-to-moment encounters (person-in-context) and self-organizing processes (person-as-context) that shape what is learned (e.g., social cognitions, schemas) and how those ‘lessons’ inform current responses (person-of-prior-contexts). In this way, temperament contributes to overt and subjective processes between persons and contexts.

Consistent with the view of temperament as stable across time and situations, temperament-outcome links are often studied with context-free methods. Yet, traits differ in their sensitivity to context (e.g., inhibition to novelty) and multiple traits team up (profiles) to influence subjective and overt responses to particular conditions (person-in-context). Although links between temperament and personality are amply documented at the trait level (e.g., Five Factor Model), the processes connecting them are understudied. Temperament not only shapes the ‘raw data’ of subjective experience (e.g., affective reactivity, selective approach/attention, eliciting others’ responses), but plays a role in self-organizing processes to make sense of and learn from the ‘data’ (i.e., coordinating stimuli from the outer and inner worlds, given current assumptions). From this view, pre-existing understandings (e.g., social causality or means-ends connections) may be conceived as moderating or mediating the effects of temperament on outcomes (e.g., indirect effect of temperament on social competence via emotion understanding). A conception of ‘goodness-of-fit’ as encompassing dynamic interplays among temperament, context, and self-organizing processes would accommodate the complexities of temperament-informed assessment and interventions that aim to improve the ‘fit’ (e.g., child exuberance, structured/unstructured context, parental directives, and child self-organizing).

We envision a collection of papers that emphasizes the dynamics among temperament, context, and self-organizing processes in relation to outcomes and the applicability of dynamic, context-specific frameworks to psychological assessment and intervention. We welcome original research, literature reviews, and commentaries pertaining to conceptual and methodological issues within the following themes.

• Relations of temperament traits, singly or in combinations, with functioning in particular contexts (e.g., novelty, ambiguity, threat, rewards, level of stimulation, complexity).

• Temperament-context moderation as informing assessment or intervention (e.g., temperament x context x parenting behavior).

• Temperament (e.g., affect or stress reactivity) as related to self-organizing processes (e.g. thinking about a situation) or to products thereof in contexts (e.g., appraisal, coping given ambiguity or uncertainty, higher-level personality traits).

• Information processing or pre-existing conceptions as mediating the link between temperament and outcomes (e.g., indirect effects of fear reactivity on child social competence via attentional bias).

Keywords: Integrative Perspectives on The Person-Context Interplay Through The Lens of Temperament

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