The present study addressed differences in infant and toddler temperament, utilizing translations of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire–Revised (IBQ-R) and the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ), for children growing up in the United States, Russia, and Japan. Results indicated a number of significant differences in higher-order dimensions and fine-grained components of early temperament between the three cultural groups. U.S. children scored higher for Surgency and related traits, compared to Japanese and Russian children; Negative Affectivity showed the opposite pattern of cross-cultural differences, wherein Japanese children received the highest scores from their caregivers. In addition, Japanese infants and toddlers scored lower for Effortful Control. Significant Culture × Age interactions indicated that patterns of cross-cultural differences in different age groups varied across and within the three higher-order dimensions. Surgency, as well as positive affect to both low and high levels of intensity, showed a consistent pattern of decreasing cultural differences with age.
AllikJ.McCraeR. R. (2004). Toward a geography of personality traits: Patterns of profiles across 36 cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35, 13-28.
2.
AllikJ.RealoA. (2004). Individualism-collectivism and social capital. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35, 29-49.
3.
CaspiA.RobertsB. W.ShinerR. L. (2005). Personality development: Stability and change. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 453-484.
4.
ChenX. (2009). Culture and early socio-emotional development. In TremblayR. E.BarrR. G.DeR.PetersV.BoivinM. (Eds.), Encyclopedia on early childhood development (pp. 1-6). Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development. Retrieved from May23, 2010, from http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/ChenANGxp.pdf
5.
ChenX.HastingsP. D.RubinK. H.ChenH.CenG.StewartS. L. (1998). Child-rearing attitudes and behavioral inhibition in Chinese and Canadian toddlers: A cross-cultural study. Developmental Psychology, 34, 677-686.
6.
ChessS.ThomasA.BirchH. G. (1965). Your child is a person: A psychological approach to parenthood without guilt. New York: Viking Press, Inc.
7.
De FruytF.De BolleM.McCraeR. R.TerraccianoA.CostaP. T.Jr., & 39 Collaborators from the Adolescent Personality Profiles of Cultures Project (APPOC). (2009). The universal structure of personality in adolescence: NEO-PI-R and NEO-PI-3 findings from 24 cultures. Assessment, 16, 301-311.
8.
GaiasL. M.RäikkönenK.KomsiN.GartsteinM. A.FisherP. A.PutnamS. P. (2012). Cross-cultural temperamental differences in infants, children, and adults in the United States of America and Finland. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 53, 119-128.
9.
GartsteinM. A.KnyazevG. G.SlobodskayaH. R. (2005). Cross-cultural differences in the structure of infant temperament: United States of America (U.S.) and Russia. Infant Behavior and Development, 28, 54-61.
10.
GartsteinM. A.RothbartM. K. (2003). Studying infant temperament via a revision of the infant behavior questionnaire. Journal of Infant Behavior and Development, 26, 64-86.
11.
GartsteinM. A.SlobodskayaH. R.KinshtI. A. (2003). Cross-cultural differences in the first year of life: United States of America (U.S.) and Russia. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 316-328.
12.
GouveiaV. V.RosM. (2000). The Hofstede and Schwartz models for classifying individualism at the cultural level: Their relation to macro-social and macro-economic variables. Psicothema, 12, 25-33.
13.
GreenfieldP. M.KellerH.FuligniA.MaynardA. (2003). Cultural pathways through universal development. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 461-491.
14.
HartS.FieldT.RoitfarbM. (1999). Depressed mothers’ assessments of their neonates’ behaviors. Infant Mental Health Journal, 20, 200-210.
15.
HaubC. (2010). 2010 world population data sheet. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau.
16.
HofstedeG. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
17.
HofstedeG.McCraeR. R. (2004). Personality and culture revisited: Linking traits and dimensions of culture. Cross-Cultural Research, 38, 52-88.
18.
HsuC.SoonW.StiglerJ. W.HongC.LiangC. (1981). The temperamental characteristics of Chinese babies. Child Development, 52, 1337-1340.
19.
HubertyC. J. (2002). A history of effect size indices. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 62, 227-240.
20.
Human Development Report. (2009). Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
21.
IspaJ. M. (2002). Russian child care goals and values: From Perestroika to 2001. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 17, 393-413.
22.
JandtF. E. (2007). An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
23.
KaganJ. (1994). Galen’s prophecy: Temperament in human nature. New York: Basic Books.
24.
KaganJ.ReznickJ. S.SnidmanN. (1986). Temperamental inhibition in early childhood. In PlominR.DunnJ. (Eds.), The study of temperament: Changes, continuities, and challenges (pp. 53-79). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
25.
KellerH. (2008). Culture and biology: The foundation of pathways of development. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 668-681.
26.
KellerH.YovsiR.BorkeJ.KartnerJ. H.JensenH.PapaligouraZ. (2004). Developmental consequences of early parenting experiences: Self-recognition and self-regulation in three cultural communities. Child Development, 75, 1745-1760.
27.
KohnstammG. A. (1989). Temperament in childhood: Cross-cultural and sex differences. In KohnstammG. A.BatesJ. E.RothbartM. K. (Eds.), Temperament in childhood (pp. 483-508). New York: Wiley.
28.
KohnstammG. A.HalversonC. F.Jr.MervieldeI.HavillV. L. (1998). Parental descriptions of child personality: Developmental antecedents of the big five? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
29.
KolmagorovaA. V.SlobodskayaH. R.GartsteinM. A. (2008). A Russian adaptation of the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ) for measuring temperament. Psikhologicheskii Zhurnal, 29, 121-136.
30.
LeaperC.AndersonK. J.SandersP. (1998). Moderators of gender effects on parents’ talk to their children: A meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 34(1), 3-27.
31.
LindseyE. W.MizeJ. (2001). Contextual differences in parent–child play: Implications for children’s gender role development. Sex Roles, 44(3-4), 155-176.
32.
LipseyM. W.WilsonD. B. (2001). Practical meta-analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
33.
McCraeR. R. (2002). NEO-PI-R data from 36 cultures: Further intercultural comparisons. In McCraeR. R.AllikJ. (Eds.), The Five-Factor Model of personality across cultures (pp. 105-125). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
34.
McCraeR. R.TerraccianoA., & 79 Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project. (2005). Personality profiles of cultures: Aggregate personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 407-425.
35.
McCraeR. R.TerraccianoA.De FruytF.De BolleM.GelfandM. J.CostaP. T. & 42 Collaborators of the Adolescent Personality Profiles of Cultures Project. (2010). The validity and structure of culture-level personality scores: Data from ratings of young adolescents. Journal of Personality, 78(3), 815-838.
36.
MõttusR.AllikJ.RealoA.PullmannH.RossierJ.ZeccaG.. (2012). Comparability of self-reported Conscientiousness across 21 Countries. European Journal of Personality, 26, 303-317.
37.
NakagawaA.SukigaraM. (2005). How are cultural differences in the interpretation of infant behavior reflected in the Japanese Revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire?Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, 53, 491-503.
38.
NakagawaA.SukigaraM.MizunoR. (2007, April). Cultural effects reflected in the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire for Japanese toddlers: Psychometrics and factor structure. Paper presented at Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Boston.
39.
Pauli-PottU.MertesackerB.BadeU.HaverkockA.BeckmannD. (2003). Parental perceptions of infant temperamental development. Infant Behavior and Development, 26, 27-48.
40.
PutnamS. P.EllisL. K.RothbartM. K. (2001). The structure of temperament from infancy through adolescence. In EliaszA.AngleitnerA. (Eds.), Advances/proceedings in research on temperament (pp. 165-182). Germany: Pabst Scientist Publisher.
41.
PutnamS. P.GartsteinM. A.RothbartM. K. (2006). Measurement of fine-grained aspects of toddler temperament: The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire. Infant Behavior and Development, 29, 386-401.
42.
RothbartM. K. (2007). Temperament, development and personality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 207-212.
43.
RothbartM. K.BatesJ. E. (1998). Temperament. In DamonW. (Series Ed.) & EisenbergN. (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: (Vol. 3), Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., p. 105-176). New York: Wiley.
44.
RothbartM. K.DerryberryD. (1981). Development of individual differences in temperament. In LambM. E.BrownA. L. (Eds.), Advances in developmental psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 37-86). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
45.
SchmittD. P.AllikJ.McCraeR. R.Benet-MartinezV.AlcalayL.AultL.. (2007). The geographic distribution of Big Five personality traits: Patterns and profiles of human self-description across 56 nations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38, 173-212.
46.
StrelauJ. (1998). Temperament: A psychological perspective. New York: Plenum Press.
47.
SuperC.HarknessS. (1986). The developmental niche: A conceptualization at the interface of child and culture. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 9, 545-569.
48.
TriandisH. C.SuhE. M. (2002). Cultural influences on personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 133-160.
WindleW.IwawakiS.LernerR. M. (1988). Cross-cultural comparability of temperament among Japanese and American preschool children. International Journal of Psychology, 23, 547-567.
