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behavioral components of effortful control both require inhibitory control —the suppression of a dominant or preferred response in favor of an acceptable one (Diamond, 1991; Eisenberg et al., 2010). In the current examples, looking at the screen and throwing toys would be the dominant response, whereas looking away and refraining from throwingwould be the alternative, acceptable response. Inhibitory control improves throughout toddlerhood, as children learn to manage their impulses and comply with adults. Infants with strong skills in attention and inhibitory control followed requests to clean up toys and not touch forbidden objects months later at 13–15 months of age (Kochanska, Tjebkes, & Fortnan, 1998; Kochanska & Kim, 2014). As we will see in later chapters, the term self-regulation (rather than effortful control) describes older children’s management of attention, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING 7.8 1. What is effortful control? 2. What is the connection between emotion regulation and inhibitory control? Temperament Infants differ in how they emotionally respond to different situations, even as newborns. Parents with more than one child can attest to the uniqueness of each baby’s disposition. They might describe one infant as easy going, content to play alone, curious, and eager to approach new situations. In contrast, they might describe their other infant as fussy, excitable, unable to be soothed, and easily distracted. What explains early differences among infants? Temperament has received a great deal of attention. Temperament refers to a child’s intensity of reactivity and regulation of emotions, activity, and attention (Rothbart, Derryberry, & Hershey, 2000). As we will see, a child’s temperament is present from birth, stable over time, and thought to offer a window into personality in later life. The History of Temperament Studies LEARNING OBJECTIVE 7.9  Discuss how the work of Thomas and Chess advanced an understanding of temperament. Some of the most influential research on infant temperament can be traced to the work of the husband-wife team of Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess, who launched the New York Longitudinal Study in 1956. Thomas and Chess chal- lenged the assumption (by many behaviorists at the time) that people respond in the same ways to the same stimuli. They noted that the identical situation— such as the approach of a stranger—could yield dramatically different reactions in infants with different temperaments. To explore differences among infants in temperament, Thomas and Chess (1977) extensively interviewed mothers of 3-month-olds about their infants’ reactions to novel people and situations, energy level, positive and negative emotions, adaptability to change, rhythmicity (how regular an infant was in sleeping, eating, etc.), general mood, and distractibility. Based on mothers’ responses, they identified three temperament profiles (35% of infants did not fit these profiles):  ● Easy babies , 40% of the sample, readily adapted to the environment, had regular eating and sleeping patterns, displayed positive emotions, showed low to moderate intensity of reactions, and approached novel stimuli.  ● Difficult babies , 10% of the sample, took a relatively long time to adjust to new environments, had irregular patterns, cried frequently, displayed high intensity in both positive and negative emotions, and tended to withdraw from new situations. ✓ temperament  Individual differ- ences among infants in intensity of reactivity and regulation of emotions, activity, and attention PROPERTY OF OXFORD inhibitory control  An executive function that suppresses a dominant or preferred response in favor of an acceptable, more adaptive response

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