Browsing by Subject "temperament"
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(2008)The temperamental traits of Cloninger's personality theory (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence and persistence) reflect independent systems of central nervous system deciding responses toward new, rewarding and aversive stimuli. Thus, certain temperamental traits and their combinations may predispose to heavy drinking and alcohol dependence. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate associations between temperamental traits and the amount of alcohol consumption, frequency of heavy drinking and the maximum number of drinks per occasion. In this study, we investigated also whether these associations are only confounded by between-family differences in genetic and environmental factors. Furthermore the associations between temperamental trait combinations that reflect Cloninger's typology of alcoholism and alcohol use were studied. The subjects (n=401) in the current study were a group of FinnTwin16 study participators, Finnish twins born in 1974-79. Temperament was measured with TCI-R (Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised) a self-report form. The amount of alcohol consumption was asked by Semi-structured interview (Semi-Structured Assessment of Genetics of Alcoholism = SSAGA). The frequency of heavy drinking and maximum number of drinks per occasion were asked by mail form. In accordance with previous studies, novelty seeking had a positive relationship with the amount of alcohol consumption, frequency of heavy drinking and the maximum number of drinks per occasion in both genders. In this study, the association was proven independent of between-family differences in genetic and environmental factors that are associated to both novelty seeking and alcohol use. Surprisingly, reward dependence was negatively related to the maximum number of drinks per occasion in both genders. Persistence had a weak positive relationship with maximum number of drinks per occasion in men. The temperamental trait combinations that reflect Cloninger's typology of alcoholism did not differ from the other combinations in regard to alcohol use as hypothesized. The results confirm the previous finding about the relationship between novelty seeking and alcohol use. Support for Cloninger's typology of alcoholism in regard to combinations of temperamental trait was not achieved in this study.
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(2020)Aims In previous research, the focus has been on how single factors (e.g. change of school, class or school size) are connected to motivation. No study has used a comprehensive set of aspects of school stability and investigated its association with school motivation. Further, no study has examined whether temperament modifies the connection between the stability of school environment and motivation. This study investigated 1) whether the instability of school environment is associated with students’ motivation and 2) whether this association is modified by temperament. Methods The sample consisted of 3369 Finnish ninth graders. Students’ school motivation and temperament traits (task orientation, reactivity and flexibility) were measured by self-report and teachers’ evaluation. A wide array of factors within school environment were assessed (by asking students and teachers), and three instability scales were formed: instability of physical space, social relationships, and general school structure. Results When adding all the instability scales to the model as predictors simultaneously, high instability in social relations and high instability of physical space were associated with lower student-rated and teacher-rated motivation. Instability of general school structure did not have significant main effect on student-rated or teacher-rated motivation. When adding all the two-way interactions between temperament traits and instability scales to the model as predictors simultaneously, temperament was found to have modifying effects on motivation: high reactivity modified both, the connection of instability of physical spaces and instability of social relationships on student-rated motivation in students. High flexibility modified the connection of instability of general school structure on student-rated motivation. High task orientation modified the connection of instability of physical spaces on teacher-rated motivation. In all the models, covariates included also students’ age, gender, and parental education. Conclusions Various dimensions of instability of school environment are differentially connected with students’ motivation. Temperament traits appear to modify these connections, indicating that different temperaments become differently motivated in instable school environments.
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(2014)Temperament is known to be connected with students' school achievement, both academic achievement and school adjustment. In the Finnish school system, school adjustment can be measured by behavior grade. Equal rating is important for students' future education choices. Rating has also influence on students' self-image. In this study, the aim was to examine the connection between self-rated temperament traits and GPA (grade point average) and behavior grade. Also, the possible mediator effect of behavior grade between the connection of temperament traits and behavior grade was examined. The participants of this study were Finnish adolescents (n=4255, average age 15,1). Students evaluated their temperament traits with TABC-R and DOTS-R questionnaires. School achievement was evaluated with student's latest GPA and behavior grade. The connection between grades and temperament traits were examined with correlational analysis and regression analysis. Mediator effect between temperament and GPA was examined with Bootstrapping analysis. The connection was slightly different between GPA and behavior grade. The strongest connection with behavior grade had traits associated with school adjustment, such as impulsivity and negative emotionality. The strongest connection with GPA had traits associated with task orientation, such as persistence and distractibility. Behavior grade mediated the effect between temperament traits and GPA, especially for impulsivity, distractibility, negative emotionality and mood. These results confirm that teachers' ratings are connected with students' temperament, also when evaluating students behavior. Temperament is connected with grades both directly and medially. In future when developing student evaluation criteria, it is important that teachers are aware of the possible influence of temperament traits. The necessity of rating students' behavior with a grade should be discussed. The criteria of evaluating students' behavior at school should be clear, so that assessing temperament traits would be avoided.
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(2012)The aim of this study is to investigate the stress levels of children who attend day care by examining the relations between the quality of the day care centre, child's individual characteristics and stress. This study is a part of a broader study concerning children's stress regulation and learning at the Department of Teacher Education in the University of Helsinki. The participants of the study were 33 day care centres in 5 towns in Southern Finland. The 340 children examined in the study were between the ages 3 and 7. The evaluation of stress levels was completed by stress hormone measurements. These measurements were obtained by saliva samples which were taken from the children (N=340) a total of five (N=5) times during a day. The measuring process was carried out both at home and at the day care centre. The samples were then frozen and analysed at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The quality of the day care centres was explored from several aspects. However, the examination stayed on the micro level – i.e. the quality factors were evaluated empirically. In this process, the structural and process related quality factors in the day care group's learning environment were assessed. To do this, The Learning Environment Assessment Scale (Strain & Joseph 2004) was used as a medium of assessment. In this scale, the observed subjects are multifaceted. They include classroom arrangement, assessment of activity and transition situations, and the working methods of the pedagogues. A child's individual characteristics were assessed by exploring the child's temperament. The parents evaluated their child's temperament with the Children's Behaviour Questionnaire which has been created by Rothbart (2001). The results indicate that the children's stress hormone levels during the day followed the normal everyday cortisol cycle. On average, however, girls were more stressed than boys. High quality evaluations of the pedagogue team's functionality as well as consistency and clarity in the activity and transition situations reduced the children's stress levels. Children who had a tendency to react to the smallest of stimuli were most likely to have higher stress levels. Girls, whose temperament had been evaluated to not show anger and frustration, were more stressed on average. Also, boys whose activity level was evaluated to be high had stress levels above average.
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(2019)Objectives. One of the key factors responsible for one’s self-regulatory skills are considered to be temperament-based effortful control (EC) and higher-order executive functions (EFs). These have been shown to share some mutual neural networks and brain regions, but little is known about the connections between them. In particular, there is a lack of longer-term follow-up studies. This study examined the association between parental-assessed EC in childhood and test performance based EFs in early adolescence. In addition, the aim was to investigate the connections between sub-features of EC and EFs, and whether gender affects the relationship between them. Methods. This study consisted of 183 children and adolescents who had participated at the age of 5,5 and 12 years in the follow-up phases of the cohort study, which began in 1998. EC was assessed by The Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ) and EFs were evaluated with subtests from Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment for Children II (NEPSY-II), Trail Making Test (TMT), Conners’ Continuous Performance Test II (CPT) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Results and conclusions. Higher parental-rated EC at 5,5 years of age was associated EFs at age 12, especially in tasks measuring linguistic and non-linguistic fluency and inhibitory skills (verbal and design fluency subtests from NEPSY-II). Looking at the individual subfactors of EC, the ability to maintain attentional focus (attentional focusing), the tendency to enjoy low intensity stimuli (low intensity pleasure), and the ability to suppress inappropriate responses (inhibitory control) were found to be associated with higher EFs (better performance in verbal and design fluency subtests from NEPSY-II, less perseveration errors in WCST and lower response time in CPT). In addition, some gender specific connections were found: boys’ ability to shift attention was associated with higher stimulus resolution (higher D Prime score in CPT). The results suggest that childhood temperament could be used to identify potential challenges in EFs later in early adolescence.
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(2017)The aim of this study is to research the temperament of Finnish students in teacher education programmes. The research pursued to examine the temperaments that Finnish students studying to become a teacher have and whether there are any similarities or differences between students in Class Teacher Education Programme (CTEP) and Subject Teacher Education Programme (STEP). Recent studies have focused on the basic education pupils' temperament and the possible benefits or disadvantages that his/hers own temperament may provoke in classroom and school environment. However, we also need to study the temperament of the teachers since they have a major role in classroom interaction. In this study Mary Rothbart's The Adult Temperament Questionnaire (later the ATQ) was utilized to measure and construct the temperament of the students in teacher education. The ATQ forms four main temperament characters which divide furthermore in smaller temperament components. Four main temperament characters according to the ATQ are extraversion, effortful control, negative affect and orienting sensitivity. 425 participants took part in this research from eight different cities in Finland. Data was collected by University of Helsinki e-lomake query. In the query 77 the ATQ -claims were asked. It was necessary to make some changes in the ATQ –model before the further analyses were made. Two temperament components were deleted from the model. After the changes it was reliable to use the query for the analyses. The reliability analysis was made for the main temperament characters and smaller temperament components as well. Temperament differences between class teacher students and subject teacher students were analyzed by using ANOVA. ANOVA was also used for analyzing the temperament differences between students from different cities. T-test was used for analyzing the differences between the sexes. ANOVA-results revealed that there were temperament differences between class teacher students and subject teacher students. ANOVA-results also revealed that there were some temperament differences between the students from different cities. Finally, t-test –results revealed that there were differences in seven temperament components out of 11 between sexes.
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(2018)Objectives. Differences in people and the reasons behind them have been a subject of interest through-out history and, among others, the concept of temperament has been used in an attempt to explain them. According to theoretical literature, temperament is biologically-based, at least partly inherited behaviour-al and reactional tendency, which appears early and is relatively stable through life. Temperament ex-plains the individuality in people and serves as a biological foundation for personality, which develops through the joint influence of temperament and environment. Temperament is composed of different temperament traits, the number of which is debated by different temperament theorists. Temperament is in constant interaction with environment, including at school, where temperament has been suggested to contribute to an unequal treatment of children. The objectives of the present study were to discover how temperament is being defined within school context, what kind of effect temperament has on children’s educational experience, and how it should be taken into account in connection to children’s educational experience. The aim is to analyse current theoretical and empirical literature and advance temperament-related knowledge and understanding in the field of education. Methodology. The present study was executed as a descriptive literature review. The material was com-prised of international and Finnish theoretical literature as well as numerous research articles, published in prestigious, peer-reviewed international journals. The material included research conducted specifical-ly in the Finnish school context as well. Results and conclusions. In research conducted in school context, temperament was defined based on the theoretical literature with small variations mostly in temperament traits. According to research, chil-dren’s temperaments were directly and indirectly linked to children’s school adjustment, social relation-ships with teachers and peers, and academic achievement, including school grades. Reviewed studies suggested more temperament-related education for teachers and rethinking of assessment practices. Temperaments’ different kinds of effects on children’s school experiences put them in unequal posi-tions at school. Some children, based on their innate attributes, have more negative relationships with teachers and peers, and worse grades, which, in turn, are connected to different kinds of educational opportunities in the future. Temperament-related education for teachers and more equal assessment practices might improve educational experience of children with all kinds of temperament.
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(2015)Objectives. Previous studies have shown that some personality characteristics are associated with better coping than others. Knowledge concerning temperament characteristics and coping methods among primary school teachers is so far limited. The aim of this study was to examine the association between primary school teachers' temperament characteristics and coping methods. The hypotheses were that, 1) high harm avoidance is associated with the use of the emotion focused coping, 2) low harm avoidance is associated with problem focused coping, 3) high reward dependence is associated with seeking for social support, 4) persistence is associated with problem focused coping, and 5) high novelty seeking is associated with problem focused coping. Methods. The participants were 55 primary school teachers in the metropolitan area. Temperament was measured using Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The temperament characteristics were harm avoidance, novelty seeking, reward dependence and persistence. Coping was measured using The COPE Inventory. The questions were combined into 15 coping strategies. The data were analysed using Pearson correlation and linear regression. Socio-economic background was controlled in the first model and the other temperament characteristics in the second model. Results and conclusions. Different temperament characteristics have differential associations with the used coping strategies. High harm avoidance was associated with the use of the emotion-focused coping methods and with the problem-focused coping methods. High novelty seeking was associated with the decreased use of avoidant coping and increased use of the emotion-focused coping methods. High reward dependence was associated with seeking of both instrumental and emotional social support and emotion-focused coping methods. Persistence was associated with decreased use of the problem-focused coping methods. The results of this study should be confirmed and repeated with the use of larger and more representative sample of classroom teachers. Also the future research should study if coping methods work as mediating factors between teachers' personality traits and well-being at work and associations of Cloninger's personality theory's character traits and different personality profiles to coping methods.
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(2019)The purpose of this study was to look for relationships between analytical thinking skills, two selected decision-making characteristics (time preference, risk preference) and temperament. A commonly applied test to detect individual differences in analytical thinking is the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005), which captures important characteristics of rational thinking, different from intelligence and other cognitive ability (Toplak, West, & Stanovich, 2011). If a strong correlation between the ability to analytical thinking and some other types of characteristics was found, it would help to identify individuals with good analytical decision-making skills and to clarify the phenomenon of analytical thinking. This work continued the exploration of relations between individual differences in analytical thinking, assessed as performance in CRT, and selected psychological characteristics: time preference and risk preference, where a link has been detected in previous research on university students in the U.S. In this study, time preference was assessed as performance in the Consideration of Future Consequences Test (CFC-14; Joireman, Shaffer, Balliet, & Strathman, 2012). With data gathered from Finnish university students, this study attempted to replicate the findings of the original study (Frederick, 2005), where a relationship between the CRT and risk preference was detected. The current study extended previous research by examining also the relation of analytical thinking skills and neurobiological temperament (Rawlings, Tapola & Niemivirta, 2017). The relation of time preference and temperament was also studied. The participants in the present study were 135 first-year students from the National Defence University in Finland. The students completed a self-report questionnaire via a weblink. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to test the construct validity of the models applied. The correlations between the tests were examined and by using standard regression analyses the effects of the temperament on the time preference were analysed. Contrary to expectations, no relation between the CRT score and time preference, risk preference or temperament were detected. However, interesting links between time preference and temperament were found. Therefore, future research could investigate further how neurobiological temperament sets our concerns with future and immediate consequences, that is, our farsightedness or the lack of it.
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(2019)The purpose of this study was to look for relationships between analytical thinking skills, two selected decision-making characteristics (time preference, risk preference) and temperament. A commonly applied test to detect individual differences in analytical thinking is the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005), which captures important characteristics of rational thinking, different from intelligence and other cognitive ability (Toplak, West, & Stanovich, 2011). If a strong correlation between the ability to analytical thinking and some other types of characteristics was found, it would help to identify individuals with good analytical decision-making skills and to clarify the phenomenon of analytical thinking. This work continued the exploration of relations between individual differences in analytical thinking, assessed as performance in CRT, and selected psychological characteristics: time preference and risk preference, where a link has been detected in previous research on university students in the U.S. In this study, time preference was assessed as performance in the Consideration of Future Consequences Test (CFC-14; Joireman, Shaffer, Balliet, & Strathman, 2012). With data gathered from Finnish university students, this study attempted to replicate the findings of the original study (Frederick, 2005), where a relationship between the CRT and risk preference was detected. The current study extended previous research by examining also the relation of analytical thinking skills and neurobiological temperament (Rawlings, Tapola & Niemivirta, 2017). The relation of time preference and temperament was also studied. The participants in the present study were 135 first-year students from the National Defence University in Finland. The students completed a self-report questionnaire via a weblink. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to test the construct validity of the models applied. The correlations between the tests were examined and by using standard regression analyses the effects of the temperament on the time preference were analysed. Contrary to expectations, no relation between the CRT score and time preference, risk preference or temperament were detected. However, interesting links between time preference and temperament were found. Therefore, future research could investigate further how neurobiological temperament sets our concerns with future and immediate consequences, that is, our farsightedness or the lack of it.
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(2016)Aims. Attachment has been linked to children's psychiatric symptoms. However, only a few studies have focused on parental attachment towards the child. Most studies have focused on parent's general attachment representations, which do not address the parental subjective attachment to their child. The aim of this study is to examine whether parental subjective attachment towards the child is associated with child's internalizing and externalizing symptoms and total problems. We also examine whether maternal or paternal depression, child temperament or gender affect the aforementioned associations. Methods. This study is a part of Prediction and Prevention of Pre-eclampsia (PREDO) – study. The size of the current study sample was 2021 mothers and 1273 fathers and their children. Maternal and paternal attachment were assessed with the Maternal/Paternal Postnatal Attachment Scale (MPAS/PPAS) – self report questionnaire when the child was six months old. Child's internalizing, externalizing and total problems were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist 1½-5 (CBCL1½-5) – questionnaire when the child was 1.5 to 5 years old. The associations were investigated using linear regression analysis, controlling for maternal or paternal attachment and several sociodemographic factors related to the child and parents. Results and conclusions. Results indicated that secure maternal and paternal attachment was associated with less internalizing, externalizing and total problems in children. Parental depression and child's temperamental traits mediated the association of parental attachment and child's psychiatric symptoms. Maternal attachment was also independently associated with child's psychiatric symptoms. An interaction effect was found between maternal attachment and child's negative emotionality in relation to child's total problems: insecure maternal attachment and child's high negative emotionality were associated with more total problems in childhood. These results provide evidence that both parents' subjective attachment is related to child's psychiatric symptoms, and also highlight the significance of child's temperament in the development of psychiatric symptoms.
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