The next time you have a chance, pay attention to some infants. You’ll notice they differ. Some are active and energetic. Others frequently nap. Some are happy and easygoing. Others are cranky.

The differences are partly based in inherited biology. Genetic differences (also see Chapter 4) produce varying temperament.

Temperament refers to variations in emotional and behavioral tendencies that are evident very early in life and are based, at least in part, in inherited biology (Zentner & Bates, 2008). Differences in emotional reactions—such as tendencies to be calm, angry, or shy—as well as differences in children’s ability to control their emotions are aspects of temperament (Rothbart, 2012).

Temperament has intrigued scholars for ages (Strelau, 1998). In ancient Greece, the physician Hippocrates said that people possess four temperament styles, based on excesses of certain bodily fluids in an individual’s system. Excess black bile, for example, was said to produce a sad, moody temperament; excess phlegm, he thought, created a calm, peaceful, phlegmatic style.

Although it was popular for more than 2000 years, Hippocrates’s theory is wrong; the bodily fluids he proposed are not the source of temperament. Yet his work resembles contemporary ideas in a number of ways. Like Hippocrates, many scientists today search for a small number of temperament styles with biological origins.

Two pioneers in this search were Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess (1977). To study temperament, they interviewed parents. Parents reported their children’s behavioral characteristics (e.g., “How much does your baby move around?”), regularity of daily experiences (“Could you tell … when during the day [your child] would be hungry, asleep, or awake?”), and adaptability (“How would you describe the way your child responded to changed circumstances?”) (from Thomas & Chess, 1996). By analyzing these reports, Thomas and Chess identified three types of temperament, that is, three temperament categories into which individual children could be classified:

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Later psychologists followed Thomas and Chess’s lead, but with a change in emphasis. Rather than focusing on temperament types, they searched for temperament dimensions. A temperament dimension is a biologically based psychological quality that all children possess to a greater or lesser degree.

Three important temperament dimensions are emotionality, activity, and sociability (Buss & Plomin, 1984; Table 14.2). Some children are more easily upset than others (emotionality), some are more energetic (activity), and some show a greater preference to spend time with other people (sociability). Many personality psychologists view these temperament dimensions as early-life precursors to adult personality traits (see Chapter 13.)

One way to measure temperament is to ask parents to report on the qualities of their children. Three main dimensions of temperament identified with this measurement strategy are emotionality, activity, and sociability; the test items shown are designed to measure the dimensions. Note that the item marked with an asterisk is “reverse-worded,” that is, a higher score on the item indicates a lower level of the associated dimension.

Research from Buss & Plomin (1984); Spinath & Angleitner (1998)

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THE LONG-TERM SIGNIFICANCE OF EARLY-LIFE TEMPERAMENT. In principle, temperament styles might be temporary. Maybe most of the highly emotional 2-year-olds are calm and even-tempered when they reach age 3 to 4. It turns out, however, that temperament endures. When researchers study children at different points of time, they find that many children’s temperament style is consistent across time. Here are two examples.

Researchers in Norway observed children at ages 18 months, 30 months, and 4 to 5 years (Janson & Mathiesen, 2008). At each age, they classified children into the Thomas and Chess temperament categories. Many children displayed consistent temperament across time. Almost half the children had the same temperament at 30 months as at 18 months, and almost half had the same temperament at 4 to 5 years of age as at 30 months.

Researchers in Finland measured temperament in a large group of teenagers (Hintsanen et al., 2009). Nine years later, they determined the employment status of these same individuals. Teenage temperament predicted adult employment. Teens whose temperament featured high levels of activity and low levels of negative emotion were more likely to be employed.

These are but two of many examples in which early-life temperament predicts later-life personality and life outcomes. Who you are, and the type of life you lead, are affected by temperament qualities you inherit. Further evidence of this comes from a temperament characteristic that is familiar to many of us: shyness.

SHYNESS. Many people say they are shy. In one survey, 40 percent said so when describing their present self, and 80 percent said they were shy at some point in their life (Zimbardo, 1977). High rates of shyness may be found in all cultures (Saunders & Chester, 2008).

Do you think that all people who claim they are shy are psychologically the same? Harvard University psychologist Jerome Kagan does not think so. His research findings suggest that a subgroup of people is distinctive; they inherit inhibited temperament, which is a tendency to experience high levels of distress and fear, especially in unfamiliar situations (the fearful reactions trigger shy, inhibited behavior) or in the presence of unfamiliar people. Furthermore, a second distinct subgroup inherits uninhibited temperament, a tendency to experience little fear and to act in a spontaneous and sociable manner. Before detailing his findings, let’s examine his research methods. Kagan was wary of relying on parents’ reports because parents’ views of their own children could be inaccurate. They might, for example, see their child’s behavior as wonderfully unique when it actually is commonplace (see Saudino, 1997; Spinath & Angleitner, 1998). Kagan thus brought children to his lab, where they could be directly observed by researchers.

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Children first visited his lab at 4 months of age (Kagan & Snidman, 1991). Kagan videotaped them while they were exposed to novel events, such as a popping balloon. They returned at 9 and 14 months of age, when they again were exposed to novel stimuli (e.g., flashing lights, an unfamiliar loud toy, an unfamiliar adult). At age 7, they returned again and were observed while interacting with peers. Kagan hypothesized that two subgroups of children—those displaying either very inhibited or very uninhibited temperament at 4 months of age—would show consistent temperament styles across time.

Findings strongly supported his hypothesis. Children who had reacted fearfully at 4 months of age reacted fearfully again at 9 and 14 months. Most who were uninhibited at the earliest time periods remained uninhibited later. At age 7, the children who had been inhibited infants were shy when interacting with peers (Kagan, 1997).

These results show that temperament is often stable across long time periods. This, however, does not mean that temperament cannot change. Some experiences can alter temperament. One is childcare outside the home. Researchers compared inhibited children in either of two types of settings: (1) entirely in a home environment, or (2) multiple hours each week spent in childcare with teachers and other children. Childcare altered temperament. Socially inhibited children who spent 10 or more hours a week outside the home became less shy (Fox et al., 2001). Another factor is parenting. Mothers who avoid being overly protective of children tend to produce children who are better able, on their own, to develop strategies for dealing with fears and anxiety (Degnan et al., 2008).

Temperament is a biological foundation for social development. Another foundation is the family—in particular, the relation between children and parents.

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Across animal species, the development of offspring depends on the support of parents. Let’s start our review of family foundations of development with a phenomenon that occurs in species other than ours: imprinting.

IMPRINTING. Look at the photo of baby geese. It shows them following … a man? Shouldn’t they be following Mother Goose?

The geese have imprinted on the man. In imprinting, newborns fix attention upon, and follow, the first moving object they encounter (Sluckin, 2007). That object is usually the mother; imprinting therefore bonds mother and offspring. However, newborns of some species will imprint on almost anything that moves. Imprinting occurs only in species whose young are able to move about soon after birth (Hess, 1958); thus, it does not occur in humans.

Lorenz (1952/1997) explained that imprinting occurs only during a critical period. A critical period for a given psychological process is a span of time, usually early in life, during which the psychological process must occur if it is ever to occur (Hensch, 2004). A gosling, for example, will imprint on a moving object only if the object is encountered in the first few hours after birth. Once imprinted, the bond is permanent.

CONTACT AND COMFORT. In species that do not imprint, children still bond with parents. What drives parent–child bonding? You might guess it’s the newborn’s need for nourishment; offspring need food, so maybe evolution predisposes them to bond with food-providing parents. However, classic research by Harry Harlow identified a different factor: the need for physical contact and comfort.

Harlow studied infant macaque monkeys, whose early-life mother–child interactions (nursing, clinging to the mother) resemble those of humans. Monkeys were exposed to two artificial mothers: (1) a wire mother that provided nourishment through a bottle, and (2) a soft, terrycloth mother that was warm and cuddly but provided no food.

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Which “mom” did infant monkeys prefer? Warm and cuddly mom. Throughout the first month of life, they spent much more time with this artificial mother than with the wire food-provider. When frightened, they turned to the terrycloth mom for support (Harlow, 1958). Harlow’s experiments, then, showed that the need for warm-and-fuzzy physical comfort is the primary need that drives bonding with a parent.

Contact with a comforting mother is not only preferred; it is necessary. Infants need this contact for normal development. Monkeys who lack it display abnormal behavior as adults. Consider the fate of female rhesus monkeys that had no contact with a comforting mother during infancy. When, in adulthood, they became mothers themselves, they behaved abnormally, neglecting their own offspring (Hensch, 2004).

ATTACHMENT. Macaque monkeys are not the only primates for whom parental bonds are critical to social development. The same holds true for humans. We develop particularly slowly; a newborn monkey can move around independently within days of birth, but a human infant takes months to become mobile (Hayes, 1994). This enhances the importance, for human children, of parent–child attachment.

Attachment is a strong emotional bond between two people, especially a child and a caretaker, such as a parent. According to the attachment theory of British psychologist John Bowlby, bonds of attachment between parent and child have a lifelong impact on the child (1969, 1988).

How could early-life experiences have lifelong effects? Bowlby (1988) proposed that parent–child interactions shape children’s beliefs. Once formed, beliefs endure and are applied to new relationships later in life. Suppose parents provide a child with reliable emotional support. Bowlby’s attachment theory predicts that the child will develop the general belief that people will be supportive and, as an adult, will anticipate emotional support when entering into new relationships. Parental attachments thus create a foundation on which beliefs about future relationships are built.

Not all parent–child relationships are the same, however. Research identifies different styles of attachment. Attachment styles are characteristic ways in which the child and parent interact.

Different attachment styles have been identified through qualitative research (see Chapter 2). Mary Ainsworth (1967; Ainsworth et al., 1978) observed parent–child interactions in home environments and identified three styles of attachment: secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent (Bretherton, 1992):

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Ainsworth and colleagues then developed a behavioral measure of attachment style called the strange situation paradigm (Ainsworth et al., 1978). In this procedure, the mother and child participate in a structured sequence of events in a laboratory. First, the mother and child spend a few minutes alone in a room. Then a stranger enters. Next, the mother leaves. Subsequently, the stranger leaves and the mother returns to the room. Psychologists observe the child’s responses, especially when the parent returns. Secure infants are those who are easily comforted by the returning parent. Avoidant children look away and move away from the mother. Anxious-ambivalent children desire to be picked up by the mother yet also demand to be put down.

Numerous researchers have related behavioral measures of attachment styles to personality later in life. A meta-analysis of 60 studies finds that securely attached children are less likely to become shy, withdrawn, and depressed (Madigan et al., 2013). Others have employed behavioral measures in cross-cultural research. Findings indicate that secure attachment is the most common style in Asia, Europe, and North America, with more than half of children being securely attached (van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988).

Psychologists also have related attachment styles to styles of behavior in adult romantic relationships (Fraley & Shaver, 2000). They find that some adults are secure in their romantic relationships, others find it hard to get close to romantic partners (i.e., they are avoidant), and still others want to get close yet are anxious about the possibility of being abandoned (they are anxious-ambivalent). Childhood attachment patterns may set a foundation for later-life relationships.

RESILIENCE AND THE CAPACITY FOR CHANGE. Attachment researchers thought that early-life experiences have lifelong consequences. Harlow and Bowlby suggested that poor attachment experiences in childhood can scar a person for life.

Other evidence, however, shows that many people bounce back from early-life hardships (Kagan, 1998). They display resilience, a capacity to retain or recover psychological functioning after negative experiences (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Masten & Gewirtz, 2006).

Striking evidence of resilience comes from a study of 200 children in Hawaii who experienced difficult conditions early in life, often due to parental alcoholism or mental illness (Werner, 1993; Werner & Smith, 1982). If the negative effects of such experiences are inevitable and permanent, one would expect all 200 children to display lifelong problems. But instead, many turned out fine. One-third “grew into competent, confident, and caring young adults” (Werner, 1993, p. 504). Temperament played a role in resilience; children with an active and easy temperament style were more likely to develop in a resilient, positive manner. So were children who experienced supportive relationships with adults other than their parents (e.g., grandparents, church and community leaders; Werner, 1993).

Further evidence of resilience comes from a study of more than 600 adolescents who, in childhood, experienced abuse (either physical or sexual) or neglect (parents not providing food, clothing, and shelter; DuMont, Widom, & Czaja, 2007). In adolescence, almost half (48%) were developing quite well: progressing in school; experiencing normal relationships; and showing no sign of substance abuse, criminal behavior, or psychiatric problems. Stable living conditions contributed to these positive outcomes. Children who lived consistently with the same parent or parents, or in the same foster-care placement, were much more likely than others to show positive social development despite early-life hardships.

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Research on social development, then, delivers good news. Social environments can enable people to bounce back from early-life difficulties. Let’s look more closely at these social settings now.

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The world’s children develop in widely varying environments. Some live in a high-tech world, sending texts while being shuttled from soccer games to music lessons. Others live in rural villages, work on farms, and receive little formal education. In some communities, most children are born into two-parent families. In others, two-parent households are relatively rare.

Despite this diversity, there are some constants. Most children grow up with one or both parents; many have siblings; virtually all interact with peers; and all inevitably develop within the economic conditions of their family, community, and nation. Let’s examine these settings for social development.

PARENTS AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. To understand the role of parents in children’s development, it’s important to recognize that families are “systems” (Parke, 2004; Sameroff, 1994; Thelen & Smith, 1994). A system is any collection of people or objects that influence one another. Families are like this. Not only do parents affect their children, but also children affect their parents, siblings influence one another’s development, and the relationship between siblings affects parents (Parke, 2004).

Interactions in the family system make it hard to predict how any one variable will affect the family as a whole. Research on parenting styles illustrates this.

In one longitudinal study—a study in which the same individuals are observed at different periods of time—researchers first obtained two key measures when children were 1 to 2 years old: (1) parenting style (parents’ level of warnings and punishments) and (2) children’s temperament (whether a child was difficult or easy to manage). Later, when children were 7 to 10 years old, teachers and mothers reported their levels of aggressiveness (arguing, fighting) and delinquency (stealing, vandalism, substance abuse). How did parenting style affect these outcomes? It depended; in the complex system that is a family, parenting style did not have one consistent effect. Rather, the effects of parents’ style varied depending on children’s temperament (Figure 14.8). Among easy-to-manage children, a “laid back” parenting style was better. Among children with a difficult-to-manage temperament, a stricter parenting style was better (Bates et al., 1998).

This result teaches a general lesson about social development. The media often present “facile sound bites about parenting” (Collins et al., 2000, p. 228)—simple reports of what’s best for children in general. But scientific evidence shows there is no single “best way” to parent. Parenting styles have different effects on different children.

PARENTS AND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT. In addition to social development, parenting can affect physical development. Children’s physical skills are shaped not only by inherited biology, but also by experiences in the home (Kopp, 2011). An example of this is children’s motor development, that is, growth in the ability to coordinate muscular movements in order to move one’s body skillfully (Adolph, Karasik, & Tamis-LeMonda, 2010).

Motor development is marked by a series of “milestones”—significant changes that reflect a child’s growing skill. For most children, motor development milestones occur in the sequence shown in Figure 14.9. Children achieve these milestones through practice. Observations of 12- to 19-month-olds, for example, reveal that during an average hour of free play, they take more than 2000 steps and fall about 17 times (Adolph et al., 2012). These experiences enable children to refine their motor skills.

The rate at which children develop motor skills is influenced by factors in the family environment. One is socioeconomic status. Children born into wealthier families tend to outperform children from poor households on tests of motor skill (Venetsanou & Kambas, 2010). In wealthier households, children usually have more space to run around (e.g., a backyard) and more interactive toys, which may speed motor development.

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A second factor is more surprising: parental choices about diapers. Researchers observed children’s walking under each of three experimental diaper conditions: (1) no diapers (i.e., naked), (2) disposable diapers, or (3) cloth diapers (Cole, Lingeman, & Adolph, 2012). In each condition, children walked on a pressure-sensitive carpet that recorded their steps. Diapers impaired walking, as compared to the naked-walking condition (Figure 14.10). When wearing diapers, infants’ walking was more wobbly and they fell more often (Cole et al., 2012). Cloth diapers impaired walking more than disposable diapers did. Children’s level of motor coordination thus reflects not only their biological development, but also parents’ choice of how to dress them.

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As Cole and colleagues review (2012), parenting styles differ across cultures in ways that affect children’s motor development. In some Caribbean and African cultures, parents frequently prop up their infants rather than letting them lie in cribs. As a result, children in those cultures sit without support at a relatively early age (see Figure 14.9). In some areas of China, infants lie on fine sand that absorbs bodily waste, reducing the need for diapers. This parenting practice reduces freedom of movement, though, delaying the age at which children first sit and walk. Historical evidence indicates that in nineteenth-century America, children did little crawling—not because they differed physically from twenty-first-century infants, but because parents dressed them in gowns that impeded movement of their hands and knees.

SIBLINGS. Another source of influence on children’s development is siblings. In studying the effects of siblings on one another, researchers distinguish between two kinds of sibling effects: direct and indirect (Brody, 2004; Figure 14.11).

Three indirect sibling effects involve (1) parenting skill, (2) birth order, and (3) pecking order.

Parents’ skills change from one child to the next. When raising their first child, parents are learning on-the-go. But thanks to their experiences with the firstborn, mom and dad are more skilled at parenting when the second child arrives; they tend to employ more effective parenting strategies that lower parent–child conflict (Whiteman, McHale, & Crouter, 2003).

Birth order effects are differences between the oldest child in the family and later-born children. On average, first- and second-born children differ in conformity, that is, the tendency to conform to, as opposed to rebel against, parental rules. Firstborn children are more likely to conform. Second-borns tend to rebel, particularly if the age difference between children is not large (Healey & Ellis, 2007; Sulloway, 1996). For example, among young adults in Belgium, second-born children were found to be less religious than their older siblings (Saroglou & Fiasse, 2003); they tended to rebel against the family’s religious traditions. Birth order differences result from indirect sibling effects (Sulloway, 1996). Firstborn children have a family role available to them: maintain family traditions. Second-borns find that role already filled (by the firstborn); thus, they seek alternative lifestyles that establish their individuality.

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Pecking order (Conley, 2004) refers to the relative status of children within a family. Many families face scarce resources and must therefore make difficult decisions about allocating family funds. Children judged to be brighter or more socially skilled may get more resources; they rise in the pecking order. Consistent with a pecking-order analysis, within-family differences in economic success in the United States are large: “In America, sibling differences represent about three-quarters of all the differences [i.e., the overall statistical differences] between individuals” (Conley, 2004, p. 6).

PEERS. Schoolchildren spend much of their time with peers, that is, boys and girls of their age group. Peers interact in classrooms, on playgrounds, and “virtually” in electronic communication.

Psychologist Judith Rich Harris (1995) explains that peer interactions shape children’s development in two ways: They cause individuals to (1) fit in with, and (2) stand out from, others. The effects are called group assimilation and within-group differentiation.

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Peer interactions contribute to gender differences in behavior. In childhood and adolescence, girls’ and boys’ interactions with peers differ. For example, girls spend more time conversing with each other, revealing their private thoughts and feelings to close friends and seeking social support. Boys more frequently compete in games in large groups and engage in physical play. In conversation, boys are more likely to talk about their superiority to their peers (Rose & Rudolph, 2006). Where do these gender differences come from? In part, they are created by interactions with peers. Researchers measured the degree to which kindergartners played in mixed-sex groups or same-sex groups (Martin & Fabes, 2001). Over time, children who played in same-sex groups displayed more behavior that was typical of their gender. They appeared to learn behaviors that were typical for girls and for boys by interacting with other same-sex children.

ECONOMIC STATUS. The world’s families differ greatly in wealth. Many can easily provide children with adequate food, shelter, clothing, and education, whereas others struggle to obtain these necessities of life.

Economic status affects psychological development. Greater wealth provides children with opportunities to develop skills that bring success later in life. Poverty presents big disadvantages: fewer opportunities to experience music and the arts, to read and write at home, and to learn about the world beyond one’s own neighborhood (Heckman, 2006). The lack of stimulation may slow development of personal motivation and skills.

Good news is that interventions can make up for a lack of intellectual stimulation at home. Evidence comes from a large-scale experimental study, the Perry Preschool Program (Schweinhart et al., 2005), which was launched in 1962 in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

More than 100 children aged 3 to 4 from economically disadvantaged African American families took part in the Perry Preschool Study. A subgroup of these children, chosen at random, experienced an enriched, high-quality educational program featuring an extra 2½ hours of preschool education per day and home visits from teachers, who consulted on each child’s educational progress and overall development. To find out if this extra education had any effect, researchers tracked the children’s development for an extraordinarily long time: until they reached age 40. Extra educational resources were found to have long-lasting effects (Figure 14.12). Children with enriched education were more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to ever be arrested, and earned more money as adults.

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“Tell me about yourself.” It’s easy; you have a well-developed sense of self that you can talk about. But once upon a time, you didn’t. Self-concept develops gradually.

In studying self-concept, developmental psychologists distinguish among different aspects of mental life, each of which involves oneself. We’ll look at three: self-representations (facts people know about themselves), self-esteem (overall feelings about oneself), and self-control (specifically, controlling one’s behavior and emotions).

FACTS ABOUT THE SELF: SELF-REPRESENTATIONS. After developing the ability to use language (see Chapter 8), children begin to use language to describe themselves. They develop beliefs about who they are and how they differ from others. These beliefs, stored in memory, are self-representations, that is, mental images that represent characteristics of oneself.

Developmental psychologists try to answer two questions about self-representations: (1) Where do they come from; in other words, what is the source of information from which children develop a sense of self? (2) How do self-representations change across the childhood years?

Schoolchildren take classes on reading and writing, not on “the self.” So where do they get their sense of self? A major source of information is the opinions and actions of others. Other people are like mirrors (Cooley, 1902): They reflect back to you information about yourself. Input from other people—not only others’ statements but also their behavioral reactions to individuals (Leary et al., 1995)—teaches people about their skills, distinctive personality characteristics, and level of popularity.

The way in which self-representations change can be seen with some examples. They come from, respectively, a preschooler, a first-grader, and a fourth-grader:

“I’m 3 years old and I live in a big house with my mother and father and my brother, Jason, and my sister, Lisa. I have blue eyes and a kitty that is orange. … I like pizza and I have a nice teacher at preschool. I can count up to 100, want to hear me?”

“I have a lot of friends, in my neighborhood, at school, and at my church. I’m good at schoolwork, I know my words, and letters, and my numbers. … I can throw a ball real far, I’m going to be on some kind of team when I’m older. I can do lots of stuff real good. … My parents are real proud of me when I do good at things. It makes me really happy and excited when they watch me!”

“I’m in fourth grade this year, and I’m pretty popular, at least with the girls. That’s because I’m nice to people and helpful and can keep secrets. Mostly I am nice to my friends, although if I get in a bad mood I sometimes say something that can be a little mean. I try to control my temper, but when I don’t, I’m ashamed of myself. … Even though I’m not doing well in [math and science] … I still like myself as a person … how I look and how popular I am are more important.”

—from Harter (1999, pp. 37, 41, 48)

As you can see, self-representations change as children get older. They become richer and more complex (Harter, 1999). In the preschool years, children think of themselves in terms of simple, concrete attributes that may appear unrelated (e.g., “I live in a big house”; “I like pizza”). When they reach ages 5 to 7, children connect self-representations to one another. For example, the first-grader quoted above connects ideas causally; parents are proud because the child is good at things, and being on a team is likely because of the ability to throw a ball. By the fourth grade, self-representations consist of not only concrete actions and preferences, but also abstract traits. The fourth-grader quoted above knows not only that she has friends (a concrete fact), but also that she is “popular,” a more abstract description of the self.

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FEELINGS ABOUT THE SELF: SELF-ESTEEM. Now let’s turn from facts (self-representations) to feelings about the self and children’s development of self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to people’s overall sense of self-worth—their feelings about how valuable and worthy they are. Psychologists distinguish between two aspects of self-esteem. Global self-esteem is a person’s overall feelings of self-worth. Differentiated self-esteem refers to the varying feelings people may have about themselves when thinking about different aspects of their lives.

Self-esteem changes across the childhood years (Robins & Trzesniewski, 2005). Children’s self-esteem tends to be high around ages 9 to 10 and to drop in early adolescence (around ages 12 to 13). Changes at school may contribute to this drop; middle school students face more academic competition and receive less personalized attention from teachers than in grade school (Harter & Whitesell, 2003). The adolescent decline in self-esteem is slightly larger for girls than boys. A combination of biology and culture may underlie the gender difference. Girls naturally gain weight during puberty but encounter a culture that idealizes thinness (Kling et al., 1999).

Self-esteem also becomes more differentiated as children age (Harter, 1999). Around ages 4 to 7, there are two distinct aspects to children’s self-esteem: competence (children’s evaluations of their behavioral effectiveness) and social adequacy (evaluations of social behavior and personal appearance). At ages 8 to 12, there are five: Children differentiate among competence at school, competence in athletics, physical appearance, self-control, and being liked by peers (Harter, 1999).

Individuals differ in self-esteem. Many factors contribute to these differences. One factor is inherited temperament. Children who inherit a tendency to experience negative emotions tend to develop low self-esteem (Neiss et al., 2009).

Another influence is parenting style. A classic study (Coopersmith, 1967) identified two aspects of parenting that predict self-esteem: (1) acceptance and (2) style of discipline. Parents who are consistently accepting of their children—who display interest in and affection toward them—produce children with higher self-esteem. A discipline style that features clear-cut rules, and their enforcement in a manner that is respectful of children, also boosts self-esteem.

Some factors have surprisingly little influence on self-esteem. One is social prestige; on average, children whose parents are wealthy and have prestigious jobs do not have higher self-esteem than others (Coopersmith, 1967). Another is adoption. Children who are adopted face unique challenges (e.g., living in foster care prior to adoption), yet their self-esteem is as high as children living with their biological families (Juffer & van IJzendoorn, 2007). Divorce is another factor with little influence. It disrupts family life, but does not substantially lower children’s self-esteem and overall psychological adjustment. Its negative effects on children’s sense of well-being are “small in magnitude and not universal” (Lansford, 2009, p. 140).

MASTERY OVER BEHAVIOR: SELF-CONTROL. If you want to, you usually can stifle inappropriate laughter, stop yourself from eating two desserts, and study for an exam when you’d rather be hanging out with friends. You can exert self-control, which is the ability to act in a manner consistent with long-term goals and values, even if you feel an emotional impulse to act differently. You may feel like laughing out loud or overeating, but you know that, in the long run, it’s better to keep your mouth shut.

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As an infant, however, you were unable to stifle your laughter, control your eating, or work toward long-term goals; you hadn’t yet developed self-control. Those abilities develop rapidly during the first few years of life (Eisenberg, 2012). In one study, children of three different ages—18, 24, and 30 months—performed impulse-control tasks; for instance, they were asked to avoid playing with a telephone placed next to them. On average, 18-month-olds started playing with the phone in only 10 seconds. But 24- and 30-month-olds were much better at self-control; they refrained from playing with it for 70 and 113 seconds, respectively.

Children’s ability to control their emotions and behavior rests, to a large degree, on a mental ability known as cognitive control. Cognitive control is the ability to suppress emotions and impulsive behaviors that are undesired or inappropriate (Casey et al., 2011). By concentrating attention on a task at hand, people can avoid distractions and maintain control over their impulses. This ability changes with age; older children are better able to focus their attention on tasks than are younger ones (Rothbart, Posner, & Kieras, 2006). When asked to pay attention to one aspect of images on a computer screen (the type of animal that an image depicted) while ignoring another aspect (the location of the image on the screen), 3-year-olds significantly outperformed 2½-year-olds who, in turn, outperformed 2-year-olds (Rothbart et al., 2003).

Self-control abilities are remarkably consistent over time. Children with high (or low) self-control ability in childhood tend to have high (or low) self-control ability later in life. Striking evidence of this comes from delay of gratification research by Walter Mischel and colleagues. Delay of gratification is the ability to refrain from consuming a desired reward in order to get a better reward later (also see Chapter 13). If you stop yourself from eating a piece of cake in order to remain thin, you are delaying gratification. Mischel studied delay of gratification in children by asking them to delay eating a small food treat in order to obtain a bigger treat in the near future. The amount of time they could delay was the measure of individual differences in self-control ability. Ten years later, the researchers contacted the participants (high schoolers by then) and their families and asked the parents to describe their adolescents’ personalities. Amazingly, ability to delay gratification in childhood predicted adolescent personality (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990). Children who were better at controlling their behavior in childhood were more capable of coping with everyday problems, pursuing personal goals, and avoiding distractions in high school. Delay ability even predicted SAT scores; better childhood self-control predicted higher test scores.

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