Cultural contributors to temperament: A multilevel analysis from the Joint Effort Toddler Temperament Consortium

Eric Edward Desmarais

For developmental scientists, the opportunity for comparative studies conducted across different cultures clarifies the role of contextual factors in development. This is especially true regarding the study of individual differences, which presupposes that individuals have unique experiences, and that the interplay between each person’s constitution and context (i.e., nature and nurture) results in a myriad of phenotypic possibilities that can be predicted and explained. The psychobiological model of temperament offers an attractive framework for assessing the role of cultural influences on individual development, leading to many international studies of temperament. However, these studies are often limited in scope, with traditional analytical methods unable to accommodate data wherein individuals are nested in within cultures. The present study advances the cross-cultural temperament literature by comparing temperament ratings, collected via the Early Child Behavior Questionnaire, of toddlers from 14 nations. Accounting for the nested nature of the data, multilevel modeling procedures were utilized to regress Hofstede’s cultural value dimensions (i.e., individualism/collectivism, power distance, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, indulgence/restraint, and long-/short-term orientation) on the three broad temperament factors (i.e., negative emotionality, surgency, and effortful control) and 17 fine-grained temperament scales while controlling for the effects of age and gender. For surgency and its associated subscales, only positive anticipation was significantly influenced by cultural values, with more individualistic and indulgent cultural values predicting lower ratings of positive anticipation. More individualistic values were associate with lower ratings of toddler negative emotionality, discomfort, fear, motor activity, perceptual sensitivity, and higher ratings of soothability. The discomfort subscale was also negatively associated with power distance and positively associated with masculine cultural values. Higher ratings of shyness were associated with long-term cultural orientation. Effortful control was not significantly related to cultural values; however, more individualistic cultures rated their toddlers as having greater attention focusing, as did cultures with more masculine values. Higher ratings on cuddliness were associated with cultures espousing more short-term and restrained values. Overall, this study illustrates the feasibility of a multilevel modeling approach to cross-cultural research and provides new perspective on the intersection of culture and development. Limitation and future implications are discussed.

Cultural contributors to temperament: A multilevel analysis from the Joint Effort Toddler Temperament Consortium

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