Daniel Goleman's
"Emotional Intelligence: Temperament Is Not" Destiny"
Temperament can be defined in terms of the moods that typify our emotional life. Daniel Goleman says that temperament is a given at birth, part of the genetic lottery that has compelling force in the unfolding of life. Goleman asks the question, "If whether such a biologically determined emotional set can be changed by experience? Does our biology fix our emotional destiny, or can even an innately shy child grow into a more confident adult?" Jerome Kagan, a developmental psychologist at Harvard University says that there are at least four different temperamental types: timid, bold, upbeat, and melancholy. Each temperament is due to a different pattern of the brain activity. Mothers have been bringing their infants and toddlers to Kagan's Laboratory for Development at Harvard where they took part in studies for child development. Kagan noticed early signs of shyness in a group of twenty one month old toddlers. During free play, some toddlers would play with others without no hesitation while others were uncertain and hesitant, hanging back, clinging to their mothers and quietly watching the others play. Four years later when the same kids were in kindergarten, they were observed again. Research revealed that none of the outgoing children had become timid while two thirds of the timid ones were still shy.
Kagan says that the difference between the timid and bold child lies in the excitability of a neural circuit centered on the amygdala. People who are prone to fearfulness are born with a neurochemistry that makes this circuit easily aroused. Those who are bold have a nervous system calibrated with a higher threshold for amygdala arousal, hence makes them less easily frightened, more naturally outgoing, and eager to explore new places and meet new people.
An early clue to which behavior a child has inherited is how difficult and irritable she is as an infant. If she will easily cry if a stranger appears or is she will not
Silence is another barometer of timidity. When observing shy and bold children in natural settings with other children they did not know, the timid children talked less. Kagan speculates that a timid silence in the face of novelty or a perceived threat is a sign of the activity of neural circuit running between the forebrain, the amygdala, and nearby limbic structures that control the ability to vocalize. Goleman says that by nature, some peoples emotions gravitate toward the positive pole and these people are naturally upbeat and easygoing while others are melancholy. And this seems to be linked to the relative activity of the right and left prefrontal areas, the upper poles of the emotional brain. Richard Davidson, a psychologist from the University of Wisconsin discovered that people who have greater activity in the left frontal lobe, compared to the right are by temperament cheerful. But those with greater activity on the right side are negative have and sour moods. Davidson found that those with a history of clinical depression had lower levels of brain activity in the left frontal lobe and more on the right than did people who had never been depressed.
Goleman says that the tendency toward a melancholy or upbeat temperament emerges within the first year of life. And Davidson found that the activity level of the frontal lobes predicted whether an infant would cry when their mothers left the room. The correlation was virtually 100 percent of dozens of infants tested. Infants who cried had more brain activity on the right side while those who did not cry had more activity on the left.
However, Goleman says that the emotional lessons of childhood can have a profound impact on temperament. During the years of childhood experience, can have a lasting impact on the sculpting of neural pathways for the rest of life.
Not all fearful infants grow up hanging back from life. Temperament is not destiny. The overexcitable amygdala can be tamed with the right experience. The emotional lessons and responses children learn as they grow is what is important. For the timid child, what is important is how they are treated by their parents, so how they learn to handle their natural timidness. About one in three infants who come into the world with all the signs of an overexcitable amygdala have lost their timidness by the time they reach kindergarten. Mothers play a major role in whether an innately timid child grows bolder with time or continues to stay shy. Mothers who are protective seems to abetted the fearfulness, by depriving the child opportunity for learning how to overcome their fears. The learn to adapt philosophy of childbearing seems to have helped fearful children become braver.
Throughout childhood some timid children grow bolder as experience continues to mold the key circuitry. By having a higher level of social competence, the timid child will be more likely to overcome their shyness. Being more socially skilled, they were far more likely to have a succession of positive experiences with other children. The regular repetition of such social success over many years would naturally tend to make the timid more sure of themselves.
Goleman says that fearfulness or any other temperament may be part of the biological givens of our emotional lives but we are not necessarily limited to a specific emotional menu by our inherited traits. Genes alone do not determine behavior, our environment, especially what we experience and learn as we grow , shapes how a temperamental predisposition expresses itself as life unfolds. Our emotional capacities can be improved with the right learning.
Cindy Melo
According to Danied Goleman, temperament is predisposed. However, I feel that temperament can be changed
as the child grows with different life experiences.
Is there a critical period where in one can change their temperament?
Goleman says that childhood a period of crucial windows. Parents play
a critical role during a childs early years. Instilling beneficial emotional
habits during the early years is very important.
Lynne Faylogna
Goleman says that temperament is a given at birth, part of our genetic lottery.
Robby Solmssen
I do think that temperament in innate and can be influenced by one's parents.
Parents play an important part to a childs development. I really feel that
in some ways, parents can mold a childs emotions to a certain extent.
Do you think that if someone changes emotionally their temperament will be temporary or long term?
I think your temperament will be long term also. I do think emotions have a lot
to do with temperament. If your emotions change, I feel that temperament will
change with the emotions.
Janice Kamm
Yes, I do believe that a childs temperament will predict how a person will be as an adult.
Not for all cases, but if a child is shy, I think he will grow up to be shy.
However, I also think that temperament can change also. So prediction
of adulthood may be not that accurate.
Tara Anthony
Childhood experience could change the way a child will grow up.
James Yang
Temperament determines the mood that typify our emotions.
Our daily behavior is determined by our emotions which is determined by our temperament.
Leena Dwiggins
Do you feel that a shy child born to outgoing parents would remain shy?
I think a child could be outgoing even if they are born to shy parents.
The experience that they encounter during childhood could shape their behavior as they get older.
It was interesting to read about temperament and how we are born
with a certain set of emotions. It is good to know that temperament
is not destiny and that we can change as we grow older. I really felt
that a parent has a lot of responsibility for the childs development.
This is a chapter that I would like to read again when I have children
of my own.
Nothing Bothers Me: The Cheerful Temperament
Taming the Overexcitable Amygdala
Childhood: A Window of Opportunity
The human brain is not fully formed at birth but continues to shape itself through life. Children are born with many more neurons than their brains will retain, through a process called pruning the brain actually losses the neuronal connections which are less
used and forms strong connections in those synaptic circuits which are used more This process is constant and quick,
the synaptic connections can form in hours or just days. This is why experience in childhood is important
because it sculpts the brain.
An example of a study done on rats which were called poor and rich rats demonstrates that rich rats which lived in small groups with plenty of diversions such as ladders and treadmills had heavier brains compared to those rats which did not have such diversions. The rich rats developed more complex networks of synaptic circuits interconnecting the
neurons and the poor rat's neuronal circuitry was sparse.
Psychotherapy can change both emotional patterns and shape the brain. A demonstration of this comes from the study of Obsessive compulsive behavior. PET scan studies show that obsessive compulsives have greater than normal activity in the prefrontal lobes. Half of the patients go a drug treatment and half received behavior therapy. The results showed that patients who received behavior therapy had as significant decrease in the activity of the brain as did the drug.
Crucial Windows
Goleman says that out of all species, humans take the longest for our brains to fully develop. The habits of emotional management that are repeated over and over again during childhood and the teenage years will help mold the circuitry of our brain. This makes childhood a crucial window of opportunity for shaping lifelong emotional inclination. Habits acquired in childhood become set in the basic synaptic wiring of neural architecture and are harder to change later in life.
Goleman says that the key skills to emotional intelligence each have critical periods extending over several years in childhood. Each period represents a window for helping that child instill beneficial emotional habits or if missed, to make it that much harder to offer corrective lessons later in life. The massive sculpting and pruning of neural circuits in childhood may be an enduring and pervasive effects in adulthood. It may explain, too why psychotherapy can often take so long to affect some of these patterns.
There are many different emotional habits instilled by parents whose attunement means an infants emotional needs are acknowledged and met or self absorbed parents who ignore a child's distress or who discipline by yelling and hitting. Psychotherapy is like a remedial tutorial for what was skewed or missed completely earlier in life.
Question and Answer
Is a child predisposed to a temperament or does it depend on how a care giver brings up the child?
Is shyness inherited?
Do you think temperament is innate or may be influenced by one's parents?
Do you think tha a childs temperament can predict how a person will be as an adult?
How can a person explain an outgoing child becoming very timid?
How does our temperament affect our daily behaviors?
Does the book look at environmental influence on temperment?
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