Temperament and psychopathology: The "community" to which you belong matters

Abstract

We utilized a community detection approach to longitudinally (a) identify distinct groups of children with common temperament profiles in infancy and at 2 and 3 years of age and (b) determine whether co-occurrence of certain temperament traits may be early predictors of internalizing problems at 5 years of age. Seven hundred and seventy-four infants (360 girls; 88.6% White, 9.8% Hispanic, and 1.6% other races) were recruited from the Boston area. Data collection spanned from 2012 to 2021. The analysis yielded three distinct groups of children with different temperament traits and was associated with significant variation in levels of internalizing symptoms and anxiety diagnosis rate. Our findings suggest that stable temperament "communities" can be detected in early childhood and may predict risk for psychopathology later in life.

Fig 1.

Profiles of ratings on the IBQ-R and EBCQ subscales in the three temperament groups by age and sex as indicated by the community detection algorithm. The solid lines represent the mean z-score of each subscale, and the error bars represent +/− 1 standard error. The subscales are grouped into three different domains, i.e., surgency, negative affectivity (NA), and orienting/regulation (O/R) or effortful control (EC).

Fig 2.

Transitions between groups in infancy, 2 years, and 3 years. The thickness of the lines indicates the proportion of children from each group that transitioned to the linked group at an older age. The circular plots show the temperament profile of each group. The innermost circles colored in gray mark −1.5 standard deviations (SD) from the median; the outmost gray circles mark +1.5 SD. The middle gray circles indicate the median. Silhouette plots, shown in the bottom panel, indicate the quality of the clustering solution at each age. Positive values indicate a higher silhouette coefficient, i.e. greater similarity among data in the same group. The dotted vertical line shows the mean value across all data points. Abbreviations: App - IBQ-R Approach scale, Voc - IBQ-R Vocal Reactivity scale, HiP - IBQ-R High Pleasure scale, Smi - IBQ-R Smiling scale, Act - IBQ-R Activity scale, Sen - IBQ-R Perceptual Sensitivity scale, Sad - IBQ-R Sadness scale, Dis - IBQ-R Distress scale, Fea - IBQ-R Fear scale, Rea - IBQ-R Fall Reactivity scale, LoP - IBQ-R Low Pleasure scale, Cud - IBQ-R Cuddliness scale, Ori - IBQ-R Orienting scale, Soo - IBQ-R Soothability scale; Imp - ECBQ Impulsive scale, Act - ECBQ Activity scale, HiP - ECBQ High Pleasure scale, Soc - ECBQ Sociability scale, Ant - ECBQ Positive Anticipation scale, Dis - ECBQ Discomfort scale, Fea - ECBQ Fear scale, Mot - ECBQ Motor scale, Sad - ECBQ Sadness scale, Sen - ECBQ Perceptual Sensitivity scale, Shy - ECBQ Shyness scale, Soo - ECBQ Soothability scale, Fru - ECBQ Frustration scale, Inh - ECBQ Inhibitory Control scale, Att - ECBQ Attention Shifting scale, LoP - ECBQ Low Pleasure scale, Cud - ECBQ Cuddliness scale, Foc - ECBQ Attentional Focus scale.

Fig 3.

External validation of the temperament groups identified by clustering analysis. A. Children’s dwell time (DT) at age 5 years by temperament groups and stimulus type. Children in the EBR group showed greater DT on the stimuli (primarily the faces) compared to children in the IOC group. B. Children’s prosocial behavior in the Bin episode at age 3 years by temperament groups. The percentiles of EBR and EBD children coded as “spontaneous helper” was greater compared to the IOC children. By contrast, children in the IOC group were more likely to be coded as a “non-helper.” There was no difference between groups in the likelihood of being coded as a “prompted helper.” C. Children’s behavioral inhibition (BI) composite score at age 3 years by temperament groups. Children in the IOC group exhibited greater BI score than children in the other two groups. The temperament groups at age 3 years were used in these external validation tests. The error bars in A and C represent standard errors of mean, and *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Fig 4.

Internalizing (A), anxiety specific (B) and externalizing (C) symptoms by temperament group. The y-axes show the CBCL Internalizing (A) and Anxiety (B) Problems T-scores. The x-axes display temperament group by age. Error bands represent +/− 1 standard error. *adjusted p < .05, **adjusted p < .01, ***adjusted p < .001.

Fig 5.

Anxiety diagnosis by temperament group and age. The area of the pie represents the percentile of children with (black) or without (green) one or more anxiety diagnoses at age 5 years. The proportion of children having an anxiety diagnosis did not differ by temperament group in infancy but did at age 2 years (EBD > EBR) and at age 3 years (EBD, IOC > EBR).