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Home › Articles › Guiding Baby's Development › Baby's Temperament

Baby's Temperament

Personality Styles in Infants

By Laura Cone

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Taylor says Allana used to be very shy but became more extroverted after she turned 2 1/2. "She came out of her shell and now she is very extroverted," she says. "You want them to come out of their shell and you expose them to activities. With all the exposure they become who they are supposed to be."

Although Taylor's children may choose to contain expressions of their temperaments to please other people or get a certain outcome, experts say a person's temperament does not change.

History of Temperaments
Hippocrates, a famous Greek born in 460 B.C., first talked about four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm, which people later used as the basis for four basic temperaments called sanguine, melancholic, choleric and phlegmatic.

However, most modern experts say temperaments are more complex. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) describes temperaments as rings of a tree. At their core, a person is either introspective or observant. The second ring determines whether a person is cooperative or pragmatic. The third ring deals with whether an individual is directive or informative and the fourth ring shows if he or she is expressive or attentive.

Ultimately, Keirsey describes the four temperaments as artisan, guardian, idealist and rational. As your baby grows into a child and adult and wants to choose a career, those categories will become more relevant.

Avoiding Labels
Dr. William B. Carey, the director of Behavioral Pediatrics in the division of general pediatrics at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, spent many years researching temperaments. He avoids using labels, but focuses on a child's specific behavior. Dr. Carey is also the author of Understanding Your Child's Temperament (Xlibris, 2004).

Dr. Carey says 50 percent of your baby's temperament is genetic. Don't try to figure out your baby's temperament as a newborn because their reactions might be influenced by labor, medication and issues related to delivery. "Those effects seem to wear off by the time the child is 3 or 4 months of age," he says. "We don't know exactly when the more lasting traits appear."


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