The prospective impact of child temperament on externalizing behaviors

Details

Supervisors

Mikolajczak, Moïra ; Roskam, Isabelle

Faculty

Faculté de psychologie, logopédie, sexologie et des sciences de la famille

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences psychologiques, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Temperament encompasses the individual variations in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity, persisting from early life and exerting a lasting influence on behavior and personality development. Externalizing behaviors encompass problematic actions directed outwardly, such as aggression, hyperactivity, and conduct problems. This systematic review aimed to comprehensively analyze and integrate current research findings regarding the association between early temperament dimensions and externalizing behaviors in children and adolescents. METHODS: We established rigorous criteria for study selection, focusing on articles using measures of association like correlation coefficients (r) or regression coefficients (Beta), and diverse measurement tools for various temperament and externalizing behavior subtypes. The inclusion criteria encompassed the 50 most recent prospective and longitudinal studies, requiring at least two measurement points: temperament at Time 1 (T1) and externalizing behaviors at Time 2 (T2). Using a comprehensive research equation derived from a thesaurus, we conducted a PsycINFO search to identify relevant studies. The screening process in Rayyan AI involved blind assessment by two independent researchers, followed by a non-blind phase for full-text review. These systematic methods ensured robust study selection, enhancing the reliability of our systematic review. Data were organized in an Excel table, including authors' details, publication dates, measures of temperament and externalizing behaviors, demographic information, and study design characteristics. RESULTS: 47 prospective and longitudinal studies were eventually selected for this systematic review, gathering a total of approximately 28,699 participants. Out of these studies, 43, thus 91,49%, recorded a significant relationship between temperament and subsequent externalizing behaviors, while 4 of them (8,51%) did not observe that relationship. The two temperamental dimensions Surgency (SUR) and Negative Affectivity (NA) were shown to have a significant and positive relationship with later externalizing behaviors whereas the dimension Effortful Control (EC) displayed a significant but negative relationship with such behaviors. Other variables were analyzed but none of them seemed to show an effect on our relationship of interest, these are as follow: gender, country of the respondents, measurement instrument used to evaluate or temperament and externalizing behaviors, type of report, time intervals, age of the respondents and specific conditions. Further research on these variables needs to be conducted to reach definite and safe conclusions on their effect on the relationship of interest, or the absence of it. DISCUSSION: Both original studies and our own research face limitations in exploring the relationship between temperament and externalizing behaviors due to various factors. Original studies encounter challenges such as diverse measurement methods, the operationalization of temperament and behaviors and participant demographics, hindering the possibility of comparing effect sizes. Our study, while offering qualitative insights, lacks meta-analytical statistical analyses (effect sizes were neither encoded nor calculated, only observed) and is constrained by time. Integrating such analyses in future research could provide a more precise understanding of temperament's impact on externalizing behaviors.