An affect-based, hierarchical model of temperament and its relations with internalizing symptomatology

Examined the tripartite model of personality, which emphasizes negative affectivity (NA) and positive affectivity (PA) as central organizing dimensions of personality that are useful for discriminating psychopathologies. Conceptualizations of youth temperament also include second-order, organizing factors of negative emotionality/neuroticism and positive emotionality/extroversion that may differentially predict psychopathologies. A community sample of 290 10- to 17-year-old youth completed the Emotionality, Activity and Sociability Temperament Survey (EAS), Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule, and measures of symptoms of anxiety and depression. Factor analysis replicated the 5-factor structure of the EAS and revealed 2 independent second-order factors, negative temperament (NT) and positive temperament (PT). NT and PT demonstrated convergent and discriminant relations with NA and PA. Consistent with the tripartite model, NT was associated with both anxiety and depression scores, but PT was related to depression scores only.