Assessment of the validity of easy and difficult temperament through observed mother-child behaviours

Forty mothers and their 7-year-old children were video-taped while interacting during the completion of five structured tasks. Half of the children had been rated as having a difficult temperament by their mothers on the Thomas and Chess Temperament Questionnaire during the previous 3 years. The other half had a stable, easy temperament according to these ratings. Observation of mother-child interactions demonstrated that the behaviour of mothers of easy and difficult children did not differ significantly, but difficult-temperament children showed significantly more negative and disputing behaviour than did easy children, Controlling and critical behaviours on the part of the mothers were particularly associated with child negativity, most notably when they occurred in the easy group. Mothers of the children in the easy group were likely to respond to child negativity with the encouragement of autonomy but this was extremely rare in the difficult group. Mothers of difficult children gave more positive encouragement to their children both before and after negative behaviour. Overall, the results indicated a different pattern of contingent responses for easy child-mother pairs, and also offered some support for the validity of mother ratings of difficult temperament.