Enduring Characteristics of an Individual - Essay Example

Children have been observed to have many different types of temperaments, which have been broadly classified as easy babies, difficult babies, and slow-to-warm babies. Easy babies have consistent behavior, which can be adapted easily to patterns of eating, sleeping, and other routines. Difficult babies are very irregular and irritable in their patterns making it harder for them to adapt to changes. Slow-to-warm babies tend not to be very irritable, though their behavior is negative and they recede from the public (Feldman p. 188, 2010).

Common sense dictates that temperament should affect the development of a baby into a good or bad individual, or a healthy or unhealthy individual. But researchers have shown that this is not the case, although temperament does have an indirect effect. The overall effect combines temperament and the societal nature and the general atmosphere around a person also.
Temperament directly affects the attachment of babies to their parents. Recent research has shown that parental attachment can also govern the development of a child’s temperament. Easy-to-handle babies are generally highly attached to their parents (Smith, 2009).
The behavior of a mother post-partum is a very important factor in determining a child’s temperament. Women with a higher level of maternal education can cope with babies better, having a lesser negative post-partum impact on their children (Smith, 2009).
It has been observed that the mode of delivery has a very direct impact on the mother’s emotional stability. Natural and planned cesarean births fare far better than emergency cesareans and epidurals. These can also affect the temperament of children indirectly (Smith, 2009).
Scientists are still unsure whether temperament is a completely psychological aspect of a human, or if is there some biological effect too as there is evidence of this. The research in question also points out that baby boys are temperamentally more difficult than girls, suggesting both a biological and a sociological trend (Smith, 2009).
Temperament is a very important trait of human personality. Although we know many social aspects which affect the temperament of an infant, we have relatively low information on the biological aspects of a human which give rise to a certain personality. This needs to be investigated, as it might give us more insight into the working of humans.