ABSTRACT
All of us in the behavioral sciences are greatly indebted to Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess, and to the late Herbert Birch, for the important contributions they have made to our understanding of individuality in human behavioral development. Their work on temperament continues to be seminal in the shaping of our thinking and in the guidance of research studies in this area. The importance of these contributions, however, is not limited to our better understanding of temperament. Rather, their work has been a maieutic factor in the development of additional lines of thought and research concerning the processes of human development. Their struggle to define and explicate dimensions of temperament, and to account for the paradoxical relationship of change, continuity, and stability in the manifestations of this construct in the behavior of individuals, has led me to the concerns that have dominated my intellectual agenda for the past several years.
