ABSTRACT
That links can be found between children’s temperamental characteristics and interactions with particular others is now reasonably well established. For example, “difficult” scores of infants have been shown to be related to maternal unresponsiveness (Campbell, 1979; Milliones, 1978) and to negative maternal responses (Kelly, 1976). With preschool children, meaningful associations have been found between temperamental characteristics and behavioral interactions at home (e.g., Dunn & Kendrick, 1980; Graham, Rutter, & George, 1973; Hinde, Easton, Mellor, & Tamplin, 1982; Stevenson-Hinde & Simpson, 1982) and school (Billman & McDevitt, 1980, Hinde, Stevenson-Hinde, & Tamplin, 1985). Yet the findings are not wholly consistent. Vaughn, Taraldson, Crichton and Egeland (1981) and Bates, Olson, Pettit and Bayles (1982) found few relations between infants’ difficult temperament and mother/child interactions, and in the preschool studies the correlations were at best modest. Such a situation, in which correlations are more than ephemeral yet tantalizingly far from ubiquitous, demands further understanding of the dynamics of the interactions involved. Our aim here is to take some initial steps in that direction.
