ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on empirical research exploring whether certain personality characteristics moderate the quality of clinical decision-making made by midwives and if that influences their midwifery practice. It suggests that irrespective of where in the world a midwife is located or in which model of care she works, further examination of the role played by temperamental characteristics of midwives may help them to identify and reflect on the factors influencing their decisions and practice. In terms of midwifery, this offers a way of understanding the role played by delay discounting in a midwife’s decision-making processes and how she enacts/reacts to an individual woman. Although the exact mechanism by which sensitivity to punishment is having an effect in the Henri scenario is unknown, the presence of this effect encourages the view that ‘personality’ factors have a role to play in the clinical decision-making process.
