ABSTRACT
Emotional stability (neuroticism) is a broad dimension of normal personality characterized by confidence and poise at the high end and by a propensity to experience chronic negative emotions at the low end (dysphoria). The construct is one of the most widely used and important dimensions of adult personality and plays a central role in virtually every scheme of personality and in most explanations of both normal and abnormal behavior. As we summarize here, there are many instruments designed to measure emotional stability and neuroticism, each measuring a variety of negative affective experiences (Watson & Clark, 1984). As we also detail, the history of the construct as it applies to children is less clear and more complex than it is in the literature dealing with adults. Neuroticism can be mapped onto childhood negative affectivity fairly readily (Rothbart, Posner, & Hershey, 1995), but little work of a developmental nature has been done. We begin with a brief history of the construct.
