Attachment & Human Development Vol 5 No 1 March 2003 2 18

Early temperament and attachment as predictors of the Five Factor Model of personality
B E R I T HA G E K U L L a n d G U N I L L A B O H L I N

ABSTRACT To increase our understanding of developmental aspects of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, prospective relations from infant temperament and attachment security to the Big Five dimensions of personality in middle childhood were studied in a sample of 85 Swedish middle class children. Combined maternal and paternal temperament ratings at infant age 20 months and Strange Situation attachment to mother at 15 months were used as predictors of mother and teacher ratings of personality at child age 8 9 years. Also the A1 B2 versus B3 C2 classication grouping was used as a measure of infant negative emotionality. The results showed extraversion/surgency to be the dimension most clearly related to infancy data; it was predicted by both temperament and attachment security. Attachment security also predicted neuroticism and openness. The emotionality shown in the Strange Situation was not related to the Big Five. The results were discussed in terms of approach and anxiety systems and internal working models as foundations for the FFM personality traits. KEYWORDS: Temperament attachment personality infancy middle childhood

This study investigated the prospective relations between infant temperament and attachment and middle childhood personality in terms of the Big Five dimensions. This is an area that to our knowledge has not been empirically studied before. Recently, the descriptive Five Factor Model (FFM) has been acknowledged as a useful system for structuring individual differences in personality (e.g., Digman, 1990; Halverson, Kohnstamm, & Martin, 1994; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Evans, 2000). The model is founded on empirical approaches involving lexical analyses, various personality measures, and factor analytic treatment of many different data sets from all over the world (Digman, 1990; McCrae et al., 2000). The factors are dened by personality descriptors, and the dimensions most commonly agreed upon have been interpreted as reecting extraversion/introversion or surgency, agreeableness or friendliness/hostility, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness (Digman, 1990). This model of traits on a superordinate level has inspired a new wave of personality research, but reservations have also been raised as to the theoretical value of the descriptive system and the conceptual stance of its ve dimensions (see Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Sullivan-Logan, 1998; Rothbart et al., 2000).
Correspondence to: Berit Hagekull, Department of Psychology, SE-751 42, Uppsala, Sweden. Email: Berit.Hagekull@psyk.uu.se

Attachment & Human Development ISSN 1461-6734 print/1469-2988 online # 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/1461673031000078643

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One way of working towards a deepened understanding of the FFM would be via prospective studies of personality development, based on existing theories of socioemotional development. From different viewpoints, theories of temperament and attachment have claimed to explain how and why individual differences develop from an early point in life, predicting later functioning in various areas of personality (Vaughn & Bost, 1999).

TEMPERAMENT AND THE FFM Temperament theories and research have many direct links to personality structure research (Hagekull, 1994; Rothbart et al., 2000; Wachs, 1994), both in terms of general objectives (e.g., description and importance of individual differences) and methodological approaches (e.g., questionnaire ratings, factor analytic data treatment). However, McCrae et al. (2000) also pointed to differences in research goals; temperament researchers tend to emphasise basic processes and mechanisms, whereas personality psychologists study outcomes and correlates of traits. Within temperament research, temperament has been regarded as a direct precursor to personality (Buss & Plomin, 1975, 1984; Goldsmith & Rothbart, 1991; Graziano et al., 1998) with biologically governed temperament dispositions acting as the hard ice ball around which the softer snowball of personality accumulates as a result of the developing individuals interactions with the environment (Graziano et al., 1998, p. 1267). This metaphor predicts stability of early traits, due to underlying dispositions towards, for instance, levels of activity and emotionality, as well as change due to experiences (cf. Rothbart et al., 2000). McCrae et al. (2000) argued that the broad personality factors in the FFM are the basic endogenous tendencies (that is, the same as temperament dispositions). In the present research, the Buss and Plomin (1975, 1984) approach to temperament was used. These authors have emphasised the early appearance and heritability of temperament traits and their function as basic building blocks (Buss, 1989, p. 49) for personality. This approach, focussing mainly on the temperament dimensions of negative emotionality, activity, and sociability, has been used previously in both theoretical and empirical attempts to relate adult temperament and personality (see Halverson et al., 1994). Recently, Rothbart and coworkers (Ahadi & Rothbart, 1994; Rothbart et al., 2000) have theorized about biological brain systems underlying both temperament and the FFM traits. On a general level, they proposed that a reward dependent, positive affect and approach system (cf. Gray, 1994) would underlie early temperament traits such as activity and social outgoingness as well as the FFM factor extraversion/surgency. A behavioural inhibition, punishment sensitive, anxiety system should be sensitive to novel stimuli and inhibit on-going behaviour to increase readiness for action. This system was proposed to relate to early negative emotionality and later neuroticism. A third, later appearing temperament system, effortful control, was assumed to exert control over the reactive and self-regulatory processes in other temperament systems. Effortful control was further assumed to continue developing at least throughout the pre-school years. Prospective links from child temperament to the FFM have so far been investigated in two studies. Lanthier and Bates (1995) reported correlations between four dimensions of infant temperament and the FFM at age 17 years from the Bloomington Longitudinal Study. All personality traits except conscientiousness

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were signicantly predicted by temperament. High infant sociability was associated with emotional stability and openness in adolescence, infants who had shown resistance to control were less agreeable and more open as teenagers, more fearful infants showed more neuroticism and less openness, and difcult temperament was associated with low extraversion; all these signicant correlations seem understandable from a developmental perspective. Over a shorter time span, our group has reported signicant pre-school temperament precursors of the FFM dimensions in middle childhood (Hagekull & Bohlin, 1998). Temperament ratings of emotionality, activity, sociability, shyness, and impulsivity (Buss & Plomin, 1975, 1984) explained between 12% and 25% of the variance in the ve dimensions with extraversion/ surgency being the trait that was best predicted by temperament. High activity and sociability, and low shyness were predictive of extraversion/surgency and openness. Negative emotionality showed a trend-signicant negative relation with extraversion, and was also, together with high impulsivity, found to be a forerunner of neuroticism. Low activity and impulsivity levels were predictive of high agreeableness, and shyness had signicant relations to all personality dimensions except neuroticism. There were some similarities between the Lanthier and Bates (1995) study and our study, mainly in the prediction of openness and, if we can assume that resistance to control has a connection to activity, also in the prediction of agreeableness. Conscientiousness was not strongly related to temperament in either study. The main difference concerned extraversion/surgency that in our study was the middle childhood personality dimension best predicted by temperament whereas only 6% of the extraversion/ surgency variance in the Bates and Lanthier adolescent sample was accounted for. Buss and Plomin (1975) stated that combinations of temperament traits may be needed to account for the development of broad personality traits, and empirical data support such thinking. The Hagekull and Bohlin (1998) study showed that all of the FFM dimensions except conscientiousness were related to more than one of the preschool temperament dimensions. The same was true for Neuroticism and Openness in the Lanthier and Bates (1995) study. A number of studies on adults have considered concurrent relations between temperament indicators and the FFM dimensions (for overviews, see Angleitner & Ostendorf, 1994; Rothbart et al., 2000). Due to potential methodological confounds, the distinction between temperament and personality is not easy to uphold in such self-report questionnaire data. Indeed, often the aim has been to explore the concurrent overlap by factor analysing items in combined sets of temperament and personality data, which is a less relevant approach in a developmental study.

ATTACHMENT AND THE FFM Attachment theory has a focus on relationships and the evolutionary value of developing attachments to caregivers (Bowlby, 1969). Personality development is assumed to be inuenced via internal working models (IWMs), based on early experiences in the infant-caregiver interactions (e.g., Simpson, 1999). Ainsworth and co-workers (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) described three basic patterns of attachment from their work with infants in a normal sample of families. When experiencing negative emotions such as fear and distress, securely attached children seek and receive help from caregivers to regulate their emotions. These caregivers are assumed to have been available and responsive to their infants needs and signals. In

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contrast, insecure avoidant children avoid their caregiver in such situations and try to control emotions in a self-reliant manner, presumably as a result of previous interactions with a cold and rejecting caregiver. The insecure ambivalent infants are inconsistent in their attempts to get support and comfort from the caregiver, who is considered to have been underinvolved or erratic in responding to the infant. These early behavioural patterns are thought to be the foundations in the continuous development of IWMs, reecting the individuals beliefs about, rst, how worthy of love/affection /s/he is and, second, how loving/affectionate others can be expected to be (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999). IWMs are supposed to guide future behaviour and self-appraisals, especially in social contexts. The IWM has also been seen as an important inuence in the childs development of emotion regulation (e.g., Siegel, 1999). Cole, Michel, and Teti (1994) have given a denition of emotion regulation that emphasizes the outcomes of this development: . . . emotion regulation might be dened as the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufciently exible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed. (p. 76). In general, it is difcult to point to obvious connections between attachment and the FFM because attachment theory has a focus on relationships rather than on internal personality dimensions, and such connections have rarely been explicitly stated (Vaughn & Bost, 1999). However, some associations may be implicated. According to Elicker, Englund, and Sroufe (1992; see also Thompson, 1999, for a similar theoretical account of developmental mechanisms), having experienced a security-inducing attachment relationship would lead to positive social functioning for three reasons. Firstly, the caregivers availability and responsivity should create positive social expectations in the child. Secondly, such responsive care and availability should generate a sense of self-worth in the child, and thirdly, the caregiver in a secure attachment relationship may function as a model for the childs subsequent functioning in other relations. A secure attachment should thus lead to positive later functioning which could be evident in connections to the positive poles of the FFM dimensions, reecting positive intraindividual experiences as well as good functioning in interpersonal contexts. Another attachment theory proposition, important in the present context, is that the activation and functioning of the exploratory system is dependent on the individuals attachment system not being highly activated. The individual needs to feel secure to venture out and learn about the social and physical world (Bowlby, 1969). When confronting new situations, a securely attached child should have developed means of regulating negative reactions, rst by turning to a sensitive caregiver, and later by relying on felt security via the IWM (Sroufe & Waters, 1977). The insecurely attached child should be more prone to cautiousness and distress in that s/he would have problems in nding help to regulate emotions and would have developed IWMs dominated by uncertainty about available means for regulation. This could also lead to inhibition and anxiety in new situations (cf. Siegel, 1999). As regards empirical research on childrens attachment and the emerging personality, no study has used the FFM. A wide array of personality attributes from other theoretical contexts has been studied, but according to Thompson (1999), no consistent personality (other than relationship based) sequelae of secure or insecure attachment can be singled out. There is also the possibility that attachment might interact with other factors; main effects studies should be supplemented with research

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on moderating effects on multiply determined outcomes (Mangelsdorf & Frosch, 2000; Thompson, 1999). There are some indications in cross-sectional studies of such effects; Kochanska (1995) reported interactive effects of temperament and attachment on conscience development, and Nachmias, Gunnar, Mangelsdorf, Parritz and Buss (1996) found such effects on physiological stress reactivity in infants. In adults, mainly concurrent relations between adult peer attachment styles and FFM factors have been reported. Mickelson, Kessler, and Shaver (1997) explored the relations between attachment and extraversion, neuroticism, and openness in a large (N 4 8,000) US representative sample. This study showed associations between high extraversion, high openness and low neuroticism, on the one hand, and high security and both types of low insecurity ratings, on the other hand. In smaller studies (Carver, 1997; Manniko & Pulkkinen, 2000; Shaver & Brennan, 1992) high security has been connected to more extraversion and agreeableness, and sometimes also to less neuroticism. In regard to associations with the different forms of insecurity, inconsistent results were reported in these studies. Generally, inconsistent results have also been reported for the factors openness and conscientiousness.

THE PRESENT STUDY In view of the very few empirical studies on early precursors to the FFM dimensions, we aimed at examining the predictive ability of infant temperament and attachment for the personality traits as seen in middle childhood. In comparison with our previous study on pre-school temperament, environmental factors, and the FFM in the same middle-class, white Swedish sample (Hagekull & Bohlin, 1998), the present study constituted an expansion in terms of the time span studied and the inclusion of a different environmentally based predictor, namely attachment status. A number of expected associations with the FFM dimensions were tentatively formulated for the three temperament factors based on theoretical ideas about the approach and anxiety systems as common latent constructs at both ages. We forecasted that sociability and activity would be positively associated with extraversion/surgency and openness because of the assumed underlying approach system, and sociability also with agreeableness in that an early interest in participation in social contexts would help foster such characteristics. No specic predictions were formed for conscientiousness; this more cognitively loaded trait could not easily be traced back to temperament in infancy. We expected that infant negative emotionality would be positively related to school age neuroticism and negatively related to extraversion/surgency and openness, due to the operation of the anxiety system. We also examined the predictability of negative emotionality as expressed in observations of attachment. Belsky and Rovine (1987) concluded that such emotionality could be reected in the manner in which security and insecurity are expressed under conditions of stress. Attachment security, inducing willingness and capacity to interact with both the social and non-social environment, was expected to be connected with the positive poles of extraversion/surgency, agreeableness, and openness. Security, fostering good emotion regulation, would also be associated with later emotional stability/low neuroticism. For conscientiousness, which does not clearly reect exploratory, social, or emotional aspects, no prediction from attachment theory was stated. Specic predictions for each of the two forms of insecure attachment were not launched at

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this early stage of research in the area. Finally, without specic hypotheses, the relative importance and potential interactive effects of temperament and attachment were examined in multivariate analyses.

METHOD Participants The study sample comprised 93 children for whom data for attachment classication, temperament, and the FFM were available. The children belonged to a longitudinal sample of originally 123 middle-class families that were followed from infant age 6 weeks to child age 9 years. Reasons for subject loss included moving out of the county during the rst months, illness/death in the family, travels abroad, objections to interview/questionnaire content, and inadequate time. The attrition group was not signicantly different from the group that remained in the study with respect to sex composition, w2 = 1.01, ns, and paternal education, t(121) = 1.55, ns, at the start of the project. Further, there were no differences between the attrition and the remaining group with regard to predictor variables used in the present study, t(121) range 0.34 0.83, p range 0.41 0.73. All families were eligible for participation who had an infant born during 11 specied weeks in 1985 at the University Hospital, which serves the entire county of Uppsala. Uppsala is the fourth largest city area in Sweden with approximately 180,000 inhabitants. Further inclusion criteria were a Swedish surname, a listing in the ofcial telephone directory, and accessibility to the home with the Uppsala public transportation. Twins, infants born prematurely ( 4 6 weeks before term) and families planning to move out of the area were excluded. At the start of the longitudinal project, an introductory letter and a telephone call with information about the study were directed to the mother. Out of a total of 200 eligible mothers, 61.5% agreed to participate; 63 male and 60 female infants were included. Reasons for refusal were inadequate time (15.5%) and lack of interest in research/research seen as intrusion of privacy (23%). Fathers were invited to participate in the project (due to increased research funding) when the infants reached the age of 10 months; 104 fathers agreed to do so. All families but two were two-parent families. Two-thirds of the families lived in suburbs or the outskirts of Uppsala, 21% lived in the central parts and 13% in rural areas. The focal child was the rstborn in 48 families while in the other 75 families there were 1 3 older siblings. The educational level of the parents was fairly high as can be expected in a university area. At the start of the project, 37% of the fathers held a university degree, 21% had another more or less advanced post-high school education, 12% had graduated from a 3-year theoretical high school program, 15% from a vocational 2year program, and 15% had the compulsory 9 years of basic schooling as their only formal education. Maternal education yielded a similar distribution but with lower frequencies at the extremes; 24% had a university degree and 7% had only the compulsory 9 years of schooling. During the course of the project, 15 data collection waves were undertaken. The present study concerns information regarding attachment assessment at child age 15 months, temperament ratings at 20 months, and FFM ratings at the age of 8 9 years.

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The actual sample for which data will be presented was limited to the children who were classiable into secure and insecure patterns of attachment (the ABC system, N = 85; 43 females. See Results, section on Predictions from attachment, for motives to exclude unclassiable cases).

PROCEDURE, INSTRUMENTS, AND MEASURES Attachment The infants (mean age = 15.5 months, SD = 0.67 months) attachment to mother was studied in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth et al., 1978) which was performed and videotaped in the standard fashion in the department laboratory. Classication in terms of secure (B), avoidant (A), and ambivalent (C) attachment was made by the second author (G. Bohlin), who was trained by Dr L. Alan Sroufe and proved to be reliable with the Minnesota reliability test. Eight children were judged unclassiable, 16 were classied as avoidant, 18 as ambivalent, and 51 as secure. In the correlational analyses, attachment was measured in the Security scale (0 = avoidant or ambivalent classication, i.e., insecure, 1 = secure). Temperament The temperament questionnaire was a translation of three scales in the Colorado Childhood Temperament Inventory (CCTI; Rowe & Plomin, 1977), a forerunner to the Buss and Plomin (1984) Emotionality Activity Sociability (EAS) questionnaire. In the presence of a research assistant at infant age 20 months (M = 20.28 months, SD = 1.13 months), ratings were made by mothers and fathers separately in their home. The temperament dimensions studied were Emotionality (a = 0.78), dened as general distress behaviours indicating negative emotionality pertaining to the components of fear and anger, Activity (a = 0.75), assessed as tempo and vigour in the childs movements, and Sociability (a = 0.75), the tendency to afliate with others and to prefer the presence of others to being alone as well as approach behaviours with casual acquaintances and strangers. All three full criteria of inheritance and early appearance (Buss & Plomin, 1975). Emotionality and Activity each consisted of ve items and Sociability of four items. One CCTI sociability item was excluded (Child takes a long time to warm up to strangers) due to potential overlap with another item (Child is very friendly with strangers). All items were rated on scales ranging from 1 (not at all characteristic of my child) to 5 (very characteristic). Mother and father scale ratings correlated signicantly: Emotionality 0.62, Sociability 0.48, and Activity 0.29, all ps 5 0.01, one-tailed. The parent ratings were aggregated to yield as broad and stable a picture of child temperament as possible (see Epstein, 1979, 1980). The a-values reported above were obtained for the combined scale items from the two parents and deemed to be satisfactory. Negative emotionality in the Strange Situation This was assessed in terms of the commonly used split between A1 B2 and B3 C2 classications (e.g., Belsky & Rovine, 1987). The avoidant children were grouped

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together with the secure children who had not shown much negative emotionality during the Strange Situation and given a score of 0 (N = 40), and the children classied as ambivalent were pooled with the secure children who had shown negative reactions (score = 1; N = 45). Personality The FFM dimensions were studied in ratings of the children made by mothers and teachers. Mothers ratings were obtained during a visit to the department laboratory when the child was in the second grade of elementary school (child mean age = 8.6 years, SD = 2.9 months). Teachers lled out the questionnaire half a year later when a research assistant visited the children in their schools (M = 9.1 years, SD = 2.8 months). At that time, the majority of the teachers had known the children for almost two full school years; 14 teachers had known the rated child during one school year. The FFM measurement instrument was a Swedish adaptation of a questionnaire containing personal descriptors relating to the ve dimensions (see Table 1). The instrument was developed from Lanthiers (1993) factor analysis of an instrument for self- and other-ratings of 10- to 15-year-olds. We added four items to supplement the Neuroticism scale, which resulted in 46 items (Hagekull & Bohlin, 1998). The Extraversion/surgency scale (9 items, a = 0.087) relates to the Eysenck (1947) conception of extraversion/introversion. The Agreeableness scale (13 items, a = 0.85) describes an agreeable, well-socialized person in contrast to a selsh person seeking trouble. Conscientiousness (10 items, a = 0.87) has sometimes been named Will to Achieve and concerns dependability and orderliness. Neuroticism (10 items, a = 0.89) reects the presence and effects of negative affect and is comparable to Eysencks (1947) neuroticism dimension. Its positive end has been interpreted as reecting emotional stability. Openness to experience in the present measure for children (4 items; a = 0.79) is focussed on creativity and curiosity rather than on culture and intelligence, which are other important aspects of this dimension in the adult literature (Digman, 1990). Item response scales in the FFM instrument were the same as in the temperament scales. Mother teacher agreement across 5 months was 0.56 (Extraversion), 0.40 (Agreeableness), 0.43 (Conscientiousness), 0.38 (Neuroticism), and 0.29 (Openness),

Table 1 Items in the Five Factor Model questionnaire scales Scale Extraversion/Surgency Agreeableness Conscientiousness Neuroticism Openness Items energetic, talkative, bold, enthusiastic, cheerful, happy, shyR, timidR, quietR co-operative, modest, sensitive, trusting, sincere, polite, patient, stubbornR, selfishR, dishonestR, bossyR, quarrelsomeR, rebelliousR organised, dependable, responsible, careful, neat, disorganisedR, messyR, lazyR, forgetfulR, carelessR nervous, tense, anxious, worries about things, fearful, relaxedR, contentR N, self-confidentR N, oversensitiveN, calm and stableR N imaginative, curious, creative, tries new activities

Note: Ritem reversed in scale score; Nnew item in the Swedish version.

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all ps 5 0.01, one-tailed. To increase reliability (Epstein, 1979, 1980) and capture the childs personality as shown in two important contexts, home and school, individual scale scores were obtained by averaging mother and teacher item scores, yielding the alphas reported above.

RESULTS Sex differences Sex inuences on temperament, attachment and personality were analysed. There were no signicant sex differences in temperament ratings, all ts (91) 5 1.35, and no difference in the classication of emotionality shown in the Strange Situation, w2 = 0.01, p = 0.92. There was no signicant sex difference in attachment classication, p = 0.23 in Fishers Exact Test. One signicant difference was found for personality; girls were more conscientious than boys, t (91) = 2.21, p 5 0.05. In view of the scant evidence for sex differences, sex was not considered in the rest of the analyses. Predictions from attachment Initially, a one-way MANOVA with four groups (secure, avoidant insecure, ambivalent insecure, and unclassied infants) was performed. Planned contrasts were used to evaluate differences between the two insecure groups, between the unclassied infants and secure and insecure infants, and between secure and insecure infants as regards the outcome variables. The planned contrast between the two insecure groups yielded a nonsignicant Wilks Lambda = 0.96, F (5,85) = 0.65 as regards the ve personality ratings. It was decided to combine the two into one insecure group. The secure group was signicantly different from the insecure group, Wilks Lambda = 0.84, F (5,85) = 3.34, p 5 0.01. The unclassiable children did not differ from secure children, Wilks Lambda = 0.98, F (5,85) = 0.32, nor from insecure children, Wilks Lambda = 0.94, F (5,85) = 1.00. The uncertainty about the attachment status of the unclassied children was strengthened by these statistical tests. It was seen as a preferable strategy to exclude them from the rest of the analyses as there were also no clear indications for forced classication of all the eight cases. To achieve comparability between attachment and temperament a correlational approach was preferred in the predictions of the FFM. Conservative two-tailed signicance tests were seen as preferable in this early stage of the research area. Product moment correlations between the attachment security scores and scores on the FFM dimensions are reported in Table 2 (top). Secure attachment signicantly predicted extraversion/surgency, neuroticism, and openness; as hypothesized, secure children were more extraverted and open and less neurotic. Agreeableness was not predicted by attachment as expected, and, in line with expectations, conscientiousness was not related to security. Predictions from temperament FFM relations with temperament are found in Table 2 (bottom). The only FFM dimension related to ratings of infant temperament was extraversion/surgency. Both

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activity and sociability predicted this trait in expected directions; high activity and sociability were connected to high extraversion/surgency. In addition, the hypothesized emotionality correlation approached signicance, p 5 0.07.1 Negative emotionality as measured in the Strange Situation (A1 B2 versus B3 C2 classications) was not related to the ve dimensions of personality (Table 2). It could be noted that this measure of negative emotionality was related to parent rated negative emotionality, r = 0.23, p 5 0.04, and to sociability, r = 7 0.26, p 5 0.02 (but not to activity, r = 7 0.10). Children rated as high in emotionality and low in sociability by their parents showed more negative emotionality in the Strange Situation. Relative importance of attachment and temperament The overlap between the two infancy aspects was investigated in a MANOVA with two groups, the secure group and the insecure group, and the three temperament dimensions (ratings) as dependent variables. The overall Wilks Lambda test was nonsignicant, F (3,81) = 0.57, p = 0.63. (Needless to say, there was also no difference between secure and insecure children in negative emotionality shown in the Strange Situation, w2 = 0.00, p = 1.00.) The relative importance of temperament and attachment for the explanation of variance in the extraversion/surgency dimension the only dimension that was predicted by both infancy aspects was examined in a standard multiple regression analysis. The three temperament variables were entered as one block and the attachment variable was entered as another block into the equation. Independent contributions to the explanation of the aggregated mother-teacher ratings of extraversion/surgency were given by the temperament block (explained variance 12%, p 5 0.01) as well as attachment security (12%, p 5 0.01). Interactive temperament attachment effects The possibility of interactive effects of the two infancy variables on the aggregated ratings of the FFM dimensions was explored for each of the temperament scales in combination with the security scale in a total of 15 hierarchical multiple regression analyses, following procedures recommended by Cohen and Cohen (1983). The predictor variables were standardized to reduce multicollinearity in equations with interaction terms. Each personality dimension was regressed on attachment security and one of the three temperament variables (to adjust for main effects) and then the interaction between the two variables was entered in each equation. One signicant interaction appeared from these analyses: attachment interacted with emotionality in the development of neuroticism, t = 2.16, p 5 0.05. It should be noted that in this equation a main effect of attachment was still evident, t = 2.11, p 5 0.05, even after the variance attributable to the interaction term had been accounted for. Thus, irrespective of negative emotionality level, secure children as a group were lower in neuroticism than the group of insecure children. To interpret the interaction, the procedure recommended by Cohen and Cohen (1983) was followed. From the regression equation the values at + 1 SD for the outcome variable neuroticism (scale ranging from 1 to 5) were estimated. As Figure 1 shows insecure children had a relatively high level of neuroticism regardless of their infant emotionality level, with insecure children high in emotionality yielding an

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Table 2 Productmoment correlations between Infant Attachment and Infant Temperament, and the FFM dimensions in middle childhood. N = 85 Extraversion Attachment: Security Temperament: a. Ratings Emotionality Activity Sociability b. A1-B2 vs. B3-C2 split 0.35** Agreeableness 7 0.13 Conscientiousness 7 0.18 Neuroticism 7 0.23* Openness 0.23*

7 0.20 0.26* 0.23* 7 0.06

7 0.09 7 0.14 0.13 0.03

7 0.01 0.01 7 0.01 7 0.06

0.13 7 0.05 7 0.16 0.12

7 0.14 0.15 0.07 0.04

*p 5 0.05, ** p 5 0.01; two-tailed; bold gure denotes hypothesized relation.

Figure 1 Regression lines illustrating the interaction effect of attachment and negative emotionality on neuroticism

estimated value of 2.38 and insecures with low emotionality had a value of 2.36. Secure children who had been high in negative emotionality showed a higher level of neuroticism than their low emotionality counterparts, estimated values 2.06 versus 1.44. Thus, the effect of secure attachment was larger when combined with low emotionality.

DISCUSSION The results of the present investigation into potential forerunners of the ve FFM personality dimensions showed that both temperament, rated by parents, and attachment security were important for development of extraversion/surgency as

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expressed in middle childhood. Attachment also predicted the traits of neuroticism and openness, whereas no variance in agreeableness and conscientiousness was accounted for by the infancy variables. In line with previous research (Vaughn & Bost, 1999) where the security insecurity distinction has been related to early temperament, we found no overlap between the two infancy areas. We found a relation between negative emotionality as observed in the Strange Situation and parent ratings of emotionality and sociability (cf. Belsky & Rovine, 1987), but the observed negative emotionality did not predict later personality. Finally, an interactive effect between attachment security and parent rated emotionality was observed for neuroticism. It is important to note that, in general, our conclusions below about middle childhood personality hold regardless of setting whether child behaviour was captured in the broader context of both home and school or in the more narrow school situation. Although little research exists, we had expected closer connections between temperament and personality dimensions based on theoretical standpoints, methodological similarities, and our own results from the same sample with predictions from pre-school temperament (Hagekull & Bohlin, 1998). Stability coefcients between the 20-month ratings and the pre-school measures of temperament were 0.73 for emotionality, 0.67 for activity and 0.46 for sociability; all ps 5 0.001. However, the common variance from the two ages did not seem to be consistently related to the FFM dimensions except for some of the variance explaining extraversion/surgency. Instead, some of the specic variance in the pre-school measures of temperament was shown to be systematically related to the other personality dimensions. One explanation for the infant and pre-school temperament discrepancy in predictive ability is the possibility of more environmental inuences being incorporated into the later temperament ratings. The temperament hard ice ball had accumulated more of the softer snow onto its shape in the pre-school period than in infancy (cf. Graziano et al., 1998). Therefore, personality aspects could be better reected in pre-school temperament ratings than in infant ratings. It could also be that the behaviours used to operationally dene a temperament trait were not as distinctive or differentiated (and easy to observe) in infancy as they came to be in the pre-school period. Therefore, infant temperament behaviours might not have provided a broad enough basis for some of the long-term predictions. Temperament prediction of personality may also be dependent on the workings of a more mature effortful control system (see Ahadi & Rothbart, 1994; Rothbart et al., 2000) than has been developed at the age of 20 months. Effortful control systems are assumed to continue developing during the pre-school years in interaction with environmental factors such as parenting practices (cf. Calkins, 1994). In our pre-school study, we found links between temperament as well as environmental factors and all the FFM traits that could be interpreted in terms of inuences from the effortful control system (Hagekull & Bohlin, 1998). As regards the observed temperament relations with extraversion/surgency, activity has previously been found to be empirically associated to this personality trait in other samples (see Eaton, 1994, for a review). Our prediction was based on similarity in the assumed latent construct behind activity level and extraversion/ surgency, the approach system. Energy level was a common item feature at the two ages. Also the other approach system prediction to extraversion/surgency, that from sociability, was borne out. It should be noted that in contrast to our pre-school data, where we kept sociability and shyness apart (Hagekull & Bohlin, 1998), we now used

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a measure combining sociability items with items capturing reactions to unfamiliar persons. We noted a relatively high internal consistency level in this infancy sociability measure. This would partly be in line with Buss and Plomins (1984) idea of shyness as a late appearing trait emerging from a combination of sociability and negative emotionality. The negative (trend-signicant) relation between emotionality and extraversion/surgency could be seen as an effect of an anxiety system which when highly aroused would inhibit behaviour in many situations (cf. Ahadi & Rothbart, 1994) and thus contribute to the development of introversion. The connection between negative emotionality and extraversion/surgency could also be understood in light of the fact that the latter has sometimes been interpreted as a trait of positive emotionality (Watson, Clark, & Harkness, 1994). However, these speculations must be seen as highly tentative given also the null results in the predictions from negative emotionality as reected in the Strange Situation. Regarding attachment security insecurity, hypothesized links were conrmed for extraversion/surgency, neuroticism and openness. The resemblance to results from adult questionnaire studies was most prominent for extraversion/surgency. Although the empirical bases for adult self-reports and the infant classication system are different (Crowell, Fraley, & Shaver, 1999), theoretical correspondence in terms of processes and functioning exists. Thus, from the perspectives of both child and adult attachment, extraversion/surgency behaviours can be seen as expressions of a secure IWM that makes a person enjoy and explore the outside world, whereas insecure persons models would warn against too much environment involvement. Furthermore, a secure IWM should be efcient in handling the negative emotions anxiety, nervousness etc. that characterize the neurotic personality trait, and we found emotional stability, constituting one pole of the neuroticism dimension, to be connected with security. An insecure internal model should not guide the child in countering such emotions, neither through self-condence, nor through trust in other peoples help. Openness has been inconsistently related to attachment variables in the adult data. We found clear relations, probably reecting the emphasis in the presently used scale on creativity and curiosity behaviours that can easily be understood in light of IWMs that support or hinder exploration. Why did we nd temperament links mainly to extraversion/surgency in both the present study and in our pre-school investigation? It was also the dimension most clearly associated with attachment. Extraversion/surgency has been considered as one of two superfactors (e.g., Watson et al., 1994) and is thus to be regarded as a broad dimension. It has very often been extracted as the rst or second factor in factor analyses of personality data (e.g., Angleitner & Ostendorf, 1994; Digman, 1990). The extraversion/surgency factor should be seen as based on variance encompassing many different behaviours in many different situations. From this perspective, the dimension of extraversion/surgency can be assumed to have roots in a broad spectrum of early temperamental behaviours, and also in such environmental experiences that are needed for the development of an IWM that is assumed to guide behaviour in a wide range of situations. The linear combination of individual temperament effects and relationship attachment effects on this important personality trait was a main nding in the present study. A word, nally, should be said about interactive effects. In view of the immaturity of the research eld, no hypotheses were formed in the present study, and results due to the phenomenon of mass signicance cannot be ruled out. The one interaction effect that we found must be regarded as highly exploratory but nevertheless

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suggestive of the type of person environment effects that research should try to uncover (cf. Eysenck, ref. in Rothbart et al., 2000). We normally think of attachment security as a potential moderator of negative child aspects in line with the ndings of Nachmias et al. (1996) who found that security moderated effects of inhibited temperament on stress reactions. Our result is more in line with Kochanskas (1995) nding that temperament in her case fearfulness moderated effects of security on socialization outcome. As regards the presently disclosed interaction effect, it is important to emphasize rst that securely attached infants irrespective of their level of emotionality developed into generally more emotionally stable school children than insecurely attached infants did. Nevertheless, we found that negative emotionality inuenced the secure childrens neuroticism. Of the secure children, only those who had been low in emotionality during infancy turned out to be very low in neuroticism at school age. Securely attached children who had been high in negative emotionality as infants showed more signs of neuroticism. The result may be an indication of a genetic disposition that supersedes the attachment relationship to some degree. High levels of negative emotionality in infancy may be difcult to handle and set on an altogether positive developmental path, even within a secure relationship (see Kochanska, 1995, for a somewhat similar discussion). If this nding were to be replicated it could be an instance of the long advocated child temperament effects on parenting (e.g., Thomas & Chess, 1977; van den Boom, 1994), that may contribute to non-shared environmental inuences on siblings development (cf. OConnor, Croft, & Steele, 2000). It is notable that of the two infant constructs, the one measured the earliest, attachment (at 15 months vs. temperament at 20 months) with a different methodology (observation vs. questionnaire) and being a relationship rather than a person attribute contributed the most to the explanation of variance in the personality dimensions. The conclusion about infant temperament not being a very potent predictor is strengthened by our failure to nd relations between negative emotionality in the Strange Situation and personality. At present, there is no support for a hypothesis that the temperament trait of negative emotionality, as reected in the sub-classications in the Strange Situation, could be an important predictor of personality. In contrast, our results give rm support to early attachment security and the role of internal working models for personality development. As a contribution to the discussion of the theoretical value of the FFM descriptive system we would like to point out that our studies show that prospective longitudinal approaches can give valuable information for anchoring the personality dimensions in early dispositions and experiences. Considering methodological problems in measuring early person and relationship characteristics, there are probably limits as to how early behavioural and experiential antecedents can be detected. We have shown that such roots can be found at least as early as in the beginning of the second year of life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was nancially supported by grants to the authors from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, and the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research. Parts of the results have been presented at the IXth European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Spetses, Greece, September 1999.

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NOTE
1 To achieve independence between predictor and outcome data sets, which is of interest especially when questionnaire data are analysed, bivariate predictive relations to teacher ratings of personality dimensions were analysed separately and compared with those from teacher aggregated data. Differences between corresponding correlations ranged between 0.00 and 0.15, Mdn = 0.045. These analyses yielded similar conclusions as analyses with aggregated data, although the temperament and teacher extraversion/ surgency correlations were only trend signicant, all three ps 5 0.10 (aggregated data yielded two signicant and one trend-signicant coefcients as shown in Table 2). Predictions from the A1 B2 versus B3 C4 split to teacher ratings remained insignicant.

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