MBTI & Ideas
The Long Shadow of Temperament (Jerome Kagan, Nancy Snidman, 2004)
“The two psychologists then examined both sets of evidence to see whether any childhood behaviors persisted through the early adult years.
The most important discovery was that a small group of children who usually avoided unfamiliar people, objects, and events during the first 3 years preserved some derivatives of that bias as young adults.
They were introverted, cautious, and dependent for emotional support on family, friends, or spouses.
By contrast, the bolder, sociable children were extroverts who chose competitive, entrepreneurial vocations. (…)
Two psychological competences must develop before children will avoid or show caution in response to an unfamiliar person, object, or situation.
First, the infant must relate her perception of the unfamiliar event to schematic representations of the familiar experiences encountered in the past.
Second, the infant must be able to hold both representations in working memory long enough to compare the two. (…)
Parents conceptualize the complementary traits their children display under these circumstances as shyness or sociability,
rather than recognizing that their children possess a more general response bias toward all unfamiliar events, not just strangers. (…)
A child with a temperamental bias for avoiding unfamiliarity who lives in a large city with lots of strangers is likely to become shy.
However, in small, isolated villages, where few people are strangers but a variety of animals roam the unpaved trails,
this child might become wary upon seeing a three-legged dog or several birds with broken wings.”
