http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/53951196

Behavioral individuality in early childhood

"The study of which the results reported in the present volume are a part began with a concern over the apparent one-sidedness of the prevalent approach to the development of personality. On clinical grounds it has long been evident that no consistent and direct relation can be found between parental practices and attitudes and other environmental influences and the specific nature of personality organization in a given child. Inevitably such findings raise the question of the contribution of the child's own characteristics of reactivity to the child-environment interaction and suggest that the direction of development might be considerably influenced by the nature of the child as an organism. Despite these considerations, contemporary style, both in theories of child personality and in clinical practice in child psychiatry, has been dominated by an environmentalist view. The problems and behaviors of children have been almost exclusively considered as deriving from patterns of intra- and extrafamilial influence. Little systematic attention has been paid to the child's own contribution to his development. Therefore, in 1952 we began to explore the relation of the child's reaction patterning to his personality development. This exploration developed in 1956 into a systematic longitudinal study which has been in progress since that date"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

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