Preschoolers' temperament and social functioning in novel and routine contexts.

Introduction: The centrality of social competence to children's short and long-term well-being has sparked interest in the factors that contribute to its development, including temperament, a set of biologically based dispositions. A large body of work documents two types of temperamental dispositions associated with young children's social functioning: reactivity and regulation. There is consensus about the detrimental effects of negative reactive tendencies, called negative affective reactivity (NA), and about the beneficial effects of regulatory tendencies, called effortful control (EC), on social functioning. Another reactive component of temperament, Extraversion/Surgency (E/S) is less consistent in its relation with social functioning. Although NA is exacerbated by lack of familiarity, its contribution to social functioning in novel and routine contexts has not been systematically addressed. Methods: To test this study's hypotheses, we devised a structured interview of adaptive responsiveness in context (ARC) which was completed by parents of preschoolers along with a comprehensive temperament questionnaire. Additionally, children completed an individually administered task measuring emotion-situation knowledge (N = 92) and their teachers completed a standard social competence questionnaire. Results and Discussion: A path analysis that controlled for variance shared across contexts and temperamental traits showed that NA was the only unique predictor of social functioning in the Novel context, that EC was the only unique predictor of social functioning in the Routine context and that E/S was not a unique predictor of social functioning in either context. Bivariate analyses, conducted without controlling for context overlap, showed all reactive emotional traits (subsumed within NA and E/S) to correlate exclusively with ARC in the Novel contexts. However, regulatory traits showed a mixed pattern. Inhibitory Control correlated with ARC in both contexts but more highly in the Routine context, and Perceptual Sensitivity correlated with ARC in the Novel context.

Explaining discrepancies in assessment protocols: Trait relevance and functional equivalence.

Inconsistencies among independent sources of information about psychological constructs are widely documented, but not adequately explained. Measurement error as the primary explanation, though historically popular, is no longer tenable. Yet, even as assessors acknowledge that various measures of the same construct are not necessarily interchangeable, there are no agreed upon frameworks to discern the unique contribution of each measure in multiinformant and multimethod assessment protocols. In this study, we focus on the relevance of the target trait in its measured contexts and on the functional equivalence of the trait across its measures (similar self-regulatory requirements for trait expression) as driving relations between scores. These 2 considerations enabled prediction of informant differences in mean ratings and of patterns of divergences and convergences between parent and teacher ratings of kindergarteners' social competence (SC) and executive functioning (EF) and between informant-based and performance-based measures of executive functioning (N = 73). (PsycINFO Database Record

Functioning in the Real World: Using Storytelling to Improve Validity in the Assessment of Executive Functions.

Real-world contexts differ in the clarity of expectations for desired responses, as do assessment procedures, ranging along a continuum from maximal conditions that provide well-defined expectations to typical conditions that provide ill-defined expectations. Executive functions guide effective social interactions, but relations between them have not been studied with measures that are matched in the clarity of response expectations. In predicting teacher-rated social competence (SC) from kindergarteners' performance on tasks of executive functions (EFs), we found better model-data fit indexes when both measures were similar in the clarity of response expectations for the child. The maximal EF measure, the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment, presents well-defined response expectations, and the typical EF measure, 5 scales from the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), presents ill-defined response expectations (i.e., Abstraction, Perceptual Integration, Cognitive-Experiential Integration, and Associative Thinking). To assess SC under maximal and typical conditions, we used 2 teacher-rated questionnaires, with items, respectively, that emphasize well-defined and ill-defined expectations: the Behavior Rating Inventory: Behavioral Regulation Index and the Social Skills Improvement System: Social Competence Scale. Findings suggest that matching clarity of expectations improves generalization across measures and highlight the usefulness of the TAT to measure EF.

Child Behavior Questionnaire-Short Form for Teachers: Informant Correspondences and Divergences.

Discrepancies among independent sources of information about presumably identical constructs argue against reliance on a single perspective. To fill the need for temperament questionnaires for teacher and parent informants, we adapted the popular parent/caregiver Child Behavior Questionnaire-Short Form for preschool and kindergarten teachers. Informant correspondences were low as expected, but patterns were consistent with hypotheses drawn from person perception models. Internal consistencies of the teacher scales were adequate, comparing favorably with those of parent-rated scales. Anticipated relations of temperament scales emerged with social competence and tasks of executive attention for both parent and teacher informants. Confirmatory factor analyses conducted separately for parent and teacher scales supported the familiar three-factor model when allowances were made for cross-loadings and correlated errors. A multigroup confirmatory factor analyses with parent and teacher data indicated that the factor structures of the two questionnaires are similar but not equivalent.

Construct validity and case validity in assessment.

Clinical assessment relies on both construct validity, which focuses on the accuracy of conclusions about a psychological phenomenon drawn from responses to a measure, and case validity, which focuses on the synthesis of the full range of psychological phenomena pertaining to the concern or question at hand. Whereas construct validity is grounded in understanding causal influences of a distinct phenomenon on responses to various measures and life contexts, case validity encompasses the joint influences of multiple phenomena on individuals' responses. Two sets of distinctions essential to understanding psychological phenomena, hence to understanding construct validity, are (a) implicit and explicit versions of personality constructs and (b) ability and personality as versions of constructs measured by performance tests presenting maximal and typical conditions, respectively. Since both implicit and explicit versions of constructs interface with maximal or typical performance conditions, case validity requires systematic inclusion of these distinctions in assessment protocols.