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entski,e isingild-ntaloutddi-cesthation,ma-, &les-ter-
action with either parents, peers or romantic partners. Each
of
Not all adolescents seem equally prone to evoke such
European Journal of Personality, Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137
(2015)Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.1989Temperament and
stressful social events
Individual differences are thought to be particularly
salientduring adolescence, because this period is characterised
by
stressful social events. These differences are partly
accountedfor by individual differences in temperament or
personality(Harris, 2009; Kandler, Bleidorn, Riemann, Angleitner,
&Spinath, 2012; Kendler & Baker, 2007; Vinkhuyzen et
al.,ceived relationship affection could propel the explorationand
understanding of the mechanisms that drive the social se-lection
principle.
these stages can enable stressful social events, for
example,conicts, ghts and relationship termination (Furman
&Buhrmester, 1992; Furman & Shomaker, 2008; Lempers
&Clark, 1992).*CorrGroniE-mai
Copyiduals may evoke life events based on individual char-istics
and are therefore active agents of their own devel-ent (Caspi &
Shiner, 2011; Neyer, Mund, Zimmermannrzus, 2013). These social
selection and evocation pro-s have strong empirical support
(Kendler & Baker,; Vinkhuyzen, Sluis, Geus, Boomsma &
Posthuma,), but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly under-.
Part of the prospective association between tempera-t and stressful
life events may be mediated by thirdbles, but hitherto, it remains
unknown what kind of fac-we are looking for, how they manifest
themselves, howare constituted or where they are to be found. In
this, we test whether individual differences in perceived re-nship
affection mediate the prospective association be-n temperament and
the evocation of stressful social
environmental changes and shift of focus and attachmfrom parents
to peers (Caspi & Moftt, 1993; CyranowFrank, Young, &
Shear, 2000). Hallmark of adolescencsocial change, including the
selection of a rapidly expandpeer network, which, in contrast to
family and early chhood (dyadic) peer relations, is not shaped by
paresocialisation (Back et al., 2011; Neyer et al., 2013; Selfhet
al., 2010; Wrzus, Hnel, Wagner, & Neyer, 2013). Ationally,
romantic relationships emerge. These romancan be rather intense and
function as a socialising agentcan affect subsequent development
and identity formatfor example, via consensual validation or
reality conrtion via comparison of perceptions (Collins,
WelshFurman, 2009; Simon, Aikins, & Prinstein, 2008). Adocents
start to perform social roles at multiple stages, in inO. M.
LACEULLE *, B. F. JERONIMUS , M. A. G. VA1University of Groningen,
University Medical Center Groningen, G2Utrecht University,
Developmental Psychology, Utrecht, The Neth
Abstract: Temperamental differences are associated witpart been
attributed to evocation. However, we remain ithe current paper, we
test whether differences in perceivtive association between
temperament and stressful sociaand romantic partners. Data were
derived from the Trackcohort of Dutch adolescents (n=1158).
Parent-reportedtion were assessed at age 11 years. Stressful social
eventusing the event history calendar. Results indicate that
adtheir temperament, and that this association is partiallydence
for both generic and domain-specic associations,Taken together, the
ndings suggest that a search for munderstanding of the mechanisms
that underlie the sociaaffection is one of the candidates.
Copyright 2015 Eu
Key words: temperament; perceived affection; stressfulWhy Not
Everyone Gets Their Fair ShareRelationship Affection Mediates
AssociaSubsequent Stressful Social Eventsespondence to: Odilia M.
Laceulle, ICPE, University Medical Centerngen, University of
Groningen, 9713 GZ Groningen, The Netherlands.l:
[email protected]
right 2015 European Association of Personality Psychologyf
Stress: Adolescents Perceivedns Between Temperament and
KEN1 and J. ORMEL2
ngen, The Netherlandsnds
bsequent stressful life events, a phenomenon that has inant
about the mechanisms that mediate this process. Inelationship
affection accounted for part of the prospec-nt evocation in three
social domains, viz. parents, peersAdolescents Individual Lives
Survey, a large populationlescent temperament and adolescents
perceived affec-t occurred between age 11 and 16 years were
capturedcents evoke subsequent stressful social events based
oniated by perceived affection. Importantly, we found evi-ch
indicates that social domains are related yet distinct.ting
variables may be a promising way to increase ouress selection
principle, and that perceived relationshipan Association of
Personality Psychology
ts; adolescents; prospective study2010; Scarr & McCartney,
1983). Prospective twin studiesshowed that emotionally instable
(versus stable) individualsare more often exposed to subsequent
stressful events and,
Received 31 July 2014Revised 2 February 2015, Accepted 9
February 2015
-
also predict increases in problems and exacerbate the
effects
active process of self-construction (a process of
126 O. M. Laceulle et al.of other risk factors (Moran, Lengua,
& Zalewski, 2013;Rothbart & Bates, 2007). When children
navigate into ado-lescence, their ability to inuence their
environments in-creases. Consequently, it seems plausible that
temperamentbecomes more predictive of stressful social events in
variousdomains, for example, in interaction with parents, peers
andromantic partners.
Temperament has been suggested to modulate cognitiveand
affective-emotional processes (Chan, Goodwin, &Harmer, 2007;
Furman & Buhrmester, 1992) that colourhow adolescents perceive
their world, a process called envi-ronmental construal (Caspi &
Shiner, 2011; Rothbart,2011). Additionally, the way we look at
ourselves and theworld around us is believed to develop from early
childhoodonwards based upon our interpersonal interactions and
men-tal imaginations of how we believe others perceive us (i.e.
thelooking glass self; Cooley, 1902; Fraley, 2002; Harris,1995,
2009). These belief systems, in turn, affect how ado-lescents
perceive and experience their relationships withothers and navigate
in their social worlds (Caspi & Shiner,2011; Hartup &
Laursen, 1999; Rothbart, 2011; Soto, John,Gosling, & Potter,
2008). It is possible that an individualsperception of his or her
relationships becomes a self-fulllingadditionally, are also more
sensitive to the inuence ofstressful events (Middeldorp, Cath,
Beem, Willemsen, &Boomsma, 2008; Riese et al., 2014). These
processes are of-ten referred to as the corresponsive principle
(Jeronimus,Riese, Sanderman, & Ormel, 2014; Roberts, Caspi,
&Moftt, 2003). Other studies showed that high (versus
low)extraversion and conscientiousness were related to
fewerstressful social events (Ldtke, Roberts, Trautwein, &
Nagy,2011) and high neuroticism to smaller declines in familyconict
(Neyer & Asendorpf, 2001), low family support(Windle, 1992) and
more romantic relationship conict(Caspi, Bem, & Elder, 1989;
Jeronimus, Ormel, Aleman,Penninx, & Riese, 2013; Robins, Caspi,
& Moftt, 2002).
In our Tracking Adolescents Individual Lives Survey(TRAILS)
sample high (versus low) frustration, low effortfulcontrol and high
intensity pleasure and afliation and lowlevels of shyness were
related to more stressful life eventsover adolescenceboth social
and other events such ashouse moves and illnesses (Jeronimus,
Riese, Oldehinkel,& Ormel, 2015, Laceulle, van Aken, Ormel,
& Nederhof2014). Evidence thus suggests that emotional
instabilityand to some extent also conscientiousness and
extraversionpredisposes individuals for more stressful social
events.
Mechanisms underlying temperamental effects onsubsequent social
stressful events
Although support for evocation of stressful social events
in-creases gradually, the mechanisms that underlie this
processremain largely speculative. Possibly, temperament shapesthe
way adults interact with children and the activities inwhich
children choose to participate (Harris, 2009; Shanahan&
Flaherty, 2001). This, in turn, may affect stressful socialevents
children experience, such as peer rejection (Hay,Payne, &
Chadwick, 2004). Negative affective temperamentsCopyright 2015
European Association of Personality Psychologyinternalisation of
perceptions) as well as how adolescentscreate trajectories for
themselves as a response, which mayshape how they are seen by
others (an externalisationprocess).
Indeed, previous research provided some support for theidea that
temperament modulates adolescents perceptionsof their affective
relationships with others (Branje, VanLieshout, & Gerris, 2007;
Hagemeyer, Neyer, Neberich, &Asendorpf, 2013; Rothbart, 2011).
In addition, evidencehas been found that peoples perceptions of
their relation-ships with others can inuence the course and
functioningof their relationships (see for a review Bradbury &
Fincham,1990). For example, Sroufe (1990) suggested that
individualswho expected to be rejected also behaved in ways that
maderejection from others more likely. Also, anxious expected
re-jection predicted social anxiety and withdrawal, while
angryexpected rejectionan established predictor of
aggressionantedated decreased social anxiety (London,
Downey,Bonica, & Paltin, 2007). Both anxious and angry
expecta-tions predicted increased loneliness (London et al.,
2007),and individuals who expected to be rejected, those whoscored
high (versus low) on rejection sensitivity, seemedmore likely to
break up (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, &Khouri, 1998). Perhaps,
subjective expectations and percep-tions form a process chain that
underlies part of the prospec-tive association between temperament
and stressful lifeevents. The proof of the pudding is in the
eating, however,and to our knowledge, environmental construal (or
internalworking models more general) as a mechanism underlyingthe
association between temperament and subsequent stress-ful social
events have not been tested by means of sophisti-cated mediation
models. We hypothesise thattemperamental differences lead to
differences in perceivedaffect, which in turn result in the
evocation of stressful socialevents. Specically, in the current
study, we tested whetherperceived relationship affectionthat is,
adolescents subjec-tive experience of care, protection, comfort and
approval pro-vided by signicant others (i.e. parents,
peers)mediates theprospective association between temperament and
stressfulsocial events. For example, we tested whether
individualshigh (versus low) on temperamental frustration are
morelikely to perceive low relationship affection, because
highfrustration may be related to more anger, frustration
andwithdrawal, resulting in more conicts with signicantothers. We
feel such evidence can bolster future aims to dis-entangle the
extant factors that converge into the social selec-tion
principle.
Current study
To recapitulate, in the current study, we verify whether
ado-lescents perceived relationship affection mediates the
asso-ciation between adolescent temperament and evocation
ofprophecy when perceptions become internalised and inu-ence
subsequent transactions with the social environment inwhich the
individual lives and grows (Beam & Turkheimer,2013) and thus
leads them to construct relationship realities.Differences in
temperament may therefore explain both theEur. J. Pers. 29: 125137
(2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
stressful social events (see Figure 1 for a conceptual
model).Perceived relationship affection is not introduced as a
noveltheoretical construct but as a measure for subjective
interpre-tations of social interactions in functional terms (e.g.
instru-mental and emotional support), alike perceived
socialsupport, perceived rejection and felt (in)security.
We studied temperamental facets that often are consideredto be
part of the broader personality domains of neuroticism,extraversion
and conscientiousness, because these traits havebeen found to
showmost consistent associations with psycho-pathology (Kotov,
Gamez, Schmidt, & Watson, 2010). Foremotional instability, we
included two traits (fear and frustra-tion), for extraversion three
traits (afliation, shyness andhigh intensity pleasure) and one
trait related to conscientious-ness (effortful control). However,
because these higher-orderdomains are not clearly structured over
adolescence, we onlyreport upon the facet traits and refrain from
usage of thehigher-order dimensions themselves.
The major changes in social environments during adoles-cence
render it important to differentiate between the domainsin which
stressful social events take place (Furman &Buhrmester, 1992;
Harris, 2009). Moreover, the interpretationof meaning of
affectionate behaviours may be relatively stable
between temperament and stressful social events in theparental,
peer and romantic partner domain.
In line with previous studies, we hypothesised that ado-lescents
low (versus high) on effortful control (H1a), high(versus low) on
frustration (H1b) and high on afliation orintensity pleasure and
low on shyness (H1c) experience(evoke) more subsequent stressful
social events. Based on re-cent ndings on the data used in the
current study, it ishypothesise that fear does not predict
subsequent stressfulevents (Laceulle et al., 2014). Additionally,
we hypothesisedthat prospective associations between temperament
and sub-sequent stressful social events are partially mediated by
per-ceived relationship affection (H2). More specic, wehypothesised
domain-specic associations, viz. perceivedparental affection as the
primary mediator of stressful socialevent evocation effects in the
parental domain (H3a) and per-ceived peer affection as the mediator
of stressful social eventevocation effects in the peer domain
(H3b). Lastly, we testedwhether associations between temperament
and subsequentstressful social events in the romantic partner
domain weremediated by perceived either parental or peer
affection.
on str
Temperament and stressful social events 127within social groups
across social contexts but differ across so-cial groups, which we
therefore might compare. In this study,we distinguish between the
parental domain (e.g. conictwith parents, running away and being
thrown out of theparental home), the peer domain (e.g. friendship
terminationafter a ght or argument, being bullied) and the
romanticrelationships domain (e.g. breaking up after a
relationshipor being dumped). Subsequently, we examined
whetherperceived affection mediates the prospective
associationbetween temperament and stressful social events. To
testfor spill-over effects between different social domains,
weexamined mediation effects of both perceived parentalaffection
and perceived peer affection in the associations
Figure 1. A theoretical model of how the prospective effect of
temperamentparental and peer affection.Copyright 2015 European
Association of Personality Psychologyessful social events is
divided over direct effects and mediation via perceivedMETHODS
Sample
The TRAILS is a large prospective cohort study of
Dutchadolescents, who are followed biennially or triennially from11
to at least 25 years of age. The present study involves datafrom
the rst and third assessment wave. The study wasapproved by the
Dutch Central Committee on ResearchInvolving Human Subjects.
Written informed consent wascollected from the parents at Wave 1,
whereas for Wave 3,written informed consent was obtained from both
parents andadolescent. At Wave 1, 2230 preadolescents (50.8%
girls)Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
interviewed were all smaller than 0.01, which can be
128 O. M. Laceulle et al.At baseline, well-trained interviewers
visited one of the parentsor guardians (preferably the mother,
95.6%) at their homes.Parents were asked to ll out a written
questionnaire, includingquestions about the childs temperament.
Children wereasked to ll out questionnaires on perceived afliation
inschool. When adolescents were 16 years old, children
wereinterviewed at a central facility in the childs home area
bywell-trained interviewers to collect life-event data.
Measures
TemperamentChild temperament was assessed at age 11 with the
shortform of the parent version of the Early Adolescent
Tempera-ment QuestionnaireRevised (EATQ-R; Hartman, 2000;Putnam,
Ellis, & Rothbart, 2001). The following six scaleswere
distinguished: (i) fear (negative affect related to anti-cipated
pain or distress, ve items, Cronbachs = .63);(ii) frustration
(negative affect related to interruption of ongo-ing tasks or goal
blocking, ve items, = .74); (iii) shyness(slow or inhibited
approach and/or discomfort in social situa-tions, four items, =
.84); (iv) effortful control (capacity tocontrol attention,
activation and inhibition, 11 items,= .86); (v) afliation (desire
for and pleasure in warmth andcloseness with others, six items, =
.66); and (vi) high inten-sity pleasure (pleasure or enjoyment
related to high stimulusintensity or novelty, six items, = .77).
Answers were ratedon a 5-point Likert-type scale (1= almost always
untrue tointerpreted as negligible effects (Cohen, 1992).
Althoughwe observed slightly higher attrition (p< .05) for
childrenwith low scores on effortful control and afliation,
effectsizes were negligible (partial 2 = 0.002 and 0.003), and
ourresults seem not seriously biassed. A detailed description ofthe
sample selection, procedures and methods can be foundin De Winter,
Oldehinkel, Veenstra, Brunnekreef, Verhulstand Ormel (2005).
Proceduresenrolled in the study (response rate, 76.0%) of whom,
1816(response rate 81.4%, 45.3% girls) participated in Wave 3.At
Wave 1, the mean age of the adolescents enrolled in thestudy was
11.09 years (SD=0.56). At Wave 3, the meanage was 16.13 years
(SD=0.59). Prerequisites to be includedin the current study were
that, at Wave 1, parents had lledout the temperament questionnaire
and adolescent the per-ceived affection list, and that, at Wave 3,
the adolescentswere interviewed with regard to stressful social
events. Thisresulted in a total number of 1158 adolescents
participatingin the current study. No differences were found
betweenresponders and nonresponders with respect to teacher
ratingsof problem behaviours and in the associations
betweensocio-demographic variables and mental health indicators.We
examined whether individuals who were interviewedabout exposure to
life events differed from those who werenot interviewed on the
temperament and afliation scales atage 11 years. To facilitate
comparisons, partial 2 measuresof effects were computed. The effect
sizes for beingCopyright 2015 European Association of Personality
Psychology5= almost always true). Higher values indicated a
higherpresence of the temperamental trait concerned.
Eight-weektestretest stability of the parent-reported EATQ-R
scaleshas been found to be moderate to good, ranging from 0.69for
high intensity pleasure to 0.85 for frustration (Muris
&Meesters, 2009).
Stressful social eventsStressful social events were captured at
age 16 years usingthe event history calendar (EHC), a data
collection methodfor obtaining retrospective data about life events
and activi-ties developed by Caspi et al. (1996) and colleagues.
Forthe present study we adapted the calendar into an interviewon
several life domains that lasted about 45minutes. Partici-pants
were asked about events that occurred since baseline(i.e. between
ages 1116). Detailed and accurate data about theevents could be
collected by proceeding serially from one lifedomain to another and
using a month-by-month horizontaltimeline. For example, with regard
to school, adolescentswere asked by the interviewer, respectively,
about the datesof changing school, changing class, repeating class,
as wellas about their educational levels for the subsequent
years.Testretest reliability has generally been found to be
reason-able to good [respectively, 7287% in a sample of youngadults
(Freedman, Arland Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, &Young-DeMarco,
1988) and >90% in a sample of adoles-cents (Caspi et al.,
1996)]. Construct validity of the EHCwas investigated in a
comparative study by Belli and col-leagues (2001), showing
reasonable correlation coefcientsbetween a written questionnaire
and the EHC (ranging from0.63 to 0.79).
For the current study, we selected all stressful socialevents
assessed in the parental, peer and romantic domains.Stressful
social events were dened as time-discrete eventslikely to bring
about a major change in social or relationshipstatus (cf. Holmes
& Rahe, 1967; Luhmann, Orth, Specht,Kandler, & Lucas,
2014). Stressful events in the parentaldomain included being thrown
out of the parental home(n=20), having a serious ght (n=92) and
running awayfrom home (n=52). Stressful events in the peer domain
in-cluded losing a good friend because of a ght or argument(n=128)
and being bullied (n=256). Stressful events in theromantic partner
domain included being dumped (n=204)and breaking up (self) after a
relationship (n=538). Intercor-relations between the various events
were rather low, rangingfrom r= .001 for the correlation between
losing a good friendbecause of a ght or argument and being dumped
to r= .215for the correlation between having a ght serious ght
withfamily members and running away from home. For thisstudy, three
event variables were constructed indicating thenumber of events the
adolescents experienced in the respec-tive domains. With regard to
the conicts with parents, beingexposed to two (n=20) and three
(n=3) events were mergedand recoded as 2 events.
Perceived affectionChild-rated perceived parental and peer
affection were mea-sured at age 11 using two scales based on the
Social Produc-tion Function (SPF) theory (Nieboer, Lindenberg,
Boomsma,Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
The linear regression technique is known to remain valid
when
alpha ination, we only interpreted correlations that
weresignicant at p< .01.
RESULTS
Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics for the unstandardized variables are
re-ported in Table 1. Table 2 presents correlations between thesix
temperament traits, perceived affection by parents andpeers and
stressful social events in the three domains. We re-frain from
using higher-order dimensions (e.g. neuroticismcomposed from fear
and frustration) because the higher-orderdomains could not be
clearly distinguished in adolescents(Table 2, cf. overlap between
frustration and effortfulcontrol).
Direct effects and (partial) mediation
Most temperamental traits showed a direct prospective path-way
to stressful social events. Adolescents high on frustra-tion and
low on effortful control were more likely toexperience stressful
social events in the parental and peerdomain but not with romantic
partners. Adolescents high
Shyness 1197 1.00 5.00 2.51 0.86
Gender 1197Female 660
Temperament and stressful social events 129the dependent
variable violates the normality assumption in asample of our size
(Li, Wong, Lamoureux, & Wong, 2012).However, to ensure the
robustness of our results, webootstrapped all linear regression
analyses (k=1000 with biascorrected condence intervals) to obtain
asymptotic 95%condence intervals around the indirect effects using
the SPSS(IBM Inc., Armonk, NY, USA) macro developed by Preacherand
Hayes (2008). Condence intervals not including zeroreect signicant
indirect effects. To enable comparison withother literature, we
converted some results to Cohens d(standardised effect sizes),
based on formulas derived fromBorenstein (2009) and Peterson
(2005). To reduce family-wise& Van Bruggen, 2005). The SPF
asserts that well-being canbe measured in terms of universal goals,
viz. affection, be-havioural conrmation, status, comfort and
stimulation(Ormel, Lindenberg, Steverink, & Vonkorff, 1997).
Per-ceived affection from parents (i.e. an aggregated measureof
perceived paternal and maternal affection, each four items,e.g.
he/she likes being with me, = .84 for paternal affec-tion and = .78
for maternal affection) and perceived affec-tion from classmates
(four items, e.g. my classmates enjoybeing with me, = .84 ) were
measured with ve-pointscales, with answer categories ranging from 1
(never) to 5(always). No testretest data of the SPF list are
available.
Statistical analyses
Variables were transformed into z-scores for both the
correla-tion and mediation analyses. Subsequently, we examined
thedirect effects of temperament on subsequent stressful
socialevents, as well as, the possible mediating role of
perceivedparental affection and perceived peer affection in these
asso-ciations, as outlined in Figure 1. Three mediation
analyseswere performed for each of the six temperament traits,
onefor each of the stressful social event domains (i.e.
parents,peers and romantic partners). Perceived parental
affectionand perceived peer affection were entered simultaneously
inthe analyses, resulting in a total of 18 analyses. All
mediationanalyses were controlled for gender using the single
multiplemediation method proposed by Preacher and Hayes (2008).
The theoretical model of the prospective association be-tween
temperament and stressful social events in Figure 1shows a direct
effect on stressful social events (path c) and thedirect effect
when the indirect path is controlled for (path c).The relationships
between temperament and the two media-tors are gured through path
a1 and path a2. The effects ofthe two mediators on stressful social
events are guredthrough path b1 and b2. The total indirect paths
fromtemperament to stressful social events are the sum of thetwo
mediators. Testing a single multiple mediation model(rather than
separate simple mediation models) has the advan-tage of allowing
intercorrelations between the respectivemediation variables
(Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Additionally,a single multiple
mediation model enables us to quantify theextent to which perceived
parental affection mediates theeffect of temperament on stressful
social events, conditionalon the presence of perceived peer
affection (and vice versa).Copyright 2015 European Association of
Personality PsychologyMale 537High intensity pleasure 1194 1.00
5.00 3.30 0.93Effortful control 1197 1.09 5.00 3.28 0.69Perceived
parental affection 1162 3.00 10.00 8.64 1.27Perceived peer
affection 1183 2.00 10.00 7.41 1.40Events parents 1197 0 2 0.13
0.390 events 10591 event 1152 events 23
Events peers 1197 0 2 0.32 0.530 events 8491 event 3122 events
36
Events romantic relations 1197 0 2 0.62 0.660 events 5741 event
5042 events 119(versus low) on intensity pleasure, low (versus
high) onshyness and low (versus high) on afliation were more
likelyto experience stressful social events in the romantic
partnerdomain but not with parents or peers. Only fear was
unre-lated to subsequent stressful events in all three domains.
Lower parental affection was observed for adolescentshigh
(versus low) on frustration and low (versus high) effort-ful
control and afliation. Lower perceived peer affectionwas reported
for adolescents high (versus low) on frustrationand shyness or low
on effortful control and afliation.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the unstandardized
variables
Temperament N Min Max Mean SD
Fear 1196 1.00 4.60 2.41 0.71Frustration 1196 1.00 4.80 2.77
0.65Afliation 1196 1.50 5.00 3.89 0.55Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137
(2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
Perceived affection, in turn, predicted stressful social
events.More perceived parental affection predicted less
subsequentstressful events in the parental domain and in the
romanticpartner domain and more perceived peer affection
predictedless subsequent stressful events in the peer domain but
moreevents in the romantic partner domain. Although path
coef-cients varied slightly across the temperament models (i.e.
as-sociations between perceived affection and stressful events
control and later stressful social events in the romantic
part-ner domain. That is, higher levels of frustration, lower
levelsof afliation and lower levels of effortful control were all
re-lated to less perceived parental affection, which in turn
pre-dicted more stressful social events in the romantic
partnerdomain. Also, perceived parental affection mediated the
as-sociations between afliation and stressful social events inthe
parental domain. So, lower afliation was related to less
Table 2. Correlations between the study variables
1. Fear 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
2. Frustration .30***3. Afliation .08** .19***4. Shyness .14***
.12*** .29***5. High intensity pleasure .25*** .06 .15*** .29***6.
Effortful control .23*** .37*** .12*** .01 .09**7. Perceived
parental affection .04 .13*** .14*** .00 .01 .12***8. Perceived
peer affection .03 .13*** .16*** .06 .00 .10*** .46***9. Events
parents .05 .12*** .01 .02 .04 .13*** .06 .0010. Events peers .07*
.07* .05 .02 .03 .07* .06 .06* .09**11. Events romantic partners
.01 .02 .07* .11*** .14*** .02 .01 .08** .14*** .00Note: *p<
.05; **p< .01; ***p< .001.
130 O. M. Laceulle et al.were estimated in each of the
univariate temperamentmodels), they did not differ in any
meaningful matter depen-dent on which temperament trait was
included in the model(Figure 2 shows the path coefcients for events
in the roman-tic partner domain). Furthermore, high levels of
perceived af-fection predicted fewer subsequent social stressful
events. Insum, the observed associations varied across
temperamenttraits, stressful social event domains and types of
perceivedaffect (mediators).
Our bootstrapped regression models (Table 3) showedthat several
of the associations between temperament andstressful social events
were mediated by perceived relation-ship affection. Perceived
parental affection mediated the as-sociations between frustration,
afliation and effortfulFigure 2. Standardised path coefcients for
the direct paths. Path coefcients ofacross models.
Copyright 2015 European Association of Personality
Psychologyperceived parental affection, which, in turn, predicted
morestressful social events in the romantic partner domain.
Perceived peer affection mediated the associations be-tween,
respectively, frustration, afliation, shyness and ef-fortful
control and stressful social events in both the peerand romantic
partner domain. That is, higher levels of frus-tration and shyness
and lower levels of afliation and effort-ful control were related
to less perceived peer affection,which, in turn predicted more
stressful social events in thepeer domain, but less in the romantic
partner domain. No me-diation effects were found for the
associations between, re-spectively, fear and high intensity
pleasure and any of thesocial domains. All signicant mediation
effects had a rathersmall-effect size (between d=0.10 and 0.15).the
associations between affection and stressful social events varied
slightly
Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
Temperament and stressful social events 131Table 3. Bootstrap
results for indirect relationships (bias-correctedand accelerated
condence intervals (CIs))
Boot SELower95% CI
Upper95% CI
FearEvents PaPost-hoc analyses
Multiple post-hoc analyses were performed to test the
robust-ness of our results. First, the effects of temperament
onstressful social events in the romantic partner domain were
Parental affection .002 .003 .010 .001Peer affection .000 .001
.002 .004Fear Events PeParental affection .001 .002 .009 .001Peer
.001 .003 .009 .003Fear Events RoPaParental affection .002 .003
.010 .001Peer .001 .003 .005 .010Frustration Events PaParental
affection .009 .005 .001 .021Peer .003 .005 .013 .006Frustration
Events PeParental affection .004 .005 .005 .015Peer .009 .005 .000
.022FrustrationEvents RoPaParental affection .009 .005 .001
.023Peer .013 .005 .028 .005Afliation Events PaParental affection
.009 .005 .023 .001Peer .001 .005 .009 .011Afliation Events
PeParental affection .005 .005 .017 .004Peer .011 .006 .026
.001Afliation Events RopaParental affection .010 .005 .022 .002Peer
.013 .005 .005 .025Shyness Events PaParental affection .001 .002
.003 .007Peer .001 .003 .007 .005Shyness Events PeParental
affection .000 .002 .001 .007Peer .006 .004 .001 .017ShynessEvents
RoPaParental affection .001 .002 .003 .007Peer .007 .004 .017
.001High Int Pl Events PaParental affection .000 .002 .005 .005Peer
.000 .001 .002 .004High Int Pl Events PeParental affection .000
.002 .003 .003Peer .001 .003 .009 .002High Int PlEvents
RoPaParental affection .000 .002 .005 .005Peer .002 .003 .004
.010Eff Contr Events PaParental affection .006 .005 .17 .001Peer
.001 .003 .004 .008Eff Contr Events PeParental affection .003 .004
.013 .004Peer .005 .003 .014 .000Eff ContrEvents RoPaParental
affection .007 .004 .018 .001Peer .008 .004 .001 .017
Note: Events Pa, events in the parental domain; Events Pe,
events in the peerdomain; Events RoPa, events in the romantic
partners domain.Bold emphases show signicant associations. SE =
Standard Error.
Copyright 2015 European Association of Personality
Psychologyrepeated in the subgroup of adolescents who reportedly
wereinvolved in at least one romantic relationship between age
11and 16. Second, we tested all temperamental effects for eachof
the individual stressful events. Third, multivariate media-tion
analyses were performed in which all temperament traitswere entered
simultaneously to test for (the mediation of) theindependent
effects of each temperamental facet adjusted forthe effect of all
other facets. Finally, nonparametrical Spear-man partial rho tests
were performed as an extra robustnesscheck (next to our bootstrap
procedure) because our depen-dent variables were non-normally
distributed.
Adolescents involved in a romantic relationshipAll signicant
associations between temperament and stress-ful events in the
romantic partner domain disappeared in themuch smaller sample of
adolescents who reported at leastone romantic relationship between
age 11 and 16 (n=703;Supplementary material Table S1).
Single-event analysesAnalyses for all single events in
Supplementary materialTable S2 showed that high (versus low) fear
predicted runningaway from home (parental domain) and being bullied
(peerdomain). High (versus low) frustration predicted ghts
withparents and running away from home (parental domain) andbeing
bullied (peer domain). Adolescents high (versus low)on shyness were
less likely to have a ght with their parents(parental domain) and
less likely of being dumped or breakingup a relationship (partner
domain). Adolescents high (versuslow) on surgency were more often
thrown out of the parentalhome and were more often dumped or broke
up theirromantic relationship (partner domain). Finally,
adolescentshigh (versus low) on effortful control reported fewer
seriousghts with parents and running away from home
(parentaldomain) and were bullied less (peer domain). Most
mediationpaths by perceived relationship affection remained
signicant(Supplementary material Table S2).
Multivariate analysesMultivariate analyses were performed in
which all tempera-ment traits were entered simultaneously to
examine the ef-fects of temperament traits adjusted for all other
traits.Analyses showed that only part of the associations found
inthe univariate analyses remained in the multivariate
analyses.Most importantly, the indirect effects of frustration and
afl-iation on stressful events via perceived affection remainedwhen
adjusting for the other temperament traits. In contrast,the effects
of shyness and effortful control disappeared, sug-gesting that
these were not robust when adjusting for othertraits. Model
statistics are reported in Supplementary mate-rial Table S3.
Nonparametric testsFinally, nonparametrical Spearman partial rho
tests sup-ported the results of our univariate analyses and
showedboth the direct effects of temperament on stressful
eventsoccurrences and mediation of these associations by per-ceived
parental and/or peer affection (Supplementary mate-rial Table
S4).Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
above and beyond the similarities between peer and romantic
predicted by low shyness and afliation and high intensity
132 O. M. Laceulle et al.partner relations, peer relations have
some resemblance withparental relations in the sense that they have
both developedover years. Romantic relationships, in contrast, can
develop(and nish) rather suddenly during adolescence.
Conse-quently, temperament traits that are undesirable in social
in-teractions (e.g. high frustration) may be more visible
forparents and peers who know the adolescent for years,whereas
adolescents may inhibit frustration-related behav-iours in the
presence of their new romantic partner. Thismay explain why
adolescents high on frustration may evokestressful social events in
the parental and peer domain but notthe romantic partner
domain.
Similarly, adolescents high on effortful control may bemore
reliable in their friendships with peers and easier to theirparents
andmay therefore be less likely to evoke stressful socialevents in
these contexts. In contrast, effortful control may notbe of much
importance in the newly developingand oftenonly short-termromantic
relationships adolescents have. Thisinterpretation aligns with
observations by Furman (2002), whosuggested that parentchild
relationship characteristics asDISCUSSION
In this paper, we used data from a large cohort of
adolescentsand two waves to test whether adolescents perceived
rela-tionship affection mediates part of the prospective
associa-tion between adolescent temperament and stressful
socialevent evocation. Our results support the hypothesis that
tem-peramental differences are manifested in differences
instressful social event evocation, in line with previous
re-search. Our study innovated by the observation that per-ceived
relationship affection mediates a modest part of thisassociation.
In other words, temperaments colour the way ad-olescents perceive
received affection, which, in turn, inu-ences the probability of
subsequent stressful social events.Our distinction between three
social domains (i.e. parents,peers and romantic partners) yielded
support for both genericand domain-specic effects, which exemplies
the challengeof isolating mechanisms behind the stress selection
principle.After having summarised our main ndings, these will
bediscussed in more detail subsequently.
Temperament and subsequent stressful social events
Low levels of effortful control (H1a) and high levels of
frus-tration (H1b) were predictive of more subsequent
socialstressful events, in line with our hypotheses.
Interestingly,this held only true for the parental and peer domain;
stressfulsocial events in the romantic partner domain were
predictedby high levels of intensity pleasure and afliation as
wellas low levels of shyness (all traits related to the broader
per-sonality domain of extraversion). Fear was not predictive
ofstress in any of the domains.
The observation that patterns were different for peers
andromantic partners might be somewhat surprising insofarthose
relationships between peers and romantic partners areoften seen as
more comparable than between parents and ro-mantic partners (Furman
& Buhrmester, 1992; Furman &Shomaker, 2008; Hartup, 1989).
However, it might be thatCopyright 2015 European Association of
Personality Psychologypleasure, traits that are all related to the
broader personalitydimension of extraversion. Adolescents high on
extraversionevoked more stressful events with romantic partners (in
linewith hypothesis H1c) but not with parents and peers.
Hence,extraversion (being out-going, sociable etc.) seems more
in-uential when engaging with romantic partners than in themore
persistent relationships with parents and peers. This isconsistent
with evidence that high (versus low) extravert ado-lescents engage
more in romantic relationships (e.g. Ldtkeet al., 2011; Neyer &
Lehnart, 2007; Specht, Egloff, &Schmukle, 2011). It therefore
seems plausible that low extra-vert adolescents evoke less social
stressful events in the ro-mantic partner domain simply because
they are not so muchinvolved yet in romantic relationships (a oor
effect). Biserialcorrelations indeed showed that high afliation and
surgencyand low shyness predicted the presence of romantic
relation-ships between age 11 and 16, while fear, frustration
andeffortful control were unrelated (Supplementary materialTable
S5).
However, it seems unlikely that the more frequent en-gagement of
extraverted adolescents in romantic relation-ships explains all of
the variance, because they probablyinteract more with romantic
partners and with their peers.The cardinal features of high
extraversion are social attentionand a larger impact on ones social
environments in general(Larsen & Buss, 2013; Nettle, 2007).
Previous research in-deed showed both quantitative and qualitative
differencesin social interactions between high-extraverted
adolescents(Berry & Hansen, 1996). Given that we did not nd an
asso-ciation between traits related to extraversion and
subsequentstressful social events in the peer domain, it seems
plausiblethat extraverts have not just more but also other (i.e.
more in-tense) interaction with romantic relationships than their
lessextravert peers. It seems that adolescents high on
extraver-sion had more frequent and more intense interactions with
ro-mantic partners than adolescents whom were more
reticent,resulting in both more positive and negative events.
None-theless, it should be noted that the association between
tem-perament (shyness, afliation and high intensity pleasure)and
stressful events disappeared in post-hoc analyses in thesubgroup of
adolescents who reported at least one romanticrelationship between
age 11 and 16. Although this seems tobe (partly) due to power
issues, caution is needed wheninterpreting the effects of
temperament on events in the ro-mantic partner domain.
Perceived affection: an intrapsychic characteristic
withreal-world consequences
We proposed that the prospective association between
tem-perament and subsequent stressful social events would
bepartially mediated by perceived relationship affection
(H2).perceived by the adolescent were related to both (i)
childpeerrelationship characteristics as perceived by the
adolescent and(ii) childromantic partner relationship
characteristics as per-ceived by the adolescent, although the
latter two were (at leastfor some relationship characteristics)
unrelated.
Stressful social events in the romantic partner domain wereEur.
J. Pers. 29: 125137 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
inuence) can already change temperament (or personality)
part of the stress-evocation effects of frustration and
effortful
Temperament and stressful social events 133in anticipation of
future social roles (Wood & Roberts,2006a, 2006b). Moreover,
the ndings conrm and extentprevious research showing that peoples
perceptions of theirrelationships with others (e.g. expected
rejection) can be-come a self-fullling prophecy when people start
behavingin ways (e.g. withdrawal and aggression) that elicit
stressfulsocial interaction (e.g. conicts, rejection and breakup;
seeBradbury & Fincham, 1990; Downey et al., 1998; Londonet al.,
2007; Sroufe, 1990).
Domain specicity and spill-over effects
We hypothesised that mediation by perceived relation affec-tion
would be largely domain-specic (H3). Indeed, parentalaffection was
the primary mediator of temperamental stressfulsocial event
evocation in the parental domain (H3a), whereasperceived peer
affection mediated the evocation of stressfulevents in the peer
domain (H3b). Perceived parental affectionmediated part of the
association between afliation and eventsin the parental domain, but
surprisingly, no effect was foundfor the other temperamental
traits. Although perceived affectmay be conceptually most akin to
afliation, the associationbetween afliation and perceived parental
affection was notmuch stronger than it was for frustration or
effortful control.Moreover, afliation was rated by the mother,
whereas levelsof perceived affection were based on adolescents
self-report,which may limit the overlap between both concepts.
With regard to perceived peer affection, several media-tion
effects were found. Adolescents lower on frustration orshyness
and/or higher on afliation or effortful control re-ported more peer
affection, which, in turn, predicted less sub-sequent stressful
social events in the peer domain. Thissuggests that, as
hypothesised, adolescents perceived affec-tion received from their
peers is important in the associationIndeed, perceived relationship
affection mediated several ofthe associations between temperament
and stressful socialevents. This nding may propel the exploration
of other fac-tors that can account for part of the association
between tem-perament and stressful event evocation, because we
showedthat mediation studies have the potential to provide
insightin the mechanisms underlying the stress selection
principle.Such insights may enable clinicians to craft prevention
strat-egies that alleviate stress-related psychopathology.
Morespecically, our results suggest that perceived
relationshipaffection mediated part of the studied associations.
More-over, although small, the observed effect sizes of the
variouspaths are in the range of the average observed in
psychology(Richard, Bond Jr., & Stokes-Zoota, 2003; Roberts,
Kuncel,Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007).
Our results align with the interpretation that
individualsdevelop internal working models based on their
temperamen-tal characteristics, which, in turn, modulates
adolescentsperceptions of their affective relationships with
others, asoutlined in the introduction. Hence, perceived
relationshipaffection, a rather complex intrapsychic
characteristic, canhave real-world consequences in terms of
subsequent stress-ful social events. This is reminiscent of studies
that showedthat preconceptions of a future identity (also an
intrapsychicCopyright 2015 European Association of Personality
Psychologycontrol, whereas extraversion-driven evocation effects
tendto be more independent of perceived affection.
Because perceived romantic partner affection was notmeasured in
our study, we explored spill-over effects of pa-rental and peer
affection on stressful event selection in the ro-mantic partner
domain. Findings suggested some spill-overeffects. Adolescents
lower on frustration and/or higher onafliation or effortful control
reported more affection fromparents and peers, which, in turn,
predicted subsequent stress-ful social events in the romantic
partner domain.Whereasmoreperceived parental affection predicted
fewer events in the ro-mantic partner domain (in line with the
negative associationbetween perceived parental affection and events
in the paren-tal domain), more perceived peer affection predicted
moreevents in the romantic partner domain (a positive
association,diametrical to the negative association between
perceivedpeer affection and events in the peer domain). Possibly
ro-mantic partners and peers compete for the adolescents atten-tion
(Furman & Shaffer, 2003; Laursen & Williams,
1997;Zimmer-Gembeck, 2002), which may explain part of thenegative
association between peer affection and events inthe romantic
relationship. Moreover, the spill-over effects ofperceived parental
affection to the romantic domain mayreect that young adolescents
use their perceptions of theirparents to guide their behaviour in
interaction with their (rst)romantic partners (Linder, Crick, &
Collins, 2002).
Yet, and as mentioned earlier, we have to interpret thementioned
spill-over effects with caution. Besides that theydid not hold in
the post-hoc analyses where we examined theassociations only for
those adolescents who reported at leastone romantic relationship
between age 11 and 16, we wereunable to include perceived romantic
partner affection, whilepart of the observed spill-over effects may
reect overlap be-tween the perceived parental, peer and romantic
partner af-fection, which might disappear when a measure
ofperceived romantic partner affection was included.
Clearly,additional research is warranted elaborating on perceived
pa-rental and peer affection with perceived romantic partner
af-fection and can test our explanations of the alleged
spill-overeffects we observed.
Finally, multivariate analyses were performed to test
therobustness of the indirect effects when adjusting for all
othertraits. Results showed that the effects of afliation and
frus-tration remained in these more conservative analyses,
bol-stering the robustness of the ndings. However, this wasnot true
for the indirect effects of shyness and effortful con-trol
disappeared, which suggests that these ndings resultedfrom their
co-occurrence with the other traits, and these re-sults should
therefore be interpreted cautiously.
Strengths and limitations
Among the strengths of our study was our usage of a largesample
of adolescents and data from different informants.between
temperament traits and events in the peer domain.Notably, for both
frustration and effortful control, no directeffects were found on
stressful social events in the peer do-main. This indicates that
perceived peer affection mediatesEur. J. Pers. 29: 125137
(2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
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134 O. M. Laceulle et al.Parents rated the adolescents
temperament. Perceived affec-tion was measured using adolescents
self-report data. Thestressful social events were captured using a
semi-structuredand sophisticated interview method, which provided
infor-mation both on the nature and the timing of the event.
Retro-spective self-reports of stressful events have
inherentlimitations because of response components that may be
in-uenced by current mental state, such as cognition,
appraisal,interpretation and recall. However, this was addressed in
ourstudy by asking the participant to proceed serially from onelife
domain to another using a month-by-month horizontaltimeline and
under supervision of the interviewer. Thismethod is known for
providing detailed and accurate dataabout the events (Caspi et al.,
1996; Freedman et al., 1988).In addition, we were able to
distinguish between three do-mains of stressful social events:
parents, peers and romanticpartners. This allowed us to
differentiate between genericand domain specic with regard to both
direct and indirecteffects. Finally, to test the robustness of the
ndings, wetested all temperamental effects for each of the
individualstressful events. The direct, as well as, most mediation
pathsby perceived relationship affection remained
signicant,bolstering the robustness of the ndings presented.
Despite these strengths, the study is limited in severalways.
First and most important, we found evidence for medi-ation of
several temperaments to stressful social event associ-ations by
perceived relationship affection, but all effectsindicated only
partial mediation. Moreover, the effects re-vealed were all very
small. It would be interesting to examinewhether they would hold
when including constructs relatedto perceived affection, such as
social support, attachmentstyle or rejection sensitivity.
Unfortunately, however, wedid not have this data available.
Nevertheless, research inolder adolescents showed that felt
insecurity mediates theassociations between personality (i.e.
attachment style) andrelationships with romantic partners (Sadikaj,
Moskowitz,& Zuroff, 2015). Additionally, Finn and colleagues
(2013)showed that relationship-specic interpretation bias can
ex-plain part of the association between personality (i.e.
neurot-icism) and relationships with romantic partners.
A related issue is that convergent mechanisms may un-derlie the
association between temperament and stressful so-cial events. For
some of the paths, we found indirect but nototal effects. As
discussed extensively by Preacher and Hayes(2008), total effects
are no statistical prerequisite for the ex-istence of indirect
effects. It might be, for example, that othermediation processes
work in the opposite direction therebyleading to the lack of an
overall effect (Kfner, Nestler, &Back, 2013). These
observations thus stress the need for fu-ture research, and
clearly, other extant variables may accountfor additional variance.
Although beyond the scope of thecurrent study, future research may
identify other and poten-tially stronger factors in the domain of
information processingand add other-reported mediators and
outcomes. For exam-ple, parent-reported parenting styles, cognitive
characteristicsreported by the adolescent, parent or teacher might
be impor-tant mediators to consider. Indeed, elsewhere, in the
currentspecial issue, evidence has been provided bolstering
theimportance of cognitive characteristics by showing that
oralCopyright 2015 European Association of Personality
Psychologyuency partially mediates the associations between
extraver-sion and sociometric popularity (Ilmarinen,
Vainikainen,Verkasalo, & Lnnqvist, 2015). Other mechanisms
suggestedto underlie the association between personality and
subse-quent peer relations are interpersonal motives and
behaviours(Ackerman & Corretti, 2015).
Second, and as mentioned earlier, we included three do-mains of
stressful social events in our study but had onlymeasures of
perceived affection in the parental and peer do-main. As discussed
previously, this makes interpretation ofthe current spill-over
effects difcult. Third, it might be thattemperament is not only
related to an adolescents perceivedrelationship affection but also
to the absolute amount of af-fection he or she receives. Future
research including a mea-sure of perceived affection as well as a
more objectivemeasure of actually received affection (maybe even a
behav-ioural measure) may help to disentangle this issue.
Fourth,our study may be limited by the timing of the perceived
af-fection measures. In an optimal mediation design, the medi-ator
is assessed in between the predictor and outcomevariable. In our
study, perceived affection was measured si-multaneously with
temperament. Consequently, we cannotbe conclusive about the
direction of the association betweentemperament and perceived
affection. However, our researchquestion did not t very well to the
classic mediation ap-proach. By measuring perceived affection
in-between tem-perament and stressful life events, we would either
includestressful social events that happened before the
measurementof the mediator, or have to exclude all events that
occurred inthis period, leaving us with a black-time-box lled
withevents not taken into account.
Related to the direction of the association between tem-perament
and perceived affection is the direction of the rela-tionship
between temperament and stressful events. Asproposed by the social
selection principle, individuals mayevoke stressful events based on
their temperament. However,the opposite is also true, and exposure
to stress has beenfound to be related to (non-normative) changes in
tempera-ment (Laceulle, Nederhof, Karreman, Ormel, & van
Aken,2012). The corresponsive principle explicitly accounts
forthese bidirectional associations between temperament
andstressful events, postulating that change in temperamentresults
from mutually reinforcing personenvironment trans-actions,
including both social selection and social inuence(i.e. temperament
can affect stress exposure and stress canaffect temperament; Caspi,
Roberts, & Shiner, 2005;Jeronimus et al., 2014; Riese et al.,
2014). A recent studyon the TRAILS data supported the corresponsive
principle,although the effect varied between the different
temperamenttraits (Laceulle et al., 2014). Whereas stressful events
werefound to predict subsequent fear, stressful events were
pre-dicted by but not predictive of shyness and afliation. For
ef-fortful control and frustration, a fully reciprocal model
wasfound. Consequently, future research may explore whatmakes
frustration and effortful control different, and furtherresearch
including multiple waves of temperament, per-ceived affection and
stressful social event data may allowfor more detailed test of
mediation and shed more light onthe causal order of the various
associations.Eur. J. Pers. 29: 125137 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/per
-
all adolescents, their parents and teachers who participatedin
this research and to everyone who worked on this project
Temperament and stressful social events 135and made it
possible.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional supporting information may be found in theonline
version of this article at the publishers web-site.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is part of the TRAILS. Participating centres
ofTRAILS includes various departments of the UniversityMedical
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