Schemas and temperament as risk factors for emotional disability

Temperament has been considered one of the lower level building blocks of more complex organizations that occur through the reciprocal influence of temperament and experience (Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995; Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996; Derryberry & Rothbart, 1997). Accordingly, temperament was expected to contribute to adjustment in a hierarchical manner, first through its influence on daily encounters and their representations in memory structures or schemas and second, through the influence of the schemas in shaping subsequent encounters. Using a matched pairs design (25 siblings, one classified with ED and the other not), the current study demonstrated the expected part-whole pattern with two measures of temperament, a questionnaire (DOTS-R: Windle & Lerner, 1986) and interview. Temperament correlated with schema quality (assessed with the thematic apperception test) and with classification with an emotional disability (ED) but did not make a unique contribution to the prediction of ED after removal of schema related variance. Understanding the role of temperament as a developmental precursor for higher order variables that predict adjustment has implications for assessment and intervention.