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Perspectives on Behavioral Inhibition

Behavioral inhibition, often displayed as shyness in children and avoidance in animals, can be observed in the earliest stages of infancy. Recent research indicates that in extreme cases the tendency to either approach or withdraw from uncertain events continues through late childhood and is supported by specific biological mechanisms, suggesting a genetic basis. To effectively study behavioral inhibition, researchers are departing from the essentially experiential and descriptive techniques of traditional psychology and turning to a multidisciplinary approach that integrates psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, genetics, and ethology. Perspectives in Behavioral Inhibition brings together the most current research of leading scholars in the various disciplines involved.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Preface
1. The Concept of Behavioral Inhibition to the Unfamiliar
Jerome Kagan
2. Behavioral Inhibition in a Normative Sample
J. Steven Reznick, Jane L. Gibbons, Maureen O. Johnson, and Paula M. McDonough
3. Behavioral Inhibition and Sympathetic Influence on the Cardiovascular System
Nancy Snidman
4. Behavioral Inhibition in the Classroom
Michelle Gersten
5. Behavioral Inhibition and Anxiety: Dispositional, Developmental, and Neural Aspects of the Anxious Personality of the Domestic Cat
Robert E. Adamec and Cannie Stark-Adamec
6. Behavioral Inhibition: Issues of Context
Joan Stevenson-Hinde
7. Behavioral Approach and Inhibition
Mary Klevjord Rothbart
8. The Infantile Expression of Avidity in Relation to Later Assessments of Inhibition and Attachment
L. L. LaGasse, C. P. Gruber, and L. P. Lipsitt
9. Heart-Rate Variability and Behavioral Reactivity: Individual Differences in Autonomic Patterning and Their Relation to Infant and Child Temperament
Nathan A. Fox
10. When Baby Makes Four: Family Influences in the Stability of Behavioral Inhibition
Doreen Arcus and Kathleen McCartney
11. Behavioral Genetics and Emotionality
Robert Plomin and Clare Stocker
12. Anxiety Disorders in Parents and Children: A Genetic-Epidemiological Perspective
Myrna M. Weissman
13. Anxiety Disorders and Behavioral Inhibition
Jerrold F. Rosenbaum, Joseph Biederman, and Michelle Gersten
14. Behavioral Inhibition and Stress Reactivity: A Psychophysiological Perspective
James A. McCubbin
15. Vulnerability and Eye Color in Disney Cartoon Characters
Doreen Arcus
16. The Efficacy of Powdermilk Biscuits as a Treatment for Behavioral Inhibition
J. Steven Reznick
Index

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