TEMPERAMENT AS A PREDICTOR OF SYMPTOMATOLOGY IN CHILDREN - ADDRESSINGCONTAMINATION OF MEASURES

Temperament has been conceptualized as an important predictor of child ren's psychological adjustment. However, even with reliable and valid measures, there is the additional problem of overlapping item content across measures of temperament and symptoms that threatens the interpr etability of such associations. This study assessed this possible conf ounding using both confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and expert ratin gs. A number of items from temperament measures of negative and positi ve emotionality, impulsivity, and attention focusing were shown to ove rlap with items measuring depressive and conduct problem symptoms. CFA s demonstrated that temperament could be reliably measured after elimi nating overlapping items. Negative emotionality and impulsivity showed a positive relation to symptom measures, whereas positive emotionalit y and attention showed a negative relation to symptom measures. The pa ttern of associations indicated consistent relations between negative emotionality and depression and between impulsivity and conduct proble ms. The results show that even after removal of the threat to validity presented by overlap in measures, there continue to be significant, i nterpretable relations between temperament and symptoms.