Every person is born with a temperament, a collection of innate qualities that set their baseline emotional tone. Temperament varies little throughout life, but we learn to manage it in ways that exploit its strengths and minimize or compensate for its weaknesses. Temperament interacts with life experience to determine how we respond to circumstances, particularly emotionally laden situations, such as those involving loved ones.

Some people are born shy, inhibited, fearful, and difficult to comfort. Many others are born outgoing and agreeable, curious, and easily calmed when distressed. Whether the qualities of the difficult temperament develop into defensiveness, hostility, and anxiety, or those of the easy temperament develop into friendliness, warmth, and generally pleasant character traits, depends on experience, especially early-life attachment experience. A nurturing, stable, safe, and secure environment will ameliorate a child’s innate fearfulness just as surely as a rejecting or indifferent one will create guilt, shame, and abandonment anxiety or fear of engulfment........

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