Mastery motivation and temperament of 7-month-old infants.

PURPOSE: To examine relationships among infant mastery motivation, temperament, and cognition with the goal of highlighting infant behaviors to which nurses should be alert in the clinical environment to promote optimal infant development. SAMPLE: Subjects were 26 healthy, full-term infants, age 7 months, recruited from a well baby clinic. METHOD: A descriptive correlational design was used. Tools included the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence, the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire, and the Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire. RESULTS: Cognition was not related to either mastery motivation or temperament. Several relations between mastery motivation and temperament emerged. Infants with high mastery pleasure were rated as more cooperative and less difficult, and tended to be rated as more active and less irritable. Independent mastery, on the other hand, showed no correlation with temperament scores. Infants who were rated as high in persistence on the mastery motivation questionnaire were rated as more cooperative, more rhythmical, and less difficult on the temperament questionnaire, and they tended to be rated as more approachable and less irritable. Infants who were rated as high in competence tended to be rated as less difficult. CONCLUSIONS: While temperament and mastery motivation are related, information on mastery motivation provides additional information to the nurse that may be helpful both in planning interventions to promote infant development and in providing anticipatory guidance for parents.