Family size: The effects on temperament of twins in Bagar zone

Pages: 279-280
Reetu Devi and Bimla Dhanda (Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS), CCS HAU, Hisar, Haryana)
Vijay Kumar (Farm Management, SNIATTE, CCS HAU, Hisar)

Family size is an indicator of the level of development of the population. Temperament refers to our inborn personality traits, which are genetic in nature. The present study was conducted in four districts namely; Hisar Fatehabad, Rohtak, and Jind of Haryana state with the purpose of availability of maximum numbers of twins in the required age group. Temperament was taken as dependent variable and family size was taken as independent variable. The Malhotra Temperament Schedule (MTS) developed by Malhotra and Malhotra (1988) was used to assess child’s temperament. This schedule can be used on all child populations whether normal or abnormal, within an age range of 4-10 years of both sexes and of any socio-economic class. Malhotra Temperament Schedule consists of nine dimensions or variables of child’s temperament and the operational terms of these dimensions are given as: Activity, Rhythmicity Approach or withdrawal, Adaptability, Threshold of responsiveness, Intensity of reaction, Quality of mood, Distractibility, Attention span and persistence. These nine dimensions were further grouped into five categories namely sociability, emotionality, energy, attentivity/ distractibility and rhythmicity. To arrive at factor scores the means of the constituting temperament dimension are to be added. The Malhotra Temperament Schedule (MTS) schedule measured temperament variables on a 5 point rating scale, and categorized by standardized method. Result revealed that family size was non-significantly associated with all the dimensions of temperament, i.e., sociability (c2=1.41), emotionality (c2=2.23), energy (c2=1.69), distractibility (c2=7.74), rhythmicity (c2=2.75) and with total temperament (c2=3.16) of twins.