Ecological validity of laboratory assessments of child temperament: evidence from parent perspectives

The structure, stability, and validity of child temperament traits have primarily been examined with parent questionnaire methods, but laboratory methods represent an important complement. However, the novel setting and contrived scenarios of laboratory methods and their low convergence with parent questionnaire methods have led some to question their ecological validity. We tested this assumption by employing parents as sources of information regarding the ecological validity of laboratory assessments of child temperament. Parents observed their child participating in 10 different laboratory tasks and reported on the typicality of their child's behavior. The results suggested parents considered their child's responses during the laboratory tasks as highly typical representations of their child's behavior outside of the lab, supporting the ecological validity of trait-relevant behavior elicited with laboratory tasks.