Physical and physiological correlates of behavioral inhibition

Previous investigations have suggested that the temperamental quality of inhibition is related to the threshold of reactivity to unfamiliar events within certain limbic structures. In earlier work, children in three independent samples who had been selected to be inhibited were more likely to have blue than brown eyes, whereas uninhibited children were more likely to have brown eyes. The present study, which selected two-year-old children on the basis of eye color (blue or brown) rather than behavior, found a significant association between blue eyes and behavioral inhibition, and between brown eyes and an uninhibited style. Although the inhibited children were more likely to have a high and stable heart rate than were the uninhibited children, there was no relation between eye color and these cardiac measures. Several interpretations of the association between these temperamental categories and iris pigmentation are proposed.