Next steps: Behavioral inhibition as a model system

Abstract

The current volume brings together a complex network of research that stemmed from the initial observation of individual variation in infants and toddlers. Since then, the last three decades of work has morphed the initial definition of behavioral inhibition, the systems associated with the temperamental trait, and the trajectories that we have associated with early profiles. The current chapter first outlines some of the core lessons that can be drawn from the extant literature. We then ask five questions that still puzzle researchers and may point to the "developmental arc" of the studies that will emerge in the decades to come.