...[Scientists] have put the assumptions about innate temperament on firmer footing, and they have also demonstrated that some of us, like Baby 19, are... born predisposed to be anxious...



...[other scientists] all have reached similar conclusions: that babies differ according to inborn temperament...



Teenagers who were in the group at low risk for anxiety showed no increase in activity in the amygdala when they looked at the face, even if they had been told to focus on their own fear. ...In the high-risk kids, even those who were apparently calm in most settings, their amygdalas lighted up more than the others' did.



Not every brain state sparks the same subjective experience; one person might describe a hyperaroused brain in a negative way, as feeling anxious or tense, while another might enjoy the sensation and instead uses a positive word like "alert."



The persona can be controlled, but the anima often cannot... Nathan Fox of the University of Maryland says that when the anima erupts in high-risk children, it often takes the form of excessive vigilance and misdirected attention. In the first of his two longitudinal studies...

The predictive power of an anxiety-prone temperament, such as it is, essentially works in just one direction: not by predicting what these children will become but by predicting what they will not. In the longitudinal studies of anxiety, all you can say with confidence is that the high-reactive infants will not grow up to be exuberant, outgoing, bubbly or bold.



Still, while a Sylvia Plath almost certainly won't grow up to be a Bill Clinton, she can either grow up to be anxious and suicidal, or simply a poet.

