page_title: Activity-specific approach in temperament research
section_title: Rusalov`s (STQ-150) (electro-physiological) model
hierarchical_section_title: Activity-specific approach in temperament research / Models of temperament within the activity-specific approach / Rusalov`s (STQ-150) (electro-physiological) model
caption_attribution_description: English: The sole author of this file is Dr. Irina Trofimova, who contributes this file to Wiki. This file illustrates Rusalov's activity-specific model. Dr. Trofimova holds a sole copyrights for this image.
context_page_description: Activity-specific approach in temperament research in temperament research is the theory related to a structure of temperament, i.e. how temperament traits can be classified and organized. This approach suggests:
  1 a separation of the traits related to three aspects of activities: social-verbal, motor-physical and mental aspects of behaviour. In contrast to that, all other models of a structure of temperament describing an energetic dimension do not differentiate between the traits regulating physical, social-verbal or mental activities. Yet, someone who enjoys performing prolonged and/or intense physical work might tire of social conversations very quickly. Likewise, a fast-talking person might not necessarily be able to manipulate objects swiftly or perform rapid mental calculations.
  2 an integration of the principle of habit formation in behavioural regulation into the structure of psychological individual differences
context_section_description: Vladimir Rusalov, who continued the line in research in the Laboratory of Differential Psychophysiology (Institute of Psychology of Russian Academy of Sciences) started by Nebylitsyn and Teplov, recorded EEGs and measured evoked potential, absolute threshold in visual, auditory, and tactile modalities, strength of excitation and mobility in auditory and visual modalities, problem solving in deterministic and probabilistic conditions, endurance in solving the tasks, and the speed of solving a variety of tests. Rusalov concluded that temperament traits are activity-specific, i.e. traits regulating physical, social-verbal and intellectual aspects of behaviour are based on different neurophysiological systems. He showed that an energetic level or tempo of performance might differ for the same individual when he/she is solving three different types of tasks (physical, verbal  or intellectual. Rusalov suggested, therefore, that individual differences in these three types of activities should be assessed and analyzed using separate scales.
  Rusalov's model suggests that the structure of temperament can be presented as 12 traits: 4 aspects of behaviour (ergonicity (endurance), plasticity, tempo and emotionality), which are grouped by three aspects of behavior: motor-physical, social-verbal and intellectual. This model was incorporated in the extended Structure of Temperament Questionnaire. The factor analysis of the data received on Russian, Australian, American, Canadian, Urdu-Canadian, Polish-Canadian and Chinese samples confirmed a separation between the factors related to these three aspects of behavior.
caption: Rusalov's activity-specific model of the structure of temperament
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