Temperament differences between institution- and family-reared toddlers

•Amount of time spent at the institution environment predicts Negative affectivity levels in toddlers.•Institution-reared group shows less Surgency/extraversion and higher Negative affectivity compared with family-reared group.•No difference in Effortful control was found between institution- and family-reared toddlers.•Possibly, the age relevant development of Effortful control pursues if an intervention is provided to the institutionalized group. The goal of this study was to compare the temperamental properties (i.e. Surgency/extraversion, Negative affectivity, Effortful control) of institution-reared (IR) and family-reared (FR) toddlers, aged between 17 and 37 months, living in Simferopol, Crimea. The results demonstrated significantly lower Surgency and higher Negative affectivity scores in the institution-reared toddlers. At the same time, in IR children Surgency scores depended on children’s age, the older the children were, the higher scores they were assigned. No such relation was found for FR toddlers. Further, level of Negative affectivity in IR group depended significantly on amount of time that children spent at the institution; more time resulted in higher Negative affectivity scores. We could not find any differences between IR and FR children in Effortful control. The study results suggest different developmental patterns for Surgency and Negative affectivity in IR and FR children and are discussed in terms of potential impact it may have on further personality development.