Results from adoption studies suggest that adoptive families may experience special impediments with respect to the developmental progress and outcome of their children. Based on attachment theory, two early intervention programs were designed to support families in the Netherlands with an internationally adopted child. The intervention aimed at promoting maternal sensitive responsiveness, secure infant-mother attachment relationships, and infant exploratory competence. Ninety families with an interracially adopted infant (71 from Sri Lanka and 19 from Korea) were assigned to either a control group or one of two intervention groups. All of the children, 44 boys and 46 girls, were placed for adoption under the age of 5 months (M = 8 weeks). The first intervention group (N = 30) received a personal book, which focused on sensitive parenting. The second intervention group (N = 30) was provided with the same book as well as with three video-feedback sessions at their home. The control group (N = 30) did not receive intervention. In the control group sensitive responsiveness and security of attachment were comparable to outcomes from normative samples. The least intensive program, the personal book, did not bring about change in mothers or infants. In contrast, intervention effects were established upon maternal sensitive responsiveness, infant competence, and infant-mother attachment in the group that received both the book and video feedback.

Because of the impressive replicability of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) in adult personality psychology, developmental psychologists have recently begun a search for the antecedents of these five adult dimensions in childhood. The FFM originates in rating scales applied to 'personality words ', notably adjectives, selected from dictionaries. To test the explanatory power of the FFM as a model for individual differences in childhood, we used a different source for the lexicon of personality. Parents of children aged 3,6,9, and 12 years were asked simply 'to describe your child'. The audiotaped interviews were transcribed literally and then coded using an elaborate coding scheme. W e here describe data from three of the countries involved in this crosscultural project (Holland, Belgium, and Greece). The data are the results of coding free descriptions for a total of I86 3-year-olh and 229 9-year-olh. These data represent the first phase of a four-phase project that includes researchers from The Netherlands, , the U S A , and China. Results from this first phase were very similar over the participating countries although there were some interesting culture-specijk differences. In the second phase, questionnaire items based on the free descriptors in each category of the coding scheme will be written by the research teams. G. A . Kohnstamm et al. Such items will be rated by new samples ofparents. Factor analyses will reduce the item pool to about one hundred items. These will then be given to new samples of parents of children of the ages indicated above.In the last phase, the factor structures will be compared across cultures and be analysed for their resemblance to the FFM, as well as other models of the structure of temperament and personality in childhood.

In order to study the perception of Chinese parents of their children, audio-taped free descriptions of children's personality characteristics were obtained from 401 Chinese parents living in Beijing and Fuzhou. The free descriptions by parents showed that, as children's age increased, different categories of descriptors were typically used. Only for children at ages 3-5 did negative descriptors associated with the so-called "little emperor" stereotype prevail in parents' free descriptions. On the other hand, the proportion of negative descriptors in the Conscientiousness category increased with children's age. This was an indication of the persisting importance given by Chinese parents to characteristics associated with school performance, effort, and diligence. The results showed that there were no signs of a spoiling attitude in Chinese parents. The high proportions of negative descriptions given by Chinese parents should be interpreted as an expression of great concern for the future of their children, rather than as a sign of hostility towards their children.

The authors coded Chinese (n = 401) and Dutch (n = 324) parents' free descriptions of their 3- to 14-year-old children's personalities using a 14-category coding system partially based on the Big Five. Of the Chinese and Dutch personality descriptors, 86% and 77%, respectively, could be classified in the first 5 main categories resembling the five-factor model of adult personality. No significant differences were found for gender, socio-economic status, or city in these categories. Chinese parents of school age children generated many more descriptors, mostly critical, in the domain of conscientiousness. The findings reflect Chinese high achievement orientation and show that the classification system, which presently serves as a basis for developing indigenous questionnaires for personality assessment of children in China and some Western countries, is sensitive to cultural differences.

No abstract