Developmental Personality Types From Childhood to Adolescence: Associations With Parenting and Adjustment

Abstract

This study examined whether changes in children's self-reported Big Five dimensions are represented by (developmental) personality types, using a cohort-sequential design with three measurement occasions across 5 years (four cohorts, 9-12 years at T1; N = 523). Correlates of, and gender differences in, type membership were examined. Latent class growth modeling yielded three personality types: Resilients (highest initial levels on all Big Five), Overcontrollers (lowest Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Imagination), and Undercontrollers (lowest Benevolence, Conscientiousness). Gender differences in type membership were small. Warm parenting, but not overreactive discipline, in childhood was associated with type membership. The types differed in adjustment problems by the end of middle adolescence. Personality change more likely occurs at the level of dimensions within types than in type membership.

Bushmeat trade consequences predict higher anxiety, restraint, and dominance in chimpanzees

“…We should consider that the Dominance personality factor in animals, is typically defined by assertiveness or boldness, low fearfulness, and physical aggression for animals in general (Gosling & John, ) and chimpanzees in particular (King & Figueredo, ; Pederson, King, & Landau, ; King & Weiss, ). Therefore, our results are in accordance to those found for humans, where adversity in parental caring is associated with higher aggressive behavior (de Haan et al, ) but they seem not to be in accordance with previous chimpanzee studies, where orphans between 1 and 2 years old were less dominant than those with later separation from their mothers (Reimers et al, ). These results may suggest an influence on the Dominance personality factor by deprivation and abuse in opposite directions, and abuse promoting the higher pressure when being extreme.…”

“…In other words, chimpanzees reared by their mothers were rated lower in Restraint than those with hand or unstructured rearing experienced. These show contradictory results; previous human studies highlight the mothers’ and fathers’ warmth as a precedent for lower rule‐breaking behaviors (de Haan, Deković, van den Akker, Stoltz, & Prinzie, ). In Big Five studies, the individuals with early life stress experiences were more likely to be lower in a similar component labeled conscientiousness (Reti et al, ; McFarlane et al., ).…”

“…warmth as a precedent for lower rule-breaking behaviors (de Haan, Deković, van den Akker, Stoltz, & Prinzie, 2013). In Big Five studies, the individuals with early life stress experiences were more likely to be lower in a similar component labeled conscientiousness (Reti et al, 2002;McFarlane et al., 2005).…”

Are All Kids Alike? The Magnitude of Individual Differences in Personality Characteristics Tends to Increase from Early Childhood to Early Adolescence

“…Specifically, Allik, Laidra, Realo, and Pullmann (), studying Estonian children from age 12 onwards, noted that there was ‘no systematic trend in standard deviations: older children were not more variable in their personality traits than younger children’ (p. 450). A similar conclusion could be drawn by inspecting the standard deviations reported by de Haan, Deković, van den Akker, Stoltz, and Prinzie () for Belgian children aged between 9 and 12 years. In contrast, inspection of the descriptive statistics reported by two other studies conducted with Dutch (van der Aa et al, ) and American (Johnson, Hicks, McGue, & Iacono, ) adolescents and emerging adults suggests a tendency—not discussed by the authors—towards slightly decreasing personality variance with age.…”

Atypical early histories predict lower extraversion in captive chimpanzees

“…There has been growing interest in determining the relative influence of social factors on the development of human personality (de Haan, Delovi c, van den Akker, Stoltz, & Prinzie, 2013;McFarlane et al, 2005;Roy, 2002). The early social environment, including parents and peers, appears particularly influential, but the mechanisms behind social and other environmental interactions remain poorly understood (Briley & Tucker-Drob, 2014;Bowlby, 1958;Lemery-Chalfant, Kao, Swann, & Hill Goldsmith, 2013).…”