Personality Traits in Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

Like adults, children and adolescents can be described in terms of personality traits: characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We review recent research examining how youths' specific behavioral tendencies cohere into broader traits, how these traits develop across childhood and adolescence, and how they relate to important biological, social, and health outcomes. We conclude that there are both key similarities and key differences between youth and adult personality traits, that youths' personality traits help shape the course of their lives, and that a full understanding of youth personality traits will require additional research at the intersection of personality, developmental, and clinical psychology.

Genetically-mediated associations between measures of childhood character and academic achievement.

“…BFI-Openness and BFI-Neuroticism had appreciable correlations with acquiescence, but as displayed in the upper diagonal of Table 3, partialling acquiescence did not appreciably alter the interrelations among the BFI scores. As has been previously reported in childhood samples (Soto & Tackett, 2015), BFI-Openness, BFI-Conscientiousness, BFI-Extraversion, and BFI-Agreeableness tended to have moderately positive relations with one another and moderately negative relations with BFI-Neuroticism. BFI-Agreeableness and BFI-Conscientiousness evinced the strongest association ( r = .49).…”

“…In a recent review, Soto and Tackett (2015) report consistent evidence for a “substantial positive relation between conscientiousness and openness, two personality dimensions that are quite distinct in adults” (p. 359). They indicate that such results can be interpreted as representing “a higher-order self-regulation trait (representing the general capacity to regulate both social and task-related impulses” or as “an overarching mastery-orientation trait (combining intellectual curiosity with work ethic)” (Soto & Tackett, 2015, p. 359). Our results are consistent with this hypothesis in that we find coherence among several diverse educationally-relevant measures of character, some of which (e.g., need for cognition) tap intellectual curiosity and others of which (e.g., grit) tap work ethic.…”

Bidirectional pathways between relational aggression and temperament from late childhood to adolescence

“…Given the transitional nature of these years, adolescence is an important developmental period in which to examine the implications of temperamental characteristics for relationship experiences, and it may also be a time during which temperament and relationship experiences are especially susceptible to change and mutual influence (Tackett, Herzhoff, Reardon, De Clercq, & Sharp, 2013). Moreover, the transition from childhood to adolescence is a period when many biological, social, and psychological changes are accompanied by temporary, self-regulatory dips in some aspects of personality maturity (DeFruyt et al, 2009; Klimstra et al, 2009; Soto & Tackett, 2015; Van den Akker et al, 2010; Van den Akker et al, 2014). As suggested by the disruption hypothesis , this period of temporary immaturity may have specific implications for the timing and rate of the normative developmental sequence that follows, as well as later outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.…”

Person-Situation Transactions across the Lifespan

“…Indeed, this insight has been recognized in both medicine and psychology at least as far back as classic research on temperament by Chess and Thomas (e.g., 1977). Contemporary research in developmental psychology is building on these early insights in efforts to identify the basic domains of temperament and to study the consequences of individual differences in temperament and childhood personality for developmental outcomes such as achievement, parent-child relationships, and psychological health and well-being (e.g., Rothbart, 2011;Shiner, Buss, McClowry, Putnman, Saudino, & Zentner, 2012;Soto & Tackett, 2015).…”

“…Indeed, this insight has been recognized in both medicine and psychology at least as far back as classic research on temperament by Chess and Thomas (e.g., 1977). Contemporary research in developmental psychology is building on these early insights in efforts to identify the basic domains of temperament and to study the consequences of individual differences in temperament and childhood personality for developmental outcomes such as achievement, parent-child relationships, and psychological health and well-being (e.g., Rothbart, 2011;Shiner, Buss, McClowry, Putnman, Saudino, & Zentner, 2012;Soto & Tackett, 2015).To be sure, researchers have increasingly recognized that dimensions of temperament in children and trait dispositions studied in the adult personality literature have much in common and might even be isomorphic (e.g., Caspi et al 2005;Clark & Watson, 2008). Regardless of the precise integration of the temperament and adult trait literatures, a key implication of this theme SITUATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT 9 is that person-situation transactions occur across the lifespan and are likely to be present very early in development.…”