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Development of conscientiousness in childhood and adolescence: Typical trajectories and associations with academic, health, and relationship changes
Abstract
Conscientiousness is related to a range of important life outcomes, so it is important to understand its development early in life. We examined how conscientiousness changes from late childhood through middle adolescence and what other psychosocial changes it co-occurs with. We developed and validated a conscientiousness scale for use in existing data. Then in a longitudinal study of participants at ages 10, 13, and 16 (N = 90 at Time 1) we used growth curve modeling to examine how conscientiousness co-develops with academic, health, and relationship functioning. Mean levels of conscientiousness decreased from 10 to 13 and then increased to age 16. The later increase was stronger among females. Changes in conscientiousness were associated with adaptive changes in other variables.
... A systematic review and meta-analyses of adults find higher conscientiousness to be associated with more PA (Wilson & Dishman, 2015) but research on the predictive value of conscientiousness for PA in children and adolescents is sparse to nonexistent. One study of selfreported PA exists, though, reporting increased conscientiousness at the within-person level from age 10 to 16 to be associated with increased PA (Tackman et al., 2017), indicating that these phenomena go together over time. However, the estimate displayed is a correlation between the growth curves of conscientiousness and PA, respectively, and the finding thus leaves the direction of influence unknown. ...
... As demonstrated by a recent meta-analysis, rank-order stability increases throughout early life before reaching a plateau in young adulthood. As exemplified and detailed in one specific study, both sexes show a slight decline from age 10 to 13, then a slight increase from age 13 to 16 with rank-order stability of r = .35-.38 from age 10 to 16 (Tackman et al., 2017). These sex differences in mean levels led us to investigate whether the psychological predictors are also differently important for boys' and girls' PA and sedentary time. ...
... Finding changes in conscientiousness to predict changes in total PA and MVPA aligns with previous research demonstrating a correlation between growth curves of conscientiousness and self-reported PA from age 10 to 16 (Tackman et al., 2017). We extend previous knowledge by measuring PA objectively and by examining the direction of influence-at the within-person level. ...
Objetivo: La actividad física (PA, por sus siglas en inglés) disminuye, mientras que el sedentarismo aumenta, en la transición de la niñez a la adolescencia. Es necesario identificar los factores que impiden tales cambios. Las estructuras externas para la PA disminuyen con la edad y las características individuales juegan un papel más importante. Investigaciones anteriores han indicado que los individuos bien regulados con una alta competencia atlética percibida (PAC, por sus siglas en inglés) tienen más PA y menos sedentarismo. Sin embargo, se desconoce si la mejora en estas características predice un aumento de la PA y una reducción del sedentarismo a largo plazo y, por tanto, el objetivo de la presente investigación. También probamos posibles diferencias de edad y sexo. Métodos: Se evaluó cada dos años una muestra de dos cohortes de nacimiento noruegas (muestra analítica: n = 858; 51.8% niñas) desde los 6 hasta los 18 años. Se utilizó acelerometría para medir la actividad física y el tiempo sedentario. Las funciones ejecutivas (informe del profesor), control/escrupulosidad esforzados (padres y autoinforme) y la PAC (autoinforme) constituyeron los predictores. Se aplicó un modelo de panel con retardo cruzado de intercepción aleatoria, que ajusta los efectos de confusión no observados e invariantes en el tiempo. Resultados: El aumento de la conciencia predijo mayores niveles de PA entre los 6 y los 18 años, pero no estuvo relacionado con cambios posteriores en el tiempo sedentario. Las personas que obtuvieron PAC también aumentaron su PA y dedicaron menos tiempo a actividades sedentarias. Los cambios en las funciones ejecutivas no estaban relacionados con cambios futuros en la actividad física y el tiempo sedentario. No se encontraron diferencias de edad ni sexo. Conclusión: El aumento de la conciencia y la PAC predijeron un aumento de la PA desde la niñez hasta la adolescencia tardía. PAC predijo una reducción del tiempo sedentario. Las intervenciones para promover la PA en los jóvenes pueden beneficiarse de mejorar la conciencia y la PAC.
... Contrary to the increases seen in adulthood, research targeting early adolescence (e.g., De Fruyt et al., 2006;Soto et al., 2011;Tackman et al., 2017;Van den Akker et al., 2014) generally suggests a temporary dip in mean levels of conscientiousness during the transition to adolescence (among other dimensions of personality; i.e., the disruption hypothesis; Soto & Tackett, 2015). For example, a cross-sectional study by Soto et al. (2011) found a curvilinear trend for age differences in conscientiousness. ...
... Mean levels of conscientiousness during adolescence were lower than the levels observed in childhood and early adulthood. Another longitudinal study also suggests that self-reported mean-level conscientiousness decreased from 10 to 13 followed by an increase (Tackman et al., 2017). Similarly, longitudinal studies with parentreports suggest a drop in conscientiousness during early adolescence (De Fruyt et al., 2006;Van den Akker et al., 2014). ...
... We also found significant between-person variance and a gender difference in average levels of conscientiousness. Studies (e.g., Durbin et al., 2016;Soto, 2016;Soto et al., 2011;Tackman et al., 2017) of longitudinal changes or age differences in personality dimensions during the transition to adolescence in Western contexts often document declines in some aspects of personality, such as conscientiousness and agreeableness, and thus support the disruption hypothesis (Soto & Tackett, 2015). We attribute differences between the present findings and those found in prior work to cross-cultural differences in mechanisms underlying the development of conscientiousness. ...
Research to date has shown longitudinal changes in conscientiousness during early and middle adolescence, but most studies have been conducted in Western countries. The present study aimed to examine the pattern of mean-level conscientiousness change at the transition into early adolescence among a Chinese sample using curve of factors (CUFFS) models. Four waves of data from 661 Chinese children aged 8 years old at baseline in the China Family Panel Studies were used. Parents were asked to rate their children’s level of conscientiousness every 2 years. On average, mean-level conscientiousness showed a decelerating increase. Girls had higher average conscientiousness levels than boys, but they did not differ in change patterns. The inconsistency between the current study and previous research indicates that conscientiousness development may depend, in part, on cultural factors.
... Conscientious individuals are those who exert great effort and precision to ensure that tasks are performed correctly, efficiently, and in an organized manner, in line with goals and plans (Ching, 2021). There is evidence that conscientiousness, despite being a personality trait, can be strengthened through education, including family teaching and the process of T E-ISSN: 2981-2526 development and learning during schooling, based on both genetic foundations and learning through modeling (Tackman et al., 2017). On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that conscientiousness is related to academic performance and progress (Khan, 2020;Mammadov, 2022;Nguyen et al., 2005;Wang et al., 2023). ...
... However, studies (Khan, 2020;Mammadov, 2022;Nguyen et al., 2005;Wang et al., 2023) have discussed the relationship between conscientiousness and academic performance and progress. Tackman et al. (2019) also referred to the roles and functions of the family in fostering children's conscientiousness (Tackman et al., 2017). Furthermore, as Meyer et al. (2023) pointed out, conscientiousness as a personality trait leads to behaviors such as active engagement in academic tasks and duties (Meyer et al., 2023). ...
Objective: The present research aimed to determine the moderating role of conscientiousness and gender in the relationship between perceived family atmosphere and academic performance. Methods and Materials: The research method was correlational, utilizing hierarchical regression analysis, with the population comprising all students from the University of Babylon in Iraq, among whom 258 were conveniently selected. Data were collected using the Family Atmosphere Perception Questionnaire (Ryan et al., 1996), the Conscientiousness Questionnaire (Costa & McCrae, 2008), and students' academic averages and were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and hierarchical regression analysis through SPSS software version 26. Findings: Results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between perceived family atmosphere in both dimensions of parent-child and mother-child relationships with conscientiousness and academic performance, and between conscientiousness and academic performance (p<0.01). Furthermore, the results of the hierarchical regression analysis indicated that conscientiousness and gender moderate the relationship between perceived family atmosphere and academic performance (p<0.01). Conclusion: Based on the results of the current study, it can be concluded that perceived family atmosphere is an important variable for enhancing academic performance, considering the role of conscientiousness and gender in Iraqi students.
... Research shows that conscientiousness has consistent association with performance in education (Farrington, Roderick, Allensworth, Nagaoka, Keyes, Johnson & Beechum 2012;Richardson & Abraham, 2009;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer & Dapretto, 2017). It shows that the effect of conscientiousness to academic achievement is often very high. ...
... Research shows that conscientiousness is consistently associated with educational activities (Farrington et al., 2012;Richardson & Abraham, 2009;Tackman et al., 2017). Conscientiousness is also always more highly correlated with work performance than other soft skills dimensions put together (Barrick et al., 2001;Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). ...
Soft skills encompassing conscientiousness, lifelong learning, communication, creativity, and teamwork are beneficial to success in work and life. The education policy in Nigeria on teacher education stipulates that students should learn basic soft skills at universities as performance improvement tools for teaching, but for the most part teacher education programmes do not include such skills. The aim of the study reported on here was to assess whether the soft skills curriculum and instruction course has been effectively implemented in university teacher education programmes. This course is theory based designed to inculcate soft skills in would-be teachers within 2 semesters. We used paper questionnaires and performed data analysis by way of partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS software in a non-experimental procedure with a total of 722 prospective teachers. The analysis revealed that prospective teachers gained moderate soft skills, which, in turn, benefited them in classroom control and, ultimately, teaching success in terms of lesson planning, development, and results. It is fair to suggest that the PLS-SEM model shows that participation in the curriculum and instruction course generates different kinds of benefits to teachers at the same time.
... The disruption hypothesis describes the case of short-term recession in socially desirable personality traits during adolescence. Several studies have found that teenagers may temporarily decrease in levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience; this downward trend then tends to reverse between late adolescence and early adulthood (De Fruyt et al., 2006;Denissen, van Aken, Penke, & Wood, 2013;Luan, Hutteman, Denissen, Asendorpf, & van Aken, 2017;Ong, Hong, Tsai, & Tan, 2018;Soto et al., 2011;Soto & Tackett, 2015;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017;van den Akker, Deković, & Prinzie, 2010). This disruption pattern is taken to reflect a transitory shift toward harshness and irresponsibility corresponding with the stress and changes accompanying puberty and adolescent social dynamics (Soto & Tackett, 2015). ...
... This disruption pattern is taken to reflect a transitory shift toward harshness and irresponsibility corresponding with the stress and changes accompanying puberty and adolescent social dynamics (Soto & Tackett, 2015). Though this pattern of mean-level changes has been observed both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, the exact timing of the disruption process between childhood and late adolescence is yet unclear, with some studies suggesting earlier onset (age 9 -10; Ong et al., 2018;Soto et al., 2011;Tackman et al., 2017), and others suggesting later (age 12-13;De Fruyt et al., 2006). Further, Slobodskaya and Akhmetova (2010) showed that disruption in agreeableness may occur even later (age 15ϩ), and they failed to find a pattern of disruption in conscientiousness and neuroticism. ...
The transition to adolescence is marked by enormous change in social, biological, and personality development. Although accumulating evidence has offered insight into the nature of higher-order personality trait development during this period, much less is known about the development of lower-order personality traits, or "facets." The current study used a cohort-sequential longitudinal design to examine domain- and facet-level trajectories for mother-reported personality traits during the early adolescent transition. Personality trait domains and facets were assessed with the Inventory of Child Individual Differences-Short Form (Deal, Halverson, Martin, Victor, & Baker, 2007). Participants were 440 children followed at 4 annual timepoints from middle childhood (Mage = 9.97, SD = 0.81) to early adolescence (Mage = 13.11, SD = 0.84). Results of latent growth curve models showed substantial facet-level personality stability in this period, as well as small to moderate linear change in 13 of 15 facets. Gender differences in change were evident for 9 facets. Overall patterns suggested consistent increases in agreeableness facets with null to small gender differences. Neuroticism and openness to experience facet change was heterogeneous within each domain, but patterns were similar for boys and girls. Extraversion primarily decreased, though the magnitude and direction of change differed between facets and genders. Conscientiousness increased across all facets, but only among girls. These findings overall demonstrate a high degree of developmental consistency in facets within each domain as well as some notable differences. Further, this study contributes to a small and somewhat mixed evidence base for current theories of adolescent personality development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... In line with the latter findings, previous work with the dataset used in the present study also found decreases in effortful control from age 10 to 16 (Atherton, Zheng et al., 2019;Atherton, Lawson et al., in press). Considering these recent findings, the current consensus among many researchers is that a ''self-regulatory dip" occurs from late childhood to late adolescence (De Fruyt et al., 2006;Klimstra et al., 2009;Soto & Tackett, 2015;Soto et al., 2011;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017;Van den Akker et al., 2014). From late adolescence to young adulthood and beyond, people are expected to resume the well-established, mean-level increases in self-regulatory traits that are consistent with the maturation principle (Bleidorn, Kandler, Riemann, Angleitner, & Spinath, 2009;Blonigen, Carlson, Hicks, Krueger, & Iacono, 2008;Damian, Spengler, Sutu, & Roberts, 2018;Helson & Moane, 1987;Murphy et al., 1999;Roberts et al., 2003;Roberts et al., 2006;Robins, Fraley, Roberts, & Trzesniewski, 2001;Van den Akker et al., 2014). ...
... In fact, the school environment is akin, in many ways, to self-regulation interventions, given that children are required to enact selfregulatory skills to comply with social and structural rules within the classroom, complete homework in a timely manner, etc. Previous research has shown that effortful control co-develops with school-related experiences such as homework and school behavioral problems (Atherton, Zheng et al., 2019;Atherton, Lawson et al., in press;Goellner et al., 2017;Ludtke, Roberts, Trautwein, & Nagy, 2011;Tackman et al., 2017), but no research has investigated the co-development of effortful control with outside-of-school demands, such as household chores. The lack of relevant research is surprising given the widespread belief among parents (and even politicians, such as the Spanish parliament) that chores foster responsibility and other self-regulatory traits in their children. ...
The present research examined: (a) the co-development of chores and effortful control, and (b) the prospective impact of effortful control development (i.e., initial levels and the trajectory of effortful control from late childhood through adolescence) on work outcomes in young adulthood. We used data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth assessed at ages 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19. We found no evidence of co-developmental associations between chores and effortful control, but we found that higher initial levels of effortful control (age 10) predicted working-student status, less job stress, and better job fit, and steeper increases in effortful control from age 10 to 16 predicted higher job satisfaction and job autonomy in young adulthood (age 19).
... Existing research has indicated that conscientiousness is malleable in childhood and adolescence. For instance, it decreases until around 13 years of age and then increases (Denissen, van Aken, Penke, & Wood, 2013;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017). Moreover, changes in conscientiousness have been found to be associated with changes in positive climate, friends' supportive behavior, and school engagement (Göllner et al., 2017;Tackman et al., 2017). ...
... For instance, it decreases until around 13 years of age and then increases (Denissen, van Aken, Penke, & Wood, 2013;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017). Moreover, changes in conscientiousness have been found to be associated with changes in positive climate, friends' supportive behavior, and school engagement (Göllner et al., 2017;Tackman et al., 2017). However, there is a need for studies that are equipped to test whether conscientiousness can be changed through interventions. ...
Conscientiousness and interest are well-known predictors of academic effort and achievement. As hypothesized by the Conscientiousness × Interest Compensation (CONIC) model, conscientiousness and interest can (partly) compensate for each other, leading to (comparatively) high effort if either conscientiousness or interest is high. The present research (a) provides a test of this prediction across four school subjects, (b) examines whether the compensatory interaction can also be found when academic achievement is the outcome instead of academic effort, and (c) probes for the compensatory interaction when interest is replaced by utility value as a predictor variable. A total of 830 students in Grades 5 to 12 participated in this study. We assessed their conscientiousness and measured task value beliefs, academic effort, and achievement in 4 school subjects (German, English, mathematics, and biology). The predictions of the CONIC model were supported in all 4 subjects. In addition, we found compensatory interactions between conscientiousness and interest in predicting both academic effort and achievement. Furthermore, we observed similar compensatory interactions between conscientiousness and utility value. In sum, the results suggest a broader applicability of the CONIC model than originally proposed.
... Journal of Personality 24 RUNNING HEAD: PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND SCHOOL GRADES this trait may be particularly susceptible to change. In particular, in recent studies (Denissen, van Aken, Penke, &Wood, 2013;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2016), researchers have found conscientiousness decreases from late childhood through age 13 and increases in later adolescence years, and those variations are associated to change in academic grades (Tackman et al., 2016). Thus, individual differences in these nonlinear changes in conscientiousness in adolescence may make it more difficult to identify a linear relation. ...
... Journal of Personality 24 RUNNING HEAD: PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND SCHOOL GRADES this trait may be particularly susceptible to change. In particular, in recent studies (Denissen, van Aken, Penke, &Wood, 2013;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2016), researchers have found conscientiousness decreases from late childhood through age 13 and increases in later adolescence years, and those variations are associated to change in academic grades (Tackman et al., 2016). Thus, individual differences in these nonlinear changes in conscientiousness in adolescence may make it more difficult to identify a linear relation. ...
Objective:
Researchers have demonstrated the prediction of academic functioning by children's prosocial behavior (PB). The goal of our study was to examine the contribution of adolescents' PB for middle and senior high school grades after controlling for stability of achievement and for intelligence, Big Five traits, and socio-demographic variables (i.e., sex and SES).
Method:
Study 1 examined on 165 adolescents (48.5% boys) the prediction by peer-reported PB in 7th grade of academic achievement at the end of junior high school, after controlling for the above variables. Study 2 examined the prediction by 927 (52% girls) 8th graders' PB of academic achievement 5 years later, at the end of senior high school, taking into account the stability of grades, personality traits, and socio-structural variables.
Results:
Overall, hierarchical regression analysis indicated in both studies PB and Openness significantly predicted better grades in the short-term and over time despite the high stability of grades across five years. Extraversion negatively predicted academic achievement across one year in junior high school.
Conclusion:
Findings supported the view of PB as a strength and a key resource for adolescents' academic attainment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... The mental health of children is influenced by various factors, including the consistency and predictability provided by family routines [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. According to Geweniger et al., family routines can mitigate the adverse effects of stress and anxiety in children, particularly during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
... While effortful control generally increases with age [165], levels are typically stable from early through late childhood [97,110,200], suggesting that toddlers with low effortful control will continue to have low effortful control, in comparison to their peers, later in childhood. However, following childhood years, effortful control levels follow a U-shaped trajectory in which they briefly decrease in early adolescence before stabilizing in late adolescence [9,24,194]. Higher effortful control is associated with increased social competence, academic achievement, and mental wellbeing [109], whereas lower effortful control is a risk factor for both internalizing and externalizing problems [33,115]. ...
Over a quarter of children with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) meet diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder as well. The goals of this paper are (a) to examine what is currently known about co-occurring ADHD and anxiety in children, (b) propose and outline underlying factors relevant to the development of anxiety in children with ADHD, and (c) discuss future directions and clinical implications for the prevention and identification of anxiety development in children with ADHD. It is proposed that certain associated features of ADHD (i.e., low effortful control and emotion dysregulation) as well as various interpersonal factors related to ADHD (i.e., poor parent, teacher, and peer relationships) form a negative feedback loop that increases susceptibility to anxiety in a subset of children with ADHD. The literature supports interrelations between and across the associated features and interpersonal factors. Additional research is needed to test the validity of the proposed process. Obtaining further insight into the interplay between these different factors can help identify a subset of children with ADHD who are at risk for developing anxiety, which can enhance the precision of prevention, assessment, and treatment efforts for these children.
... Em segundo lugar, os comportamentos descritivos dos traços observados em adultos são diferentes daqueles presentes em crianças (i.e., diferente manifestação comportamental dos traços). Essa diferença pode se dar devido a mudanças de papéis sociais (Tackman et al., 2017), mas também relacionada à maturação biológica (Mõttus et al., 2019). Em terceiro lugar, itens de questionários para crianças tendem a representar comportamentos mais simples (Shiner & DeYoung, 2013), apresentando menor variabilidade e densidade nos enunciados (Shiner et al., 2021 ), o que está de acordo com diferenças na forma de conceitualização dos traços. ...
This study had the objective of identifying and summarizing questionnaires used to assess the fi ve-factor model (FFM) in children. The main characteristics evaluated were: respondent (self or other), the target age-group, instrument format, number of items, Likert-scale type, factorial validity, reliability indices, and response bias control. We searched for articles in the following databases: Pubmed, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of science, and BVS. A total of 7687 articles were found. After removing duplicate fi les, 5714 articles remained. Of these, 5536 were excluded based on title and abstract reading. Sixty-six articles were included for fi nal qualitative analysis. Twenty-one instruments for assessing FFM in the age range of 6 to 12 years were identifi ed. Some of the questionnaires were constructed for being used in adults. The majority of the questionnaires relied on fi ve-point Likert-scales (f = 13, 62%). Only two studies controlled for response bias. Psychometric and conceptual aspects of the questionnaires were evaluated, leading to the conclusion that there is a need for more studies and instruments to measure personality in childhood.Keywords: Personality assessment, child, fi ve-factor model, developmental psychology, child assessment
... Following Cunha and Heckman (2007), we think of the formation of noncognitive skills as the result of parental investment and skills in the previous period, with the productivity of the investment depending on parental characteristics and initial skill conditions. Conscientiousness is thus affected by the quality and quantity of parental investment, and is, for example, positively associated with secure attachment and parental involvement and warmth, and negatively associated with parental power assertion, low family income, and parental stress (Akee et al. 2018;Amato 2005;Eisenberg et al. 2014;Mike et al. 2015;Tackman et al. 2017). ...
This paper provides the first causal evidence of the effect of a change in divorce laws on noncognitive skills in adulthood. We exploit state-cohort variation in the adoption of unilateral divorce laws in the U.S. to assess whether children exposed to this law have different noncognitive skills in adulthood compared to those never exposed or exposed as adults. Using data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS) and employing the staggered difference-in-differences identification strategy developed by Callaway and Sant’Anna, we show that divorce reform had a detrimental long-term effect on the conscientiousness of those who were exposed as children whether their parents divorced or not. Changes in parental inputs can explain most of the effect, which is greatest for men whose parents divorced.
... Adolescents who exhibit self-discipline and delayed gratification present academic success and higher academic competence (Mischel et al., 1988) and better grades (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005). The correlated change in the measures of conscientiousness from late childhood into early adolescents reveals a positive association with changes in grades, school engagement, positive school climate, physical activity, and friend-supportive behavior but negative changes occur with depression (Bleidon, 2012;Tackman et al., 2017). Conscientious adolescents have a higher chance to complete school assignments on time and also coming to classes prepared -meaning they remember to bring necessary scholastic materials to school (Jackson et al., 2010). ...
... Adolescents who exhibit self-discipline and delayed gratification present academic success and higher academic competence (Mischel et al., 1988) and better grades (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005). The correlated change in the measures of conscientiousness from late childhood into early adolescents reveals a positive association with changes in grades, school engagement, positive school climate, physical activity, and friend-supportive behavior but negative changes occur with depression (Bleidon, 2012;Tackman et al., 2017). Conscientious adolescents have a higher chance to complete school assignments on time and also coming to classes prepared -meaning they remember to bring necessary scholastic materials to school (Jackson et al., 2010). ...
Our study contextualized empirical factors influencing adolescent behaviors. An assessment using focus group discussion (FGD) was done with randomly selected adolescents in primary schools in Northern Uganda to explore the influence of child poverty and parenting among other factors on adolescents' behaviors. A semi-structured interview guide and in-depth interviews were also conducted for parents/guardians and teachers, respectively. Adolescents expressed desirable developmental outcomes contrary to teachers' concerns regarding achieving them. Parenting and places of residence had a significant positive impact on adolescent behaviors, with the village residence having a much earlier influence compared to parenting. Our findings revealed a scanty understanding of child poverty, parenting, and adolescent development among parents/guardians. Any action-oriented toward awareness would promote adolescent behavioral development.
... Since conscientiousness is difficult for children to evaluate (Tackman et al., 2017), we used the conscientiousness subscale of the parent-reported five factors questionnaire for children (FFK, Asendorpf & van Aken, 1999). Cronbach's alpha was 0.93. ...
Learning and academic performance are explained mainly by basic limited-capacity processes, most notably by working memory (WM). Consequently, training WM has been considered a promising approach to fostering these abilities. However, school-based investigations are rare. This study examined the effects of training task features and trainees’ characteristics on transfer to cognitive and academic measures. Eighty-six typically developing 8–12-year-old children completed 6 weeks of either WM training with n-back and complex span tasks or a control training with perceptual-matching tasks in a regular school setting. The study also assessed some personal variables of the children, such as neuroticism, conscientiousness, joy of learning, and power of endurance. The WM training group showed increased WM and math performance compared to the control group. Also, there was a trend toward some improvements in vocabulary after WM training, and overall improvements after both trainings were observed in fluid intelligence and reading. Analyses of individual differences in the WM training group indicated increased training performance in relation to emotional stability, conscientiousness, power of endurance, as well as teacher-reported joy of learning and social integration of participants. Thus, the results indicate the potential of WM training to improve WM capacity and mathematical skills and reveal the impact of regulative, motivational, and social factors on cognitive training performance.
... Following Cunha and Heckman (2007), we think of the formation of noncognitive skills as the result of parental investment and skills in the previous period, with the productivity of the investment depending on parental characteristics and initial skill conditions. Conscientiousness is thus affected by the quality and quantity of parental investment, and is, for example, positively associated with secure attachment and parental involvement and warmth, and negatively associated with parental power assertion, low family income, and parental stress (Akee et al. 2018;Amato 2005;Eisenberg et al. 2014;Mike et al. 2015;Tackman et al. 2017). ...
This paper provides the first causal evidence on the effect of parental divorce on noncognitive skills by exploiting state-cohort variation in the adoption of unilateral divorce laws. Using data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the U.S., we show that these divorce law adoptions had a detrimental effect on persistence and conscientiousness of women who faced a higher probability of parental divorce due to exposure to unilateral divorce laws in childhood. Our results suggest that reduced financial resources in childhood rather than changes in parenting style may have caused the adverse effects.
Available at https://business.fullerton.edu/academics/economics/content/CSUF_WP_2-21R.pdf?_=0.809976709271457 .
... Communication skill was one of the skills that can be higher after a short period of training, especially for medical and psychology students (Tiuraniemi, Läärä, Kyrö, & Lindeman, 2011). The improvement mostly happen in the knowledge after support form lecturer, encouragement from stakeholder and peer) (Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017). Therefore it was not possible to change conscientiousness through a 2-day training. ...
Emotional competence is an influencing factor for an academic adjustment. Therefore, an orientation program facilitating those competency is needed for first-year students. The training was designed to help them understand emotional competence. This study examined whether the EXPO: Self Development Training Progam could improve knowledge about emotional competence. This study used pre-experimental design. Participants were all first-year students in psychology major (n=155; M=31; F=124), while emotional competence was assessed by using Goleman's Emotional Competence Inventory (R=.879). The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze before and after programs' data. There was a statistically significant knowledge improvement in the students' emotional competence following the EXPO program (z=−4.068, p<.05), with a medium effect size (r=.33) with the highest improvement found in empathy (z=9.248, p<.05, r=.75). The emotional competence intervention efficacy study should be offered to use a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) design to generalize the overall effectiveness of the intervention program.
... In terms of mean-level change, we found that the normative trajectory of effortful control decreases from age 10 to 14 before increasing from age 14 to 19, which is consistent with previous research suggesting that youth experience a temporary dip in broad self-regulatory traits during adolescence (Borghuis et al., 2017;De Fruyt et al., 2006;Klimstra et al., 2009;Leon-Carrion, Garcia-Orza, Perez-Santamaria, 2004;Soto et al., 2011;Soto & Tackett, 2015;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017;Van den Akker, Dekovic, Asscher, & Prinzie, 2014). Although effortful control showed a temporary dip during adolescence, there were significant individual differences in the degree to which participants followed this normative trajectory. ...
The present study investigated the developmental precursors of effortful control, a temperament trait that involves the propensity to regulate one's impulses and behaviors, to motivate the self toward a goal when there are conflicting desires, and to focus and shift attention easily. Data came from the California Families Project, a multimethod longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth (and their parents), who were assessed at ages 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19. Effortful control (measured via self- and parent-reports) was moderately stable over time (r = .47 from age 10 to 19), and its developmental trajectory followed a u-shaped pattern (decreasing from age 10 to 14, before increasing from age 14 to 19). Findings from latent growth curve models showed that youth who experience more hostility from their parents, associate more with deviant peers, attend more violent schools, live in more violent neighborhoods, and experience more ethnic discrimination tend to exhibit an exacerbated dip in effortful control. In contrast, youth with parents who closely monitor their behavior and whereabouts exhibited a shallower dip in effortful control. Analyses of the facets of effortful control revealed important disparities in their trajectories; specifically inhibitory control showed linear increases, attention control showed linear decreases, and activation control showed the same u-shaped trajectory as overall effortful control. Moreover, most of the precursors of effortful control replicated for inhibitory control and attention control, but not for activation control. We discuss the broader implications of the findings for adolescent personality development and self-regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... In terms of mean-level change, we found that the normative trajectory of effortful control decreases from age 10 to 14 before increasing from age 14 to 19, which is consistent with previous research suggesting that youth experience a temporary dip in broad self-regulatory traits during adolescence (Borghuis et al., 2017;De Fruyt et al., 2006;Klimstra et al., 2009;Leon-Carrion, Garcia-Orza, Perez-Santamaria, 2004;Soto et al., 2011;Soto & Tackett, 2015;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017;Van den Akker, Dekovic, Asscher, & Prinzie, 2014). Although effortful control showed a temporary dip during adolescence, there were significant individual differences in the degree to which participants followed this normative trajectory. ...
The present study investigated the developmental precursors of effortful control, a temperament trait that involves the propensity to regulate one’s impulses and behaviors, to motivate the self towards a goal when there are conflicting desires, and to focus and shift attention easily. Data came from the California Families Project, a multi-method longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth (and their parents), who were assessed at ages 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19. Effortful control (measured via self- and parent-reports) was moderately stable over time (r=.47 from age 10 to 19), and its developmental trajectory followed a u-shaped pattern (decreasing from age 10 to 14, before increasing from age 14 to 19). Findings from latent growth curve models showed that youth who experience more hostility from their parents, associate more with deviant peers, attend more violent schools, live in more violent neighborhoods, and experience more ethnic discrimination tend to exhibit an exacerbated dip in effortful control. In contrast, youth with parents who closely monitor their behavior and whereabouts exhibited a shallower dip in effortful control. Analyses of the facets of effortful control revealed important disparities in their trajectories; specifically inhibitory control showed linear increases, attention control showed linear decreases, and activation control showed the same u-shaped trajectory as overall effortful control. Moreover, most of the precursors of effortful control replicated for inhibitory control and attention control, but not for activation control. We discuss the broader implications of the findings for adolescent personality development and self-regulation.
... In fact, the school environment is akin, in many ways, to self-regulation interventions, given that children are required to enact self-regulatory skills to comply with social and structural rules within the classroom, complete homework in a timely manner, etc. Previous research has shown that effortful control co-develops with schoolrelated experiences such as homework and school behavioral problems (Atherton et al., in press;Goellner et al., 2017;Ludtke, Roberts, Trautwein, & Nagy, 2011;Tackman, et al., 2017), but no research has investigated the co-development of effortful control with outside-of-school demands, such as household chores. The lack of relevant research is surprising given the widespread belief among parents (and even government officials, as in the Spanish parliament bill) that chores foster responsibility and other self-regulatory traits in their children. ...
The present research examined: (a) the co-development of chores and effortful control, and (b) the prospective impact of effortful control development (i.e., initial levels and the trajectory of effortful control from late childhood through adolescence) on work outcomes in young adulthood. We used data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth assessed at ages 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19. We found no evidence of co-developmental associations between chores and effortful control, but we found that higher initial levels of effortful control (age 10) predicted working-student status, less job stress, and better job fit, and steeper increases in effortful control from age 10 to 16 predicted higher job satisfaction and job autonomy in young adulthood (age 19).
... Adolescents high on conscientiousness can be expected to perform better at school (Dumfart & Neubauer, 2016) and to experience less victimization and better peer relations (Jensen-Campbell & Malcolm, 2007), which can contribute to greater life satisfaction. Furthermore, higher conscientiousness among adolescents has been shown to be positively associated with a number of adaptive outcomes in the academic, health, and relationships domain (Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017), which should, at least theoretically, lead to a greater life satisfaction. Despite this, conscientiousness did not yield a unique contribution to life satisfaction in the present sample; i.e., the positive association between conscientiousness and life satisfaction found in correlation analysis disappeared in the regression model. ...
The role of negative life events and personality traits in adult life satisfaction has been widely investigated, but has received less attention in adolescent samples. The main goal of the present study was to investigate the relationships between the Big Five personality traits, negative life events, and life satisfaction in adolescents. In addition, the moderating roles of personality traits in the relationship between negative life events and life satisfaction were examined. The sample consisted of 500 Serbian adolescents, aged 16 to 18 (M age = 17.37; 67.7% females). The results showed that negative life events, extraversion, and agreeableness had unique contributions to predicting life satisfaction. The moderation analysis demonstrated that personality traits did not moderate the relationship between negative life events and life satisfaction. The results of the present study indicate that the association between negative life events and adolescent life satisfaction is independent of personality traits, and support the conclusion that the relative contribution of personality traits to life satisfaction among adolescents is culture-specific.
... Interestingly, conscientiousness is the only one of the 'big five' personality traits that shows a consistent association with performance in school and higher education (Farrington et al., 2012, p. 24;Richardson & Abraham, 2009;Tackman et al., 2017). Recent meta-analyses of previous research even suggest that the effect size for the association between conscientiousness and academic performance is comparable to the effect size for the association between cognitive ability (as measured with IQ tests) and academic performance (Poropat, 2009(Poropat, , 2014. ...
... Compared to the period of adulthood (Bleidorn et al., 2013;, we know relatively little about cross-cultural variability in mean-level personality changes during adolescence. Studies on mean-level personality development during adolescence have mainly used samples from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries, particularly from the USA (Durbin et al., 2015;Soto, 2016;Soto et al., 2011;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017), The Netherlands Branje et al., 2007;Klimstra et al., 2009;Van den Akker et al., 2014), and Belgium (De Fruyt et al., 2006;de Haan, De Pauw, van den Akker, Deković, & Prinzie, 2017). An exception is a study on Japanese adolescents (Kawamoto & Endo, 2015). ...
... Others have proposed that EC is a developmental precursor, antecedent, or an early form of the adult trait, or a developmentally evolving temperament system out of which conscientiousness emerges. Yet others have proposed those are overlapping traits or a family of conscientiousness constructs (Bridgett, Burt, Edwards, & Deater-Deckard, 2015;Caspi & Shiner, 2006;De Pauw & Mervielde, 2010;Eisenberg et al., 2014;Hoyle, 2006;Hoyle & Gallagher, 2015;Jensen-Campbell et al., 2002;Nigg, 2017;Roberts et al., 2014;Rothbart, 2011;Rothbart & Bates, 2006;Shiner & Caspi, 2012;Tackman, Srivastava, Pfeifer, & Dapretto, 2017). ...
We tested empirically a theoretical model of early origins of conscientiousness proposed by Eisenberg, Duckworth, Spinrad, and Valiente (2014). The model posited a developmental interplay between children’s early effortful control (EC) and internalized or committed compliance with parents as leading to future conscientiousness. We followed a community sample of 102 community mothers, fathers, and children from toddlerhood to adolescence. Observers coded children’s EC in batteries of behavioral tasks (at ages 2 and 3) and committed compliance in lengthy discipline interactions with each parent, observed from preschool to early school age (at ages 4.5, 5.5, and 6.5). Parents rated adolescents’ conscientiousness using an established personality questionnaire (at age 14). We supported several components of the theoretical model. Mediation analyses, conducted at the family level (across mother–child and father–child dyads) and separate analyses for mother–child and father–child dyads all supported the mediated path, from child EC to committed compliance to conscientiousness. Analyses for mother–child dyads additionally revealed that the indirect effect was present only for children with relatively low EC scores but not those with relatively high EC scores (moderated mediation), also as anticipated in the theoretical model.
The question of who's in and who's out is not as straightforward as it seems when understanding the dynamics of exclusion in everyday life. This dissertation explores the intricate dynamics of cooperation and exclusionary mechanisms in social networks and groups by combining insights from formal theoretical modeling and empirical analysis, incorporating perspectives from multiple disciplines. From the stability of social value orientations over time to the contextual influence on cooperation dynamics, this dissertation provides novel and nuanced views on the ways in which exclusion encourages cooperative behavior among individuals and – more importantly- when exclusion fails to promote cooperation. The research findings pave the way for future research in the field of exclusion, both theoretically and empirically, and highlight a downside for excluded defectors: If there is no “in” after exclusion, they may fall into a spiral of defection with a difficult road ahead for (if ever) reaching cooperation “at the end of the tunnel.”
Conscientiousness is a personality trait that matures from early childhood to late adolescence, yet little is known about its underlying brain mechanisms during this period. To investigate this, our study examined the resting-state functional network connectivity (rsFNC) of 69 school-aged children (mean age = 10.12 years, range = 9-12) using a whole-brain region-of-interest (ROI) based analysis, based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results indicated a positive association between conscientiousness and the rsFNC between the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and two brain networks: the somatosensory motor-hand network (SMHN) and the auditory network (AN). However, conscientiousness was negatively associated with the rsFNC between FPN and two other networks: the salience network (SN); the default mode network (DMN). Moreover, our results suggest that the FPN may play a hub role in the neural performance of children's conscientiousness. Intrinsic brain networks, particularly those involved in higher-order cognitive functions, impact children's conscientiousness. Therefore, FPN plays an important role in the development of children's personality, providing insight into the neural mechanisms underlying children's personality.
Background:
Many empirical investigations focus on how personality traits and academic motivation are related to academic achievement. Regarding the personality traits described in the five-factor model, prior research has shown associations between openness to experience and language achievement in particular. Following the principle of trait activation, associations with intrinsic value can explain these domain-specific relationships of openness with achievement.
Aims:
This study investigated whether intrinsic value mediates the associations of openness to experience with language achievement to understand these associations more closely. Based on the principle of trait activation, we combined openness to experience with intrinsic value as a motivational construct more proximal to behaviour.
Samples:
We capitalized on two large-scale longitudinal data sets (N = 1994; M = 16.8 years; 51% female; and N = 2722; M = 17.34 years; 58% female) of German-speaking students in upper secondary education with two points of measurement, respectively.
Methods:
We assessed achievement using report card grades and standardized test scores, capturing three language subskills: reading and listening, measured by standardized tests, and writing competencies, measured by essay assignments. We conducted mediation analysis using bootstrapped confidence intervals and robust standard errors to account for dependencies in the data due to students clustered within classrooms.
Results and conclusions:
Overall, our results show that intrinsic value mediated the relationship between openness and achievement in English as a foreign language. The results remained stable when controlling for prior achievement, predicting achievement gains. Our investigation provides empirical insights into the manifestations of personality in academic contexts. We discuss the limitations of our approach, with a focus on the use of a mediation analysis in this research design.
The school environment is one key developmental context that is assumed to shape individual characteristics during adolescence.
However, little is known about which school experiences are central to personality change or whether school experiences and personality co-shape each other over time. We address this gap by examining the longitudinal interplay between seven school experiences in the three domains of achievement, social relationships, and well-being, and the Big Five personality traits at four measurement points from fifth to eighth grade. By using data from the German TRAIN study (N = 3,473, MageT1 = 11.1 years, 45% female), we estimated bivariate latent growth curve models and cross-lagged panel models to illustrate this longitudinal interplay. Results demonstrated correlated change between school experiences and personality with differentiated patterns for achievement variables and a general longitudinal interplay with the social relationship
and well-being variables. Furthermore, we found cross-lagged effects in both directions, although there were more effects of personality on school experiences. The most consistent predictor of school experiences was conscientiousness, whereas well-being in school in particular was related to personality change 1 year later. We integrate our findings into the current picture of personality development in adolescence and the role of school-related environmental factors.
This study examines the effect of ability mixing (as opposed to ability grouping) in secondary education on long-term personality development. To address endogeneity and selection issues, we exploit a high school education reform implemented in Korea in the 1970s. This reform is the change in the admission system of general high school from ability grouping to ability mixing. The results show that ability mixing has significant influences on some personalities in adulthood. In particular, mixing treatment decreases agreeableness and conscientiousness. We also find that these impacts on personalities are more pronounced among females.
Cigarette smoking represents the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the US and understanding its risk factors remains a critical public health endeavor. Low-income individuals and individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment are at heightened risk for cigarette smoking, yet the underlying factors between this association are understudied. Conscientiousness is one construct with potential explanatory relevance to both smoking and childhood neglect. The current investigation examined the association between childhood physical and emotional neglect with smoking (i.e., self-reported cigarette smoking and breath carbon monoxide levels) via conscientiousness. The sample was comprised of 115 adults (Mage = 50.46, SDage = 5.86; 76.4% Black) recruited from a community center serving low-income and homeless individuals. Mediation analyses showed the indirect effect of childhood emotional neglect on cigarette smoking through conscientiousness; for physical neglect, this relationship was only present among males. The current study provides preliminary evidence that conscientiousness may be a particularly important vulnerability factor when examining the association between childhood neglect and smoking.
An ideal structural representation of personality attributes would include more than just broad-bandwidth factors. Specific subcomponents help define broad factors while enhancing the fidelity of the representation. There has been no consensus with regard to the necessary specific subcomponents of the Big Five. This problem was addressed by analyzing 2 representative lexical data sets, one involving English adjectives and the other involving German adjectives. Large samples (Ns of 636 and 775) were used in classifying a selection of 500 adjectives in each language by Big Five domains, and within each domain and language, the terms were factor analyzed with promax rotation. Ratings by 22 bilinguals of correspondence between the adjectives in English and German factors indicated 18 distinct content themes common to personality description in the 2 languages. The 18 subcomponents delineate necessary features of a more finely faceted measurement model for the lexical Big Five factors.
Child psychologists and psychiatrists are interested in assessing children's personalities. This interest is fueled by the practical desire to identify differences between children that have predictive utility, and by recognition that future advances in developmental theory, especially in relation to gene-environment interplay, can only be as good as the measures on which they rely. The aim of this article is to facilitate these practical and theoretical advances. First, we delineate a taxonomy of measurable individual differences in temperament and personality in childhood, and point the reader to proven and/or promising measuring instruments. Second, we describe the processes through which early temperament differences may become elaborated into adult personality structure and lifelong adaptation, and identify gaps in the empirical research that need to be filled. Third, we explore the various connections between temperament/personality traits and psychopathology, and direct attention to promising questions and strategies.
Three studies were conducted to develop and validate the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2), a major revision of the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Study 1 specified a hierarchical model of personality structure with 15 facet traits nested within the Big Five domains, and developed a preliminary item pool to measure this structure. Study 2 used conceptual and empirical criteria to construct the BFI-2 domain and facet scales from the preliminary item pool. Study 3 used data from 2 validation samples to evaluate the BFI-2’s measurement properties and substantive relations with self-reported and peer-reported criteria. The results of these studies indicate that the BFI-2 is a reliable and valid personality measure, and an important advance over the original BFI. Specifically, the BFI-2 introduces a robust hierarchical structure, controls for individual differences in acquiescent responding, and provides greater bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power than the original BFI, while still retaining the original measure’s conceptual focus, brevity, and ease of understanding. The BFI-2 therefore offers valuable new opportunities for research examining the structure, assessment, development, and life outcomes of personality traits.
The relationship between the socioeconomic status (SES) of peers and individual academic achievement was examined in this study. This question was investigated while a variety of sociodemographic factors were being controlled, including a student's own SES. Student SES was measured by using participation in the federal free/reduced–price lunch program as an indicator of poverty status, and parental educational and occupational background as a measure of family social status. These measures were aggregated to the school level to define the SES of the peer population. Student achievement is a factor score of the three 10th–grade components of the Louisiana Graduation Exit Examination. Peer family social status in particular does have a significant and substantive independent effect on individual academic achievement, only slightly less than an individual's own family social status.
In this study, we investigated mean-level personality development in children from 6 to 20 years of age. Additionally, we investigated longitudinal, bidirectional associations between child personality and maternal overreactive and warm parenting. In this 5-wave study, mothers reported on their child's personality from Time 1 (T1) through Time 4 (T4), and children provided self-reports from Time 2 (T2) through Time 5 (T5). Mothers reported on their levels of overreactive and warm parenting from T2 through T4. Using cohort-sequential latent growth curve modeling, we investigated mother reported child personality from 6 to 17 years of age and child reported personality from 9 to 20 years of age. Extraversion decreased linearly across the entire study. Benevolence and conscientiousness increased from middle to late childhood, temporarily declined from late childhood to mid-adolescence, and increased again thereafter. Imagination decreased from middle childhood to mid-adolescence and also increased thereafter. Mothers reported a temporary decline in emotional stability with an increase thereafter, whereas children did not. Boys and girls differed in mean-levels of the personality dimensions and, to a lesser extent, in the degree and direction of changes. Latent difference score modeling showed that child personality predicted changes in parenting and that, to a lesser extent, parenting predicted changes in child traits. Additionally, changes in child personality were associated with changes in maternal parenting. Results of the present study show that personality change is not directed at increasing maturity from childhood to mid-adolescence and that it elicits and is shaped by both positive and negative parenting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
While previous studies indicate that personality traits influence the likelihood of divorce, the processes that drive this relationship have yet to be examined. Accordingly, the current study utilized a nationally representative, longitudinal sample (N = 8,206) to test whether relationship satisfaction is a pathway by which personality traits influence relationship dissolution. Specifically, we examined 2 different pathways: the enduring dynamics and emergent distress pathways. The enduring dynamics pathway specifies that the association between personality and relationship satisfaction reflects ongoing relationship dynamics, which are presumed to be stable across a relationship. In contrast, the emergent distress pathway proposes that personality leads to worsening dynamics across the course of a relationship, which is indicated by changes in satisfaction. For each pathway, we assessed actor, partner, and combined effects for the Big Five. Results replicate previous research in that personality traits prospectively predict relationship dissolution. Both the enduring dynamics and emergent distress pathways served to explain this relationship, though the enduring dynamics model evidenced the largest effects. The emergent distress pathway was stronger for couples who experienced certain life events, suggesting that personality plays a role in adapting to changing life circumstances. Moreover, results suggest that the personality of the dyad is important in this process: Above and beyond actor effects, partner effects influenced relationship functioning (although the influence of combined effects was less clear). In sum, the current study demonstrates that personality traits shape the overall quality of one's relationship, which in turn influences the likelihood of relationship dissolution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
A new inventory for examining the first six of Erikson's psychosocial stages is described. The self-report questionnaire, developed in a pilot study of 97 adolescents and tested in a study of 622 adolescents, has 12 items for each subscale. Measures of reliability and validity are reported. It is concluded that the Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI) is a useful measure for researchers interested in development from early adolescence and in mapping changes as a function of life events.
The results of two studies are reported. Study I involved the development of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA), a self-report instrument for use with adolescents. Subject were 179 college students aged 16-20 years. Item content of the instrument was suggested by attachment theory's formulations concerning the nature of feelings toward attachment figures. In Study II, the convergent validity of the IPPA was examined. Also, a hierarchial regression model was employed to investigate the association between quality of attachment and self-esteem, life-satisfaction, and affective status. Respondents were 86 adolescents from the Study I sample. As hypothesized, perceived quality of both parent and peer attachments was significantly related to psychological well-being. Results of the development of a theoretically focused, exploratory classification scheme indicated that adolescents classified as highly securely attached reported greater satisfaction with themselves, a higher likelihood of seeking social support, and less symptomatic response to stressful life events.
During early adulthood, individuals from different cultures across the world tend to become more agreeable, more conscientious, and less neurotic. Two leading theories offer different explanations for these pervasive age trends: Five-factor theory proposes that personality maturation is largely determined by genetic factors, whereas social-investment theory proposes that personality maturation in early adulthood is largely the result of normative life transitions to adult roles. In the research reported here, we conducted the first systematic cross-cultural test of these theories using data from a large Internet-based sample of young adults from 62 nations (N = 884,328). We found strong evidence for universal personality maturation from early to middle adulthood, yet there were significant cultural differences in age effects on personality traits. Consistent with social-investment theory, results showed that cultures with an earlier onset of adult-role responsibilities were marked by earlier personality maturation.
The ability of personality traits to predict important life outcomes has traditionally been questioned because of the putative small effects of personality. In this article, we compare the predictive validity of personality traits with that of socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive ability to test the relative contribution of personality traits to predictions of three critical outcomes: mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment. Only evidence from prospective longitudinal studies was considered. In addition, an attempt was made to limit the review to studies that controlled for important background factors. Results showed that the magnitude of the effects of personality traits on mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment was indistinguishable from the effects of SES and cognitive ability on these outcomes. These results demonstrate the influence of personality traits on important life outcomes, highlight the need to more routinely incorporate measures of personality into quality of life surveys, and encourage further research about the developmental origins of personality traits and the processes by which these traits influence diverse life outcomes.
© 2007 Association for Psychological Science.
The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), a longitudinal investigation of a diverse sample of 1,700 fifth graders and 1,117 of their parents, tests developmental contextual ideas linking PYD, youth contributions, and participation in community youth development (YD) programs, representing a key ecological asset. Using data from Wave 1 of the study, structural equation modeling procedures provided evidence for five firstorder latent factors representing the “Five Cs” of PYD (competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring) and for their convergence on a second-order PYD latent construct. A theoretical construct, youth contribution, was also created and examined. Both PYD and YD program participation independently related to contribution. The importance of longitudinal analyses for extending the present results is discussed.
OBJECTIVE: The present research was conducted to map the hierarchical structure of youths' personality traits, to identify the foundational level of this structure, and to test whether the meanings of some youth personality dimensions shift with age. METHOD: We addressed these issues by analyzing personality parent-reports for a cross-sectional sample of 16,000 children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 3 to 20). These parent-reports were made using a broadband measure of youths' personal characteristics, the common-language California Child Q-set. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Analyses of the full sample and comparisons of 16 age groups supported three main conclusions. First, the hierarchical structure of youths' personality traits both resembles and differs from the adult personality hierarchy in important ways. Second, a set of six dimensions-Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, and Activity-may constitute the foundational level of the youth personality hierarchy from middle childhood through adolescence. This "Little Six" structure represents a union of the most prominent personality and temperament dimensions. Third, the meanings of some youth personality dimensions (e.g., Activity, Conscientiousness) shift systematically with age. These findings advance our understanding of when and how personality structure develops during the first two decades of life.
Variations of the self-imposed delay-of-gratification situation in preschool were compared to determine when individual differences in this situation may predict aspects of cognitive and self-regulatory competence and coping in adolescence. Preschool children from a university community participated in experiments that varied features of the self-imposed delay situation. Experimental analyses of the cognitive–attentional processes that affect waiting in this situation helped identify conditions in which delay behavior would be most likely to reflect relevant cognitive and attentional competencies. As hypothesized, in those conditions, coherent patterns of statistically significant correlations were found between seconds of delay time in such conditions in preschool and cognitive and academic competence and ability to cope with frustration and stress in adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The interactive effects of peer behavior and adolescents' perceptions of authoritative parenting on GPA and drug use were examined. Two samples of 500 9th–11th graders participated in a 1-yr longitudinal study, and they and their friends provided reports of respective school grades and substance use. Changes in GPA and drug use are predicted by friend's grades and drug use. However, this effect is moderated by the adolescent's report of authoritative parenting. The positive impact of having a high-achieving friend is stronger among adolescents whose parents are relatively more authoritative. The deleterious impact of having a drug-using friend is stronger among adolescents whose parents are relatively less authoritative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In a cross-sequential study spanning 5th-12th grade, 220 White working-and middle-class youth provided reports on their experience at 16,477 random moments in their lives. Amount of time spent with family was found to decrease from 35% to 14% of waking hours across this age period, indicating disengagement. However, transformation and continued connection were evident in stability across age in time talking and alone with parents; an age increase in family conversation about interpersonal issues, particularly for girls; and with age, adolescents' more frequent perception of themselves as leading interactions. After a decrease in early adolescence, older teens reported more favorable affect in themselves and others during family interactions. Last, the age decline in family time was found to be mediated not by internal family conflict but by opportunities and pulls an adolescent experiences from outside the family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Objective:
Previous research has found that conscientiousness has positive associations with preventative health-related behaviors and self-perceived health, but little is known about the links between changes in these variables over time. In the present study, we examined how levels and changes in conscientiousness were linked to levels and changes in both preventative health-related behaviors and self-perceived physical health.
Method:
Personality and health questionnaires were administered to participants in two waves, with an interval of approximately three years. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 94. To elucidate the tripartite relations between conscientiousness, preventative health-related behaviors, and self-perceived physical health, we used latent change models to estimate levels and changes of these latent constructs over time.
Results:
Changes in conscientiousness were significantly and positively correlated with changes in preventative health behaviors and changes in self-perceived physical health. Changes in preventative health behaviors partially mediated the relation between changes in conscientiousness and changes in self-perceived physical health.
Conclusions:
This longitudinal study extends previous research on conscientiousness and health by exploring the relations between latent variables over a 3-year period. It provides evidence that increases in conscientiousness and preventative health-related behaviors are associated with improvements in self-perceived health over the same time period.
Previous research suggests that normative life transitions have the potential to trigger personality maturation. But what exactly happens during such a transitional stage? The present study examined personality trait changes in a sample of 910 German high school students during their transition from school to adult life. Despite the short observation period of three semiannual measurements, growth curve analyses revealed significant mean-level changes in personality traits. These changes occurred primarily in a positive direction, were strongest for the trait of conscientiousness, and most pronounced in those students who were directly confronted with this transitional experience. Bivariate growth curve models indicated that individual differences in personality change were substantially associated with changes in students' investments into achievement behavior. Supporting socioanalytic perspectives on personality development, these findings can be discussed with respect to process approaches to personality change assuming that consistent behavioral changes might lead to personality change in a bottom-up fashion.
Theories of Parent–Adolescent Relationships and Their Influence
Interpersonal Processes And Relationship Perceptions
The Role of Parent–Child Relationships in Adolescent Adjustment
The Interplay of Context and Relationship Processes and Outcomes
Conclusion
Keywords:
parenting;
support;
conflict;
influence;
family
(from the chapter) Michael Posner is one of the most creative and influential psychologists of the past century. He has been a pioneer in cognitive science and is one of the founders of the field of cognitive neuroscience. The experimental paradigms he has developed have provided a major foundation for the imaging of the human brain. It is our great honor and pleasure to work with him as he continues his pioneering efforts, now focusing on attentional development and its relation to education. Our development of marker tasks based on patterns of adult brain activation has allowed us to study infant and child development in neuroscientifically informed, yet nonintrusive ways. Together with Posner, we have been studying temperament in infants and young children in relation to underlying neural networks for self-control. Our effort began with the study of temperament and proceeded to making links between temperamental dimensions and neural circuitry using marker tasks derived from adult imaging studies. The levels of analysis available for this exploration now range from molecular genetics to the socialization of behavior. We hope that by furthering methodological links between different levels of analysis, a basis will be provided for examining the many exciting questions at their interface. This chapter examines parallel developments of executive attention and self-regulation, as well as the genetic and experience-related factors that influence the functioning of this system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).
This study investigated the continuity, pathoplasty, and complication models as plausible explanations for personality-psychopathology relations in a combined sample of community (n = 571) and referred (n = 146) children and adolescents. Multivariate structural equation modeling was used to examine the structural relations between latent personality and psychopathology change across a 2-year period. Item response theory models were fitted as an additional test of the continuity hypothesis. Even after correcting for item overlap, the results provided strong support for the continuity model, demonstrating that personality and psychopathology displayed dynamic change patterns across time. Item response theory models further supported the continuity conceptualization for understanding the association between internalizing problems and emotional stability and extraversion as well as between externalizing problems and benevolence and conscientiousness. In addition to the continuity model, particular personality and psychopathology combinations provided evidence for the pathoplasty and complication models. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
Previous research has established conscientiousness as a predictor of longevity (H. S. Friedman et al., 1993; L. R. Martin & H. S. Friedman, 2000). To better understand this relationship, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of conscientiousness-related traits and the leading behavioral contributors to mortality in the United States (tobacco use, diet and activity patterns, excessive alcohol use, violence, risky sexual behavior, risky driving, suicide, and drug use). Data sources were located by combining conscientiousness-related terms and relevant health-related behavior terms in database searches as well as by retrieving dissertations and requesting unpublished data from electronic mailing lists. The resulting database contained 194 studies that were quantitatively synthesized. Results showed that conscientiousness-related traits were negatively related to all risky health-related behaviors and positively related to all beneficial health-related behaviors. This study demonstrates the importance of conscientiousness' contribution to the health process through its relationship to health-related behaviors.
A reduction in sleep amount from late childhood through the second decade has long been known; however, the weight of current evidence holds that sleep need does not decline across this span. This article will describe how the loss of sleep through adolescence is not driven by lower need for sleep but arises from a convergence of biologic, psychological, and socio-cultural influences.
Hypotheses about mean-level age differences in the Big Five personality domains, as well as 10 more specific facet traits within those domains, were tested in a very large cross-sectional sample (N = 1,267,218) of children, adolescents, and adults (ages 10-65) assessed over the World Wide Web. The results supported several conclusions. First, late childhood and adolescence were key periods. Across these years, age trends for some traits (a) were especially pronounced, (b) were in a direction different from the corresponding adult trends, or (c) first indicated the presence of gender differences. Second, there were some negative trends in psychosocial maturity from late childhood into adolescence, whereas adult trends were overwhelmingly in the direction of greater maturity and adjustment. Third, the related but distinguishable facet traits within each broad Big Five domain often showed distinct age trends, highlighting the importance of facet-level research for understanding life span age differences in personality.
Chapter Data, Program Inputs and Outputs for all LGM Examples in the textbook "An Introduction to Latent Variable Growth Curve Modeling: Concepts, Issues, and Applications, Second Edition". Model specifications are included providing program syntax for Amos, EQS, LISREL, and Mplus software programs. The files are arranged
by chapter and include syntax, data, and output files for all examples a particular software program is capable of estimating. The first three chapters (specification of the LGM, LGM and repeated measures ANOVA, and multivariate representations of growth and development) cover the development of the LGM. These are followed by
three chapters involving multiple group issues and extensions (analyzing growth in multiple populations, accelerated
designs, and multilevel longitudinal approaches), and followed by the chapter on growth mixture modeling, which addresses multiple-group issues from a latent class perspective. The remainder of the book covers 'special topics' (chapters on interrupted time series approaches to LGM analyses, growth modeling with ordered categorical outcomes,
Missing data models, a latent variable framework for LGM power analyses and Monte Carlo estimation, and latent growth
interaction models). The zipfile is quite large (1MB) since it contains all files for the various software programs.
From the time individuals first enter school until they complete their formal schooling, children and adolescents spend more time in schools than in any other place outside their homes. Exploring all of the possible ways in which educational institutions influence motivation and development during adolescence is beyond the scope of a single chapter. In this chapter I discuss the ways in which schools influence adolescents' social- emotional and behavioral development through organizational, social, and instructional processes ranging from those based in the immediate, proximal relation between students and the tasks they are asked to perform to the role that principals and the school boards play in setting school-level and district-level policies, which in turn influence the social organization of the entire school community. I discuss at length three examples of the ways in which these multiple organizational levels interact synergistically to influence adolescent development through their impact on the daily experiences that adolescents in the United States encounter as they move through the American school system. The first example focuses on the role of school transitions, the second on the role of curricular tracking, and the third on extracurricular activities. Few of these processes have been studied in countries other than the United States. I assume similar processes are true in other countries, but this remains to be demonstrated empirically.
The present investigation assesses the incidence and risk factors of unwanted sexual activity initiated by peers for a sample of 1,149 adolescent females. Twenty percent of the sample reported some type of unwanted sexual contact in the past year. Of this group, over one-third reported that they had been forced to have sexual intercourse; the remaining two-thirds reported unwanted touching. Boyfriends were the most commonly reported perpetrators followed by dates, friends, and acquaintances. Individuals were more vulnerable to unwanted sexual contact if they had a history of sexual abuse, reported excessive alcohol use in the past month, scored high in peer conformity, or had parents who did not monitor their behavior closely or use an authoritative parenting style.
In this article, we present an integrative perspective on temperament and personality development. Personality and temperament are conceptualized as regulatory systems that start as physiological reactivity to environmental features early in life, but are increasingly supplemented by regulation efforts oriented toward reference values such as personal goals and social norms. These reference values change during development as society expects increasingly mature behaviors, but it takes regulatory resources and incremental practice before people can conform to these higher standards. Consistent with this view, a meta-analysis of mean-level development of personality traits in adolescence revealed a decrease in conscientiousness and openness during early adolescence. Negative discrepancies between reference values and actual behavior are apparently responsible for decreases in perceived maturity, but more direct evidence is needed to support this claim.
A principal components analysis of lexically derived trait adjectives was performed to investigate the lower-order factor structure of conscientiousness (N=1675). A solution with eight substantive components fit the data best and showed good reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity. The eight components were labeled reliability, orderliness, impulse control, decisiveness, punctuality, formalness, conventionality, and industriousness. The relevance of the structure to previous lexical research and existing personality inventories is discussed.
The CES-D scale is a short self-report scale designed to measure depressive symptomatology in the general population. The items of the scale are symptoms associated with depression which have been used in previously validated longer scales. The new scale was tested in household interview surveys and in psychiatric settings. It was found to have very high internal consistency and adequate test- retest repeatability. Validity was established by pat terns of correlations with other self-report measures, by correlations with clinical ratings of depression, and by relationships with other variables which support its construct validity. Reliability, validity, and factor structure were similar across a wide variety of demographic characteristics in the general population samples tested. The scale should be a useful tool for epidemiologic studies of de pression.
Many areas of the behavioral sciences have few measures that are accepted as the standard for the operationalization of a construct. One consequence is that there is hardly ever an articulated and understood framework for the units of the measures that are employed. Without meaningful measurement units, theoretical formulations are limited to statements of the direction of an effect or association, or to effects expressed in standardized units. Thus the long term scientific goal of generation of laws expressing the relationships among variables in scale units is greatly hindered. This article reviews alternative methods of scoring a scale. Two recent journal volumes are surveyed with regard to current scoring practices. Alternative methods of scoring are evaluated against seven articulated criteria representing the information conveyed by each in an illustrative example. Converting scores to the percent of maximum possible score (POMP) is shown to provide useful additional information in many cases.
Modified the Children's Reports of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI) as developed by E. S. Schaefer, to make the inventory suitable for use in cross-cultural research. The inventory was administered 6 mo. apart to 2 independent samples of college students (N = 294 and 398). 3 factors were obtained across samples, sex groups and parent-forms. The factors replicated were the same as in Schaefer's studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A Monte Carlo simulation examined the performance of 4 missing data methods in structural equation models: full information maximum likelihood (FIML), listwise deletion, pairwise deletion, and similar response pattern imputation. The effects of 3 independent variables were examined (factor loading magnitude, sample size, and missing data rate) on 4 outcome measures: convergence failures, parameter estimate bias, parameter estimate efficiency, and model goodness of fit. Results indicated that FIML estimation was superior across all conditions of the design. Under ignorable missing data conditions (missing completely at random and missing at random), FIML estimates were unbiased and more efficient than the other methods. In addition, FIML yielded the lowest proportion of convergence failures and provided near-optimal Type 1 error rates across both simulations.
Maximum likelihood algorithms for use with missing data are becoming common-place in microcomputer packages. Specifically, 3 maximum likelihood algorithms are currently available in existing software packages: the multiple-group approach, full information maximum likelihood estimation, and the EM algorithm. Although they belong to the same family of estimator, confusion appears to exist over the differ-ences among the 3 algorithms. This article provides a comprehensive, nontechnical overview of the 3 maximum likelihood algorithms. Multiple imputation, which is fre-quently used in conjunction with the EM algorithm, is also discussed. Until recently, the analysis of data with missing observations has been dominated by listwise (LD) and pairwise (PD) deletion methods (Kim & Curry, 1977; Roth, 1994). However, alternative methods for treating missing data have become in-creasingly common in software packages, leaving applied researchers with a wide range of data analytic options. In particular, three maximum likelihood (ML) esti-mation algorithms for use with missing data are currently available: the multi-ple-group approach (Allison, 1987; Muthén, Kaplan, & Hollis, 1987) can be imple-mented using existing structural equation modeling (SEM) software; Amos (Arbuckle, 1995) and Mx (Neale, 1995) offer full information maximum likelihood STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING, 8(1), 128–141 Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
From the time individuals first enter school until they complete their formal schooling, children and adolescents spend more time in schools than in any other place outside their homes. Exploring all of the possible ways in which educational institutions influence motivation and development during adolescence is beyond the scope of a single chapter. In this chapter I discuss the ways in which schools influence adolescents' social- emotional and behavioral development through organizational, social, and instructional processes ranging from those based in the immediate, proximal relation between students and the tasks they are asked to perform to the role that principals and the school boards play in setting school-level and district-level policies, which in turn influence the social organization of the entire school community. I discuss at length three examples of the ways in which these multiple organizational levels interact synergistically to influence adolescent development through their impact on the daily experiences that adolescents in the United States encounter as they move through the American school system. The first example focuses on the role of school transitions, the second on the role of curricular tracking, and the third on extracurricular activities. Few of these processes have been studied in countries other than the United States. I assume similar processes are true in other countries, but this remains to be demonstrated empirically.
The study employs time-sampling data to examine age differences in the quantity and quality of children's and young adolescents daily experience with their families, friends, and alone. Participants (ages 9–15) carried electronic pagers for 1 week and reported their companionship, location, and affect at random times when signaled by the pagers. Findings show a dramatic decline in amount of time spent with family, with older students reporting half as much time with their families as younger students. Among boys, this family time was replaced by time spent alone; among girls, by time alone and with friends. Affect reported when with family became less positive between the fifth and seventh grade, but was more positive again in the ninth grade for boys. Affect with friends became more favorable across this age period; affect when alone did not vary. These age differences suggest changes in adolescents' daily opportunities for cognitive growth, emotional development, and social support.
As we begin the new millennium, it is an appropriate time to examine what we have learned about personality-performance relationships over the past century and to embark on new directions for research. In this study we quantitatively summarize the results of 15 prior meta-analytic studies that have investigated the relationship between the Five Factor Model (FFM) personality traits and job performance. Results support the previous findings that conscientiousness is a valid predictor across performance measures in all occupations studied. Emotional stability was also found to be a generalizable predictor when overall work performance was the criterion, but its relationship to specific performance criteria and occupations was less consistent than was conscientiousness. Though the other three Big Five traits (extraversion, openness and agreeableness) did not predict overall work performance, they did predict success in specific occupations or relate to specific criteria. The studies upon which these results are based comprise most of the research that has been conducted on this topic in the past century. Consequently, we call for a moratorium on meta-analytic studies of the type reviewed in our study and recommend that researchers embark on a new research agenda designed to further our understanding of personality-performance linkages.
The aim of this study was to explore associations between chronotype and sleep–wake variables on the one hand and personality on the other in a large and gender balanced sample based on the big five inventory, encompassing the factors extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. 1231 participants (652 female, 579 male) responded to the composite scale of morningness (CSM) as a measure of chronotype and to a short version of the big five inventory (Rammstedt & John, 2007). Morningness correlated positive with agreeableness and conscientiousness, even when controlling for age and when examining gender separately. Neuroticism was related to eveningness only in females and in adolescents (10–17 years). In adults (18–47) only conscientiousness correlated with morningness. Positive correlations existed between agreeableness and conscientiousness and sleep length on weekdays and on weekends. Misalignment correlated significantly negative with agreeableness and conscientiousness but positive with extraversion.
Typical assessments of personality traits collapse behaviors, thoughts, and feelings into a single measure without distinguishing between these different manifestations. To address this lack of specification, the current study develops and validates a measure that assesses a number of broad behaviors associated with the personality trait of conscientiousness (the Behavioral Indicators of Conscientiousness; BIC). Findings suggest that the lower-order structure of conscientious behaviors is mostly similar to the lower-order structure in extant trait measures. Furthermore, a daily diary method was used to validate the BIC against frequency counts of conscientious behavior. Overall, the results identify specific behaviors that conscientious individuals tend to perform and highlight possible advantages of this approach over broad trait assessment.