Tina Kavčič

Consistency in adult reports on child personality over the pre-school years

Three types of temporal and cross-observer consistency in adult reports on child personality were investigated over three waves of a longitudinal study. Employing the Inventory of Child Individual Differences (Halverson et al., 2003), 3-year-olds were rated separately by mothers, fathers, and pre-school teachers. The children were re-assessed one and two years later. The teacher-perceived organization of child personality, which resulted in conscientiousness – openness/intellect, extraversion – emotional stability, and disagreeableness domains appeared stable over time, whereas parental ratings also yielded congruent components across the spouses: extraversion, conscientiousness, disagreeableness, and neuroticism. Mother – father agreement was high across the traits and broadband domains in each wave, while the consistency of the parent – teacher trait assessments was lower. The child scores showed a high rank – order stability and small normative change over the pre-school years. Most of the mean-level change patterns as reflected through adult ratings were similar across the informants, indicating age-increases in extraversion, conscientiousness, and the respective marker traits.

Factors of social adjustment to school: child’s personality, family and pre‐school

The role of child’s characteristics (gender, cognitive ability, mother‐perceived personality traits), family environment (maternal education, self‐reported parenting practices) and pre‐school experience (at least three years vs. no experience) in social adjustment to school, reflected through teacher reports on social competence and internalising and externalising behaviours, was investigated with six‐year‐olds (N = 366). Three blocks of factors, i.e. child, family and pre‐school, explained up to 19% of variance in social adjustment with child’s characteristics accounting for the major part. Family variables contributed significant, though small, portions of variance to social competence and internalising behaviour over and above the child factors. Pre‐school experience was additionally predictive of lower incidence of internalising behaviour and more frequent externalising behaviour.

Personality types as derived from parental reports on 3‐year‐old

Three internally replicable clusters of personality were empirically derived in a sample of 3‐year‐old children who were assessed by mothers and fathers using the Inventory of Child Individual Differences (Halverson et al., 2003). The clusters were structurally consistent across the parental data sources and did not, except for resilients, fully overlap with the under‐ and overcontrolled types. The average children scored within less than half of a standard deviation from the mean across the ICID dimensions, while the wilful 3‐year‐old appeared extraverted and disagreeable. Child type membership was moderately consistent across the spouses and it predicted teacher‐reported child social behaviour. Compared to the dimensions, the predictive utility of the types was lower, but considerably improved with consistently classified children. Copyright

The age of entry into high-quality preschool, child and family factors, and developmental outcomes in early childhood

SUMMARY Three blocks of factors were considered as predictors of four year old childrens (N = 286) personality, non-verbal intelligence and social behaviour in preschool: (a) personality characteristics at time 1 (T1) when the participants were three years old; (b) parental education and parenting practices measured at T1; and (c) age of childs entry to high-quality preschool. Child personality was rated separately by mothers, fathers and preschool teachers employing The Inventory of Child Individual Differences (Halverson et al., 2003) at T1 and one year later, at time 2 (T2). At both times, the teachers also assessed the childrens social behaviour, completing The Social Competence and Behaviour Evaluation Scale (LaFreniere et al., 2001). Both of the parents independently filled in The Family Environment Questionnaire (Zupancic et al., 2004) at T1 and The Coloured Progressive Matrices (Raven et al., 2001) were individually administered to each child at T2 to obtain his/her non-verbal intelligence score. Child personality at age three predicted personality characteristics and social behaviour at age four, but not non-verbal intelligence. The family characteristics and the childs age of entry did not significantly improve this prediction. Furthermore, the child characteristics (personality, non-verbal intelligence and social behaviour) were compared between children who entered preschool early, when a one year parental leave was over, those who remained in parental care for the next two years, and those who attended non-parental care prior to preschool entry at age three. At T1, the early entry group scored lower on internalizing and higher on externalizing behaviour than did the remaining late entry groups. These differences appeared non-significant at T2.

The role of early childhood personality in the developmental course of social adjustment

This study explored children, preschool, and family characteristics that contribute to individual differences in the developmental trajectories of social competence and internalizing and externalizing behavior. Teachers reported on personality and social adjustment of 304 children at ages 3, 4, 5, and 6 years. Predictors of social adjustment included: (1) children’s gender and the ratings of extraversion, conscientiousness, disagreeableness, and neuroticism; (2) maternal and paternal education, and parent-reported parenting practices at the beginning of the study; and (3) the child’s age of entry to preschool. Child social adjustment was most strongly predicted by teacher-rated child personality. The change in a child’s rank-order position on social competence was related to the change in the rank-order position on extraversion; the change in internalizing behavior was related particularly to a change in neuroticism, and the change in externalizing behavior especially to a change in disagreeableness. Specific family variables and the child’s age at the time of entry into preschool played a minor but statistically significant role.

Broad and Narrow Personality Traits Predicting Academic Achievement Over Compulsory Schooling A Cross-Sectional Study in Two Countries

Incremental predictive value of 5 broad and 13 narrow personality traits for academic achievement over and beyond age, gender, parental education, and country was examined in Russian and Slovene 8- to 15-year-olds. Personality data were collected from mothers (Russia: N = 994, Slovenia: N = 624) and adolescents (Russia: N = 481, Slovenia: N = 310) using the Inventory of Child Individual Differences–Short. Final grades in mathematics and Russian/Slovene language were considered as measures of academic success. The broad and the narrow traits predicted the grades, improving the criteria variance by 11% to 14% and 15% to 19%, respectively, over the background variables. Across the countries, informants and school subjects, younger age, higher parental education, female gender, openness (especially subjectively perceived intelligence), and low extraversion predicted academic achievements. Mother-assessed conscientiousness (especially low distractibility) was also predictive of school grades.

Early Versus Late Entry to Preschool: Some Developmental Implications

SUMMARY This study explores the relationship between cognitive, motor, social and personality development of 3-year-old children and the age of their entry into preschool, which ranged from 10 to 45 months. 247 children from 17 preschools in different regions of Slovenia, all implementing the same National Curriculum, participated. Preschool teachers assessed the social behaviour of the participating children on the Social Competence and Behaviour Evaluation Scale. Individual child personality differences were rated independently by their mothers and fathers, and by their preschool teachers using a recently developed culturally- and age-decentred Inventory of Childrens Individual Differences. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II were individually administered to each child, providing an evaluation of the childs mental and motor developmental status and the childs behaviour during the application of the Mental and Motor Scales. Groups of children who entered preschool at different ages (10 to 15 months, 16 to 30 months and 31 to 45 months) and came from different educational backgrounds (low, middle or high parental education) were compared with respect to the above indicators of their development, while controlling for the quality of parental care (stimulation, affection and demandingness). The results suggest that early entry per se does not present a risk factor for later developmental problems, however, it is associated with sociability, assertiveness and absence of internalising problems. Furthermore, parental educational level is linked to several of the childrens personality traits as perceived by their care givers (mothers, fathers and teachers), mostly to those representing the cognitive aspect of personality, although the differences in parental educational level are not reflected in the childrens actual performance on the Mental Developmental Scale.

A day in the lives of older adults: what makes them happy?

The aim of the present study was to examine how older adults (N = 84; 51 females; aged 65 to 91 years) in Slovenia spend their time and what they experience throughout the day. The contribution of these activities and their experiences to participants’ subjective well-being was also explored. Using the Day Reconstruction Method, the participants reported how much time during the preceding day they spent in different activities, the level of hedonia (presence of positive and absence of negative emotionality) and eudaimonia (meaning, focus, usefulness) experienced during each activity in the past day, and their general satisfaction with the day. In addition, they assessed their overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Vast individual differences in time-use and in subjective perceptions of various activities were revealed. Overall, certain activities were related to older adults’ well-being, although it seems that subjective perceptions of activities are more important than activities themselves.

Types of separation-individuation in relation to mothers and fathers among young people entering adulthood

ABSTRACT This paper presents a study on emerging adults’ separation-individuation in relation to parents from a person-centred perspective. The participants, aged 18 through 28 years (N = 2040, 73% female), offered self-reports on separation-individuation in relation to their mother and father separately. We used the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults (Komidar, L., M. Zupančič, G. Sočan, and M. Puklek Levpušček. 2014. “Development and construct validation of the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults (ITEA).” Journal of Personality Assessment 96 (5): 503–514), specifically designed to tap individuation issues in emerging adulthood. Clustering procedures revealed four internally replicable and structurally consistent types across parents, representing the current relationship dynamics of parent – child relationships. The consistency analysis of cross-parent type membership suggested that about a half of the participants were assigned to the same type of separation-individuation in relation to their mother and father. We considered the individuated-related and the individuated-independent type as healthy separated-individuated yet distinct types, whereas the anxious and the dependent type reflected likely difficulties in separation-individuation. The type membership was significantly associated with the participants’ age, gender, and adult role transitions.

Personality, Life Events, and Three Components of Subsequent Subjective Well-Being in Female University Students

The study investigated the effect of personality traits (wave 1), change in personality traits over a one-year time period (from wave 1 to wave 2), and life events over the past year (wave 2 reports) on three components of female university students’ (N = 280; mean age 20.2 years) subsequent (wave 2) subjective well-being, i.e. emotional (EWB), psychological (PWB), and social (SoWB). We applied the Big Five Inventory to evaluate personality, the Scale of Significant Life Events in Emerging Adulthood to assess the number of life events and student-perceived influence of these events on their lives, and the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form to measure EWB, PWB, and SoWB. Each of the Big Five traits played a significant and somewhat different role in predicting subsequent levels of the components of well-being, over and beyond background variables. Baseline levels of Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and positive life events were associated with both EWB and PWB. Whereas an increase in Extraversion and a decrease in Neuroticism predicted EWB, an increase in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness contributed to PWB. Baseline levels of Extraversion and an increase in Agreeableness were also predictive of SoWB. In support to the validity of the three-component model of well-being, the findings suggest the Big Five as a significant force in shaping different aspects of female students’ well-being differentially, whereas the important but not extremely adverse or favourable life events within the past year show little influence above the effects of personality.