Abstract:

Over the past few decades, personality researchers have suggested that personality during childhood is significantly more changeable, but much less is known about how do children’ personality traits typically develop. Additionally, as development may be faster paced in children, shorter time-intervals may be necessary to capture changes. Moreover, it is important to take into account the possibility of gender differences and age differences in Personality development during childhood. The present study investigated personality development in Chinese children from 6 to 12 years old，including the development characteristics of different ages and genders. The study adopted a longitudinal study with a cohort-sequential design to examine personality development in nine cohorts of children who were, respectively, 6 - 6.5, 6.5 - 7, 7 - 7.5, 7.5 - 8, 8 - 8.5, 8 - 8.5, 8.5 - 9, 9 - 9.5, 9.5 - 10 and 10 - 10.5 years of age at the first measurement. The study was designed 4 waves in total, which measurement was taken every six months. There were 1318 Chinese primary school students (667 boys, 651 girls) participated in this research .Teachers reported on the children’s personality dimensions by filling out the Teacher-Reported Personality Inventory for Children. The questionnaire is derived from the lexical tradition, based on an extensive analysis of free teacher-descriptions of their students. This instrument includes 62 items, assessing 15 facets that are hierarchically structured under five higher order domains. The higher order domains are labeled as follows: (1) Extraversion (11 items), (2) Prosociality (13 items), (3) Conscientiousness (16 items), (4) Emotional Stability (8 items) and (5) Intelligent (14 items). Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale. The questionnaire is reliable(Cronbach's Alpha=0.97, spilit half reliability=0.91, retest reliability=0.73, rater consistence reliability by teachers=0.82) and valid(χ2 / df=3.09，RMSEA=0.04，SRMR=0.05). In the study, the Latent Growth Curve Model (LGM) and Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) are used to deal with data. The multiple group analysis of the Latent Growth Curve Model was applied to decide whether the nine cohorts all had the same developmental trend. If the single coherent trajectory existed, we applied the Hierarchical Linear Model to deal with data to explore the age and gender characteristics of children’s personality development. The results showed that: (1) Throughout the primary school stage, Conscientiousness was a consistent linear increase in developmental trend. (2) The Intelligent, Extroversion, Prosociality and Emotional Stability exhibits a curvilinear pattern during childhood. Specifically, rapid development in 6-8 years, smooth development in 8-10 years and downward trend in 10-12 years. (3) Intelligent initial values were higher for girls than those of boys at age 6 and for the whole primary stage, the developmental rate of girls were faster than boys’. Finally, findings of this study provide a theoretical basis for personality education for children in elementary school. The school should develop adequate education programs to foster the development of positive personality traits, based on the developmental characteristics of children’s personality.

摘要：

研究采用整群抽样法选取9个年龄群组小学生为被试，应用群组序列追踪设计，进行为期一年半4个时间点的测量，并运用潜变量增长曲线模型和多层线性模型进行数据分析，探讨了6-12岁儿童人格的年龄和性别发展特点。结果发现：（1）在整个小学阶段，认真自控呈持续的线性上升发展，智能特征、外倾性、亲社会性、情绪稳定性的发展呈现出先快速发展，而后发展放缓，在高年级出现下降的趋势。（2）女孩的认真自控在6岁时的初始值高于男孩，而且在整个小学阶段内的发展速度也快于男孩。