Linking temperament and personality traits from late childhood to adulthood by examining continuity, stability, and change.

IF 6.7 1区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

Journal of personality and social psychology Pub Date : 2025-09-18 DOI:10.1037/pspp0000576

Whitney R Ringwald,Katherine M Lawson,Aleksandra Kaurin,Richard W Robins

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Abstract

Theories of personality development emphasize the continuity between who we are as a child and who we are as an adult. The conceptual overlap in influential trait taxonomies designed for children (Rothbart's temperament model) and adults (the Big Five personality) has reinforced theories about developmental continuity, but key hypotheses remain untested because no studies have linked these trait models longitudinally. To bridge this divide, the present study used longitudinal data from a sample of 674 Mexican-origin youth who completed assessments of Rothbart's temperament traits (i.e., Negative Emotionality, Surgency, Affiliation, Effortful Control) from ages 10 to 16 and assessments of Big Five personality traits from ages 14 to 26. Leveraging two waves of overlapping temperament/personality trait assessments at ages 14 and 16, we found the following: (a) continuity between childhood/adolescent temperament and age 26 personality, with the strongest associations between conceptually similar traits, and Effortful Control predicting all Big Five traits (except Extraversion), suggesting self-regulation broadly promotes maturation; (b) temperament starts predicting adult personality traits by age 12-14, consistent with theory positing the temperamental foundations of adult personality crystallize in adolescence; (c) conceptually similar temperament/personality traits reflect different expressions of the same underlying trait from age 10 to 26, established by latent growth models of joint temperament/personality factors; and (d) mean-level personality development across late childhood to adulthood showing that all joint traits maintain consistent rank-order stability and youth increase in Effortful Control/Conscientiousness, decrease in Negative Emotionality/Neuroticism and Surgency/Extraversion, and do not change in Affiliation/Agreeableness. Findings add novel support for widely accepted-yet largely untested-theories, although some unexpected results undermine prevailing assumptions about personality trait development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

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通过检查连续性、稳定性和变化，将从童年晚期到成年的气质和人格特征联系起来。

人格发展理论强调我们作为一个孩子和我们作为一个成年人之间的连续性。为儿童（罗斯巴特的气质模型）和成人（大五人格）设计的有影响力的特质分类概念上的重叠强化了关于发展连续性的理论，但关键的假设仍然未经检验，因为没有研究将这些特质模型纵向地联系起来。为了弥合这一鸿沟，本研究使用了674名墨西哥裔青年样本的纵向数据，这些青年在10至16岁期间完成了罗斯巴特气质特征（即消极情绪、急躁、隶属、努力控制）的评估，并在14至26岁期间完成了五大人格特征的评估。利用14岁和16岁两波重叠的气质/人格特质评估，我们发现：(a)童年/青少年气质与26岁人格之间存在连续性，其中概念相似的特质与努力控制之间的相关性最强，而努力控制预测了所有五大特质（外向性除外），表明自我调节在很大程度上促进了成熟；(b)气质在12-14岁时开始预测成年人的性格特征，这与成人性格的气质基础在青春期形成的理论一致；(c)概念相似的气质/人格特质反映了10 ~ 26岁同一潜在特质的不同表达，这是由气质/人格联合因素潜在增长模型建立的；(d)从童年晚期到成年的平均水平人格发展表明，所有联合特征保持一致的等级顺序稳定性，青少年在努力控制/尽责性方面增加，消极情绪/神经质和急躁/外向性方面减少，而在亲和性/亲和性方面没有变化。尽管一些意想不到的结果削弱了关于人格特质发展的普遍假设，但这些发现为广泛接受但基本上未经检验的理论提供了新的支持。（PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA，版权所有）。

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来源期刊

Journal of personality and social psychology PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL-

CiteScore

12.70

自引率

3.90%

发文量

250

期刊介绍： Journal of personality and social psychology publishes original papers in all areas of personality and social psychology and emphasizes empirical reports, but may include specialized theoretical, methodological, and review papers.Journal of personality and social psychology is divided into three independently edited sections. Attitudes and Social Cognition addresses all aspects of psychology (e.g., attitudes, cognition, emotion, motivation) that take place in significant micro- and macrolevel social contexts.