Children’s early difficulty and agreeableness in adolescence: Testing a developmental model of interplay of parent and child effects.

Abstract

Although the trait of Agreeableness is broadly considered a key facet of adjustment, mental health, and socioemotional competence, surprisingly little is known about its developmental origins. Laursen and Richmond (2014) proposed that children’s early difficulty poses a challenge for their future social relationships, ultimately leading to low Agreeableness. Drawing from that model, we examined a path to Agreeableness in adolescence, originating in children’s early temperamental difficulty and involving bidirectional effects of parenting and children’s self-regulation. In a community sample of 102 mothers, fathers, and children, we assessed children’s difficulty at age 3, and parental power-assertive discipline and children’s self-regulation at ages 4.5 and 5.5, using behavioral observations in lengthy interactive contexts and in standard laboratory paradigms. Agreeableness at age 14 was modeled as a latent construct, derived from mothers’, fathers’, and teachers’ ratings. Model-fitting analyses, testing the unfolding developmental path from child difficulty to Agreeableness while controlling for continuity of parental power assertion and child self-regulation, supported a process linking early difficulty with Agreeableness at age 14 through transactions over time between the child’s self-regulation and power-assertive parenting. The findings highlight the early dynamics of children’s temperament characteristics and parenting in the origins of Agreeableness.

Health Literacy and Personality Traits in Two Types of Family Structure—A Cross-Sectional Study in China

“…This study found that individuals with higher agreeableness were more likely to have higher level of health literacy. Agreeableness plays an important part in children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ social functioning ( Kochanska and Kim, 2020 ). Agreeableness was positively related to parental warmth, responsiveness and authoritative parenting in general, which could promote more positive emotion regulation in children ( Coplan et al, 2009 ).…”

On the Rocky Road to Independence: Big Five Personality Traits and Locus of Control in Polish Primary School Students during Transition into Early Adolescence

“…The results indicated that Agreeableness, correlated weakly with locus of control of success and locus of control of failure, and moderately with a generalized locus of control. In light of the research, Agreeableness is broadly considered a key facet of adjustment, motivation to maintain positive interpersonal relations, mental health, and socioemotional competence [ 97 ]. In a longitudinal study of a sample of early adolescents, Jensen-Campbell et al [ 130 ] showed that Agreeableness was associated with both peer acceptance and friendship.…”

“…In light of the research, we also assumed different relationships between personality traits and locus of control as different personality traits may have different influence on the locus of control. Some traits promote internal, while others promote external locus of control in adolescents [ 78 , 79 , 96 , 97 ].…”

Personality and Social Relationships: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go

“…A second source are parenting effects on children. Indeed, empirical evidence exists for such effects, including prospective associations between dominant parenting and lower Communion (Kochanska & Kim, 2020). Importantly, associations between parent ing and child behavior can not only be due to parents' effects on their kids (e.g., parents' cold parenting style causing low Self-Control in kids) but also the other way round (i.e., children's low levels of Self-Control causing a cold parenting style; e.g., Kochanska & Kim, 2020).…”