Observed Personality in Preschool: Associations with Current and Longitudinal Symptoms.

Observed Personality in Preschool: Associations with Current and Longitudinal Symptoms. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2019 Jun 13;: Authors: Gilbert KE, Whalen DJ, Tillman R, Barch DM, Luby JL, Jackson JJ Abstract Personality is consistently associated with psychopathology across the lifespan. However, little is known of how observed personality dimensions in preschoolers are associated with concurrent or longitudinal symptoms across development. Spectrum, vulnerability, and pathopolasty models theorize how child personality and psychopathology are related across development. The current study tests these three models using observationally coded personality dimensions in a longitudinal sample of preschoolers. A validated 'thin slice' technique was used to code observed Five Factor Model (FFM) personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience in a clinically enriched preschool sample oversampled for depression (N = 299). Children were followed longitudinally for 9 years while assessing dimensional psychological symptoms and global functioning. Longitudinal multilevel models testing the spectrum, or shared underlying factor model, indicated depressive symptoms in adolescence were predicted by higher preschool extraversion and lower agreeableness and conscientiousness, externalizing symptoms were predicted by lower agreeableness and higher neuroticism, and worse global funct...
Source: Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: J Abnorm Child Psychol Source Type: research