Search

Depressive symptoms have been represented in the research and clinical literature in terms of both an episodic phenomenon and as enduring individual differences. We investigated depressive symptoms longitudinally in a sample of older adults. Participants were 737 individuals (M(Age) = 73 years initially, 39% women) in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging who provided biennial Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression data on up to five occasions over an 8-year period. We found both trait and state-residual variability, with symptoms increasing longitudinally on all subscales and accounting for an approximately 1-point increase per decade. Trait-like variability accounted for at least two thirds of the reliable variance. Interindividual differences were consistent over time, but occasion-specific variability diminished across occasions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood personality is a rapidly growing area of investigation within individual differences research. One understudied topic is the universality of the hierarchical structure of childhood personality. In the present investigation, parents rated the personality characteristics of 3,751 children from 5 countries and 4 age groups. The hierarchical structure of childhood personality was examined for 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-factor models across country (Canada, China, Greece, Russia, and the United States) and age group (3-5, 6-8, 9-11, and 12-14 years of age). Many similarities were noted across both country and age. The Five-Factor Model was salient beginning in early childhood (ages 3-5). Deviations across groups and from adult findings are noted, including the prominent role of antagonism in childhood personality and the high covariation between Conscientiousness and intellect. Future directions, including the need for more explicit attempts to merge temperament and personality models, are discussed., (© 2011 The Authors. Journal of Personality © 2011, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

As more researchers utilize the Five-factor model (FFM) of personality with children and adolescents, the need for instruments designed specifically for use with children and adolescents increases. In the United States, the 108-item Inventory of Children's Individual Differences (ICID; Halverson et al., 2003), has provided researchers with an age and culture neutral instrument designed specifically to assess the FFM of personality in children and adolescents, ages 2 to 15, using parental, nonparental, or self-reports. This article presents a shorter, 50-item version of the ICID (the ICID-S) that maintains the levels of validity and reliability previously established for the full instrument.

The purpose of this study was to investigate convergent and discriminant validity of the five-factor model of adolescent personality in a school setting using three different raters (methods): self-ratings, peer ratings, and teacher ratings. The authors investigated validity through a multitrait-multimethod matrix and a confirmatory factor analysis correlated trait, uncorrelated method model. With the exception of Emotional Stability, each analysis demonstrated similar patterns and together provided support for the convergent and discriminant validity of the five-factor model structure of adolescent personality. However, among the three raters, self-ratings of personality provided a comparatively weaker method for assessing adolescent personality. The influences of agreement between self and other raters are discussed in relation to contrast, perceiver, and target effects; expert observer effects; the degree of acquaintanceship; and the effect of the social context.

Concepts such as "agreement," "consensus," "understanding," and "shared meaning" are very familiar to clinicians. It is argued in this article that similarity in perceptions between spouses is a crucial dimension of the family system underlying these concepts. Findings are presented that support the idea that families vary along a dimension of similarity of perceptions, with more functional families characterized by high similarity between spouses' perceptions of their marriage and their family. In addition, the structure of this similarity was stable over 2 years and little change occurred in the mean level of similarity. Of three sets of predictor variables--psychological stress, marital cohesion, and structural variables--marital cohesion was the most powerful predictor of marital similarity. The importance of similarity of perceptions between family members in clinical work is discussed.

A global measure of newborn constitutional adequacy was found to be positively related to competent functioning at the age of 5-6 years. In a sample of 15 boys and 5 girls, newborn constitutional adequacy was related to aspects of focused (versus unfocused) activity, outgoingness, cognitive and verbal ability, and motor skill at the early childhood follow-up. Additionally, some preschool data were available on most of the sample and continuity of competent functioning was traced across the 3 age periods. Also, hyperactive behaviors at the preschool period had negative implications for functioning in early childhood.

The present study replicated and extended earlier findings on the relationship between minor physical anomalies and several classes of problem behavior in an unselected group of elementary school children. Teachers and peers were the judges of problem behavior. The problem checklist and a teacher ranking of hyperactivity were related to the incidence of minor physical anomalies for boys. A negative peer factor was also consistently related to the incidence of minor physical anomalies for both boys and girls. The behavior of high-anomaly girls was not easily characterized in terms of any one type of problem behavior. Sex differences and their implications are discussed.

From a 5-to 10-minute newborn examination, behaviors of males at age 3 could be predicted. The number of minor physical anomalies, assessed soon after birth, was significantly related to a cluster of behaviors that are frequently labeled hyperactivity.

Two-year follow-up data for an ostensibly normal sample of children who had been previously characterized on a number of behavior problem dimensions by their teachers and peers were analyzed. In addition, 1-year follow-up data were presented for a group of extreme behavior children from the same school. The behavior dimensions of Distractibility and Conduct Problem were fairly stable over 2 years for girls and boys. In addition, Inadequacy-Immaturity was stable for girls and may mark more severe behavior problems for young girls. Behavior problems of young girls were more predictive of later achievement difficulties while behavior problems of boys were more predictive of peer and teacher difficulty. Finally, teacher's clinical judgement was demonstrated to be useful for indexing behavior for hyperactive boys.

In the present paper, I critique the use of the retrospective method when it is used as a proxy for actual longitudinal data on personality development. Studies on the constructive nature of memory cast strong doubts about the meaning of retrospective data. There are good reasons, both theoretical and empirical, to distrust the accuracy of such recall concerning parenting, whether recalled by parents, children, or siblings. Instead of using the method as a shortcut to developmental data, studies examining individual differences in accuracy and distortion and the factors that moderate them may inform us of the various meanings of retrospective data.

To test the inversion of intensity interpretation based on negative relations between newborn and preschool intensity behaviors (Bell, Weller, & Waldrop 1971), 106 normal children were examined at the neonatal and preschool periods. Data analyses were carried out in 2 parts: Part I was an attempt to reconstruct the same measures of intensity Bell et al. used at both periods, and Part II was a broader factor analytic analysis using all measures conceptually related to intensity in the neonatal and preschool periods. In Part I, several correlations were in the direction consistent with inversion, but only 1 of 20 correlations reached significance. In Part II, several significant correlations between intensity behavior at newborn and preschool periods were obtained, indicating intense newborn behavior to be related to low levels of socially negative behaviors. Interpretations of intensity behaviors at both periods and their longitudinal relations are discussed.

Recent research on parental agreement on child-rearing values has found it to be positively related to effective parenting. The exact nature of the relation, however, is not clear. Are they different constructs, or is agreement simply one more variable that describes effective parenting? A sample of 136 families and their preschool children was studied by observation and an extensive self-report questionnaire package. Parental agreement was assessed using the Block Child-rearing Practices Report. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the agreement score rarely added any information not already provided by the parental effectiveness scores. A Q-factor analysis revealed that the agreement score actually represented agreement to a standard of good parenting. The parents who were high agreers were good parents who agreed with other good parents, while the low agreers were ineffective parents who disagreed with other parents, good or bad. Implications of these results for future research on parental agreement are discussed.

The development of a new observational measure of family functioning using a Q-sort methodology is described. The Q-sort is one way of obtaining observer measures of family that complements both microcoding and global ratings of family processes. Evidence for construct validity is presented along with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the Q-sort approach to family observation.

The present paper reports on the development of a modified problem checklist for use in normal samples of elementary school children. The two factors, Hypersensitivity and Distractibility, replicated over male and female samples. Hypersensitivity showed a significant grade effect, with a decrease between the first and second grade for both boys and girls. In contrast, boys scored higher than girls on Distractibility and there were no grade differences. Convergent validitiy data from peer judgments, in-class activity level, physical fitness measures, standardized achievement scores, and a comparison with another teacher judgment are presented. In addition, three Behavioral Problem Checklist (Quay & Peterson, 1967) dimensions, Conduct Problem, Personality Problem, and Inadequacy--Immaturity, were developed and their relationships to the independent measures, as well as to the new dimensions, are presented. The pattern of correlations of Distractibility was quite similar for boys and girls, with both being rated as Mean-Noisy by their peers. The findings for Hypersensitivity were somewhat weaker. Distractibility and Conduct Problem scores reflected a similar pattern of correlations with other variables; in a like manner, Hypersensitivity and Personality Problem scores reflected a similar pattern of correlations with other variables. Distractibility was related to an increased activity level and Hypersensitivity was related to a decreased activity level in young boys. The total number of behavior problems was related to a decrease in activity level for young girls. Older Distractible and Hypersensitive girls showed different patterns of activity level. It is proposed that problem behavior is more complex for older children and that Distractibility may be less influenced by the usual socialization process of school than is Hypersensitivity and may have some congenital antecedents.