Do children use the big five, too? Content and structural form in personality description

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Personality Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• The Role Construct Repertory Test (Kelly, 1955) is a method for eliciting personal constructs.
• Previous research indicates adults frequently use trait attributions when describing personality.
• Understanding children's personality conceptualizations is crucial for developmental and educational psychology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the content and structure of personality descriptions generated by 11-year-old children.
• To compare children's personality constructs with adult trait attribution patterns.
• To investigate how structural form and content domain of constructs relate to child and target characteristics.

Main Methods:

• Content analysis of free personality descriptions from the Role Construct Repertory Test.
• Coding constructs by structural form (habits, preferences, traits) and Big Five personality domain (e.g., Agreeableness, Conscientiousness).
• Statistical analysis of construct usage in relation to target likability and age.

Main Results:

• Children generated constructs across all Big Five personality domains, with Agreeableness being most frequent.
• Less than half of children's Big Five constructs were expressed as personality traits, unlike adult patterns.
• The structural form of children's constructs varied systematically with the personality domain and target characteristics.

Conclusions:

• Children's conceptualization of personality is multifaceted, encompassing all Big Five domains but differing in structural expression from adults.
• Agreeableness is a salient domain for personality description even in preadolescence.
• Factors such as target likability and age significantly influence how children describe personality.