Abstract
Many previous studies suggest that children do not begin to think of others' as possessing stable personality characteristics and abilities until they reach approximately 8 years of age. Other studies, however, have questioned these findings. The present experiments demonstrate that young children's ability to understand the stability of traits and personality characteristics is limited and does not emerge as adult-like until relatively late in childhood. In a first experiment, 24 kindergartners and 23 second- through fourth-graders made quantitative predictions of future generous behavior and ratings of kindness for peers given 2 pieces of behavioral information, the actor's motivational state and the valence (positive action vs. negative action) of the current behavior. This experiment indicated that young children do not incorporate the motive information that suggested that a behavior was trait-related or, not trait-related when making predictions of future generous behavior. In a second experiment, 25 kindergartners and 24 second- through fourthgraders were presented with quantitative or non-quantitative story information about a previous positive or negative behavior of a peer. The response criterion was the same quantitative response measure as in experiment 1. This experiment indicated that when given explicit quantitative information and presented with a quantitative response format, young children gave appropriate responses, which made them appear to understand the stability of personality characteristics. However, when not given explicit quantitative information in the stories, the children appeared to rely on global strategies such as giving all actors a similar rating.
Allen, Elizabeth Ann (1993). Assessment of children's understanding of dispositional stability. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1993 -THESIS -A4253.