Personality and Emotional Development in Early Childhood
Personality
The 'Dunedin Study' is a world-leading longitudinal study following 1,023 individuals in New Zealand. Research from this study suggests that personality traits at age 26 are laid down by the age of three years (Caspi et al., 2003). The work of Caspi et al. (2003) indicates that:
- toddlers who are ‘undercontrolled’ [impulsive, restless, negativistic, distractible, and emotionally unstable] grow up to be impulsive, unreliable and antisocial adults.
- three-year-olds who are ‘well-adusted’ [self-confident and capable of self-control] tend to become well-adjusted adults.
Emotional and social development are interrelated.
As children age there is increased
- use of emotional language
- learning about causes and consequences of feelings
- ability to reflect on emotions
- need to control and manage emotions to meet social standards
Here's a cool video about the very early years:
The 3 Stages of Emotional Child Development
From two to three years old, young children tend to
- display a rapid increase in emotional vocabulary
- label simple emotions in self and others correctly; can talk about past, present, and future emotions
- talk about causes and consequences of some emotions; identify emotions associated with certain situations
- use emotion language in pretend play
From four to five years old, they
- show an increased ability to reflect verbally on emotions and consider more complex relations between emotions and situations
- understand that same event may create different feelings in different people and that feelings may last long after the events that caused them
- show growing awareness and ability to control and manage emotions in accordance with social standards
**Note: We will return to social and emotional development in infancy in the coming weeks when we look at attachment theory and the highly influential work of German-American developmental psychologist Erik Erikson.