Early Child Personality Ratings Predicting Developmental Outcomes in the Last Pre-school Year

The study investigated the predictive validity of three-year-old children’s personality ratings by parents and pre-school teachers in explaining pre-schoolers’ (N = 253) social behaviour and intelligence two years later. Parental variables (education, self-reported parenting practices) and age of a child’s entry into pre-school were also accounted for but did not significantly contribute to the child outcomes. The reduced models with significant predictors explained 14%, 7%, 16% and 2% of variance in teacher reports on children’s social competence, internalising behaviour, externalising behaviour and non-verbal intelligence score, respectively. Early personality ratings were predictive of later outcomes in pre-schoolers. Teacher-rated child conscientiousness/openness was associated with social competence and low incidence of externalising behaviour in pre-school, whereas ratings of extraversion/emotional stability were negatively related to internalising but positively linked to children’s externalising behaviour. The latter was also predicted by teacher-observed early disagreeableness. Parents’ ratings of child extraversion predicted low levels of internalising behaviour in pre-school, and their perceptions of conscientiousness were predictive of children’s intelligence two years later.