PERSONALITY TRAITS 'CONTAGIOUS' AMONG CHILDREN

by Guest Thu Feb 16, 2017 8:19 am

When preschoolers spend time around one another, they tend to take on each others’ personalities, indicates a new study by Michigan State University psychology researchers. The study, published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suggests personality is shaped by environment and not just genes.

“Our finding, that personality traits are ‘contagious’ among children, flies in the face of common assumptions that personality is ingrained and can’t be changed,” said Jennifer Watling Neal, associate professor of psychology and co-investigator on the study. “This is important because some personality traits can help children succeed in life, while others can hold them back.”

The researchers studied two preschool classes for an entire school year, analyzing personality traits and social networks for one class of 3-year-olds and one class of 4-year-olds.

Children whose play partners were extroverted or hard-working became similar to these peers over time. Children whose play partners were overanxious and easily frustrated, however, did not take on these particular traits. The study is the first to examine these personality traits in young children over time.
Emily Durbin, study co-investigator and associate professor of psychology, said kids are having a bigger effect on each other than people may realize.

“Parents spend a lot of their time trying to teach their child to be patient, to be a good listener, not to be impulsive,” Durbin said. “But this wasn’t their parents or their teachers affecting them – it was their friends. It turns out that 3- and 4-year-olds are being change agents.”

MSU doctoral students Allison Gornik and Sharon Lo co-authored the study.

http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/personality-traits-contagious-among-children/

Interesting, but clearly those children with the positive traits were taught them by someone as well, likely parents or siblings ect. Shame it does not offer more on he study to read.

by eddie Thu Feb 16, 2017 9:51 am

I was going to say exactly what you just said: basically a positive and happy child gets those influences in their first years of infancy, at home.

by Guest Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:01 am

eddie wrote:I was going to say exactly what you just said: basically a positive and happy child gets those influences in their first years of infancy, at home.

Yeah, it did not make much sense, by discounting this.
I am sure there is merit to influence at pre-schools, but this requires further investigation

by Syl Thu Feb 16, 2017 12:34 pm

I also think that a childs main influence are the parents, and that starts almost from birth.

Young kids can be very choosy with who they play with, I think they learn instinctively who shares the same personality traits as they do. No doubt they do change behaviour when with other same age kids in order to fit in, but the main influence, and the people they will most be influenced by at such a young age will be the parents.

Also, if this study is correct, how come children take on the personalities of the extrovert kids but not the introverted ones?

by eddie Thu Feb 16, 2017 3:17 pm

Extroverts always get noticed in classrooms and it's really too easily done, that other quieter children get overlooked. I've seen it with my own eyes.
It's normally the quiet Indian children who don't say much too.

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