| Temperament is often regarded as biologically based psychological tendencies with intrinsic paths of development. The existing research findings reveal that the development of temperament plays a unique role in protesting and understanding children's personality and socialization in the future. With emphasis on the enhancement of people's quality in 21st century, research on children's temperament will be of great value in developing developmental theories and promoting children's healthy personality development. Since the 1980s, developmental psychologists outside China have conducted a large quantity of research, both empirical and theoretical, in this area of children's temperament. This has made it one of the most active and important research areas in child psychology. In contrast, systematic research efforts have been rare in China's developmental psychology, and the general tendencies of the development of children's temperament in Chinese culture remain a big area to be explored.As the first step in the present dissertation, a comprehensive literature review is made with regard to the important empirical findings, major theoretical models as well as the research deficiency.The purpose of this study is to reveal the developmental levels x types and trends of Chinese children's temperament aged 3 to 9, to develop indigenous instrument, and to examine the relationship between temperament and self-delay of gratification in children, between temperament and peer relationship, between temperament and altruism. On the basis of these, five related studies were presented following the objectives set forth in this research.In the first study, based on the open questionnaires that Chinese teachers provided of their students' characteristics, one temperament questionnaires for ages 3 to 9 was developed. Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis were conducted using AMOS and SPSS in attempt to testify the temperament structure and types of Chinese children. The characteristics of Chinese children's temperament were further explored.In the second study, a follow-up study on 140 children's temperament was conducted by using observation and interview.In the third study, we explored the relationship between children's temperament and self-delay of gratification by lab experiments, video analysis and questionnaires.In the fourth study, the relationship between children's temperament and peer relationship was examined by using Field-Nomination Measure and questionnaire.In the fifth study, we explored the causal relationships among children's temperament, types of parents' authority and altruism.The major findings in the above five studies are as following:1 .The questionnaire of children's temperament has high reliability and validity so that it can be used by teachers and researchers to evaluate children's temperament.2.The structure of Chinese children aged 3-9 is a multifactor, which involves five aspects: emotionality, activity, reaction, social inhibition and attention.3. There is a distinct age difference in development of children's temperament. And the key period of children's temperament is from age 3 to age 5. However, every aspect hasdifferent developmental condition, with activity being the most stability factor and other four aspects having greater variabilities across ages.4.Chinese children's temperament has sex differences: girls' level of attention is higher than boys'; in contrast, boys' levels of activity and emotion are higher than girls'.5.Chinese children's temperament can be divided into five types: activity, attention, inhibition, mean and agility, and every type has its own characteristics.6.Children's self-delay of gratification has age differences and its developmental key period is about age 4. There is a distinct relationship between children's temperament and self-delay of gratification, the characteristics of well-developed children's temperament on self-delay of retardation are low activity, active emotion, persistence and low impulsive.
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