The Effects Of Temperament And Parental Style On Resilience In Preschoolers Aged3to5

Resilience refers to the ability of adapting stress or adversity in life, which is common anddevelopmental. Resilience can help individuals cope successfully with risk situations to ensuregood results. It is significant to people’s survival and development. Among critical periods inhuman life is early childhood, which is of great importance to the formation of individualbehavior, personality and ability. Also it may play the similar essential role in the development ofresilience. Therefore, it’s important both in the theoretical and practical values to conductsystematic studies of resilience in preschoolers from the developmental perspective. Consideringthat there is no effective measurement of resilience in preschoolers in China, the present studyfirstly revised the DECA-P2, a mature assessment of preschoolers’ resilience in American, andexamined the reliability and validity of the Chinese version. Subjects were608preschoolers whowere3to5years old and came from two districts of Hangzhou. Moreover, the present studyinvestigated the developmental levels and characteristics of these preschoolers’ resilience. Inaddition, the effects of temperament and parental style on resilience in preschoolers and the agedifferences have been studied by using scales or questionnaires and establishing structuralequation model. The main results are as follows:Firstly, the Chinese version of DECA-P2has acceptable psychometric quality and can beapplied to evaluating resilience in children aged from3to5in China.Secondly, there were significant differences in age and gender for the two subscales of TotalProtective Factors and Behavior Concern for Chinese preschoolers. The level of resilience of5-year-old preschoolers were higher than that of children aged3to4, and5-year-oldpreschoolers had less problem behaviors; the level of resilience of girls was higher than that ofboys, and girls had less problem behaviors as well.Thirdly, with the increasing ages, the impact of temperament on resilience varied. Alldimensions of temperament could not predict resilience of3-year-old preschoolers. Effortfulcontrol could positively predict4-year-old preschoolers’ resilience. Negative affect couldnegatively predict5-year-old preschoolers’ resilience. Fourthly, with the increasing ages, the impact of parental style on resilience varied. Alldimensions of parental style could not predict resilience of preschoolers aged3and4.Authoritative parenting style could positively predict resilience of5-year-old preschoolers.Fifthly, temperament and parenting style had joint influence on preschoolers’ resilience.Specifically speaking, negative affect had direct effects on resilience of5-year-old preschoolers,and also impact it indirectly through authoritative parenting style. Moreover, effortful controlcould influence resilience of5-year-old preschoolers totally through authoritative parenting style.