The Developmental Trajectory And Influencing Factors Of Preschool Children's Temperament

Temperament refers to the stable and physiological differences at reactivity and self-regulation aspects.It is helpful to understand the continuity and variability of temperament development to discuss the developmental track of preschool children's temperament as time goes on and the differences between different genders.This research adopts the "children's behavior questionnaire" and "peer relations questionnaire" to follow up 450 preschool children for one and a half years.Data were collected every six months(a total of three times)to explore the development trajectory of preschool children's temperament(positive affectivity,negative affectivity and effortful control)and its gender differences,and to explore peer relationship and family socioeconomic status influence on children's temperament trajectory.The data are analyzed by the multi-level growth model.The results show that:(1)The affectivity level of preschool children decreases linearly,and there are obvious individual differences between the initial development level and the deceleration rate.Children with higher initial level of positive affectivity have a faster rate of decline with time,while children with lower initial level of positive affectivity have a slower rate of decline with time;children with higher initial negative affectivity have a faster rate of decline,while children with lower initial negative affectivity have a slower rate of decline.(2)The effortful control of preschool children increases linearly,and there are obvious individual differences between the initial development level and the incremental rate.The children with high initial effortful control level have a faster speed of increase with the change of time.(3)There are gender differences in affectivity development.In terms of positive affectivity,the initial level of positive affectivity in boys is lower than that in girls,and the decline rate is faster than that in girls;And in terms of negative affectivity,boys' initial level of negative affectivity is lower than that of girls,but the decline rate is slower than that of girls.(4)There are gender differences in the development of effortful control.Girls' initial level of effortful control is higher than boys',but there is no difference in the rate of change in gender effortful control.(5)Peer rejection has a significant impact on the development of negative affectivity.Children with higher initial peer rejection have a slower rate of negative affectivity decline.Peer acceptance also has an important impact on the development of effortful control.Children with higher initial peer acceptance also have a higher initial level of effortful control.(6)The development of children's temperament is not affected by the social and economic status of the initial family.The above results show that the trends of positive affectivity and negative affectivity in preschool children decrease linearly and the Effortful control increase linearly;Gender affects the development of children's temperament;the development trend of children's negative affectivity is affected by peer rejection;and the development trend of children's Effortful control is affected by peer acceptance.