The Self-Concepts of 5-Year-Old Children: Integrating Temperament and Narrative Socialization
Agathen, Jean Marie
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/82300
Description
Title
The Self-Concepts of 5-Year-Old Children: Integrating Temperament and Narrative Socialization
Author(s)
Agathen, Jean Marie
Issue Date
1999
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Sarah Mangelsdorf
Department of Study
Psychology
Discipline
Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Speech Communication
Language
eng
Abstract
This study examined the ways in which the self-concepts of 5-year-old children are related to their temperament and to their mothers, narratives about their characteristics and experiences. One hundred and two 5-year-olds and their parents participated. Mothers and fathers completed separate questionnaires about the children's temperament. Mothers were also asked to tell several narratives: about the day the child was born, about the two most salient characteristics of the child, and about a happy and a not-so-happy experience the child had had. The children provided a self-report of personality by responding to a self-concept measure on videotape. Results indicated that the children's self-concepts were related both to parents, views of their temperament and to the content of mothers' narratives. Particularly salient were the associations involving parents' reports of the children's negative affect, and/or children's self-reports of harm-avoidance and negative affect, which must be areas in which young children receive a great deal of feedback from their parents. Mothers, narratives and parents' temperament reports provided different sets of associations with children's self-concepts, confirming the importance of using various methods to investigate relevant influences. In addition, mothers' stories about the children's most salient characteristics provided striking evidence of the importance that mothers place on the trait of sociability, both with family members and with friends, in 5-year-old children. The stories also provided evidence of mothers, use of narratives as a tool of gender socialization.
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