tandfonline.com – Does personality matter? The relationship between child personality and interaction quality in preschools

ABSTRACT

Evidence indicates that children’s personalities shape their interactions and relationships with others. This study aims to identify the relationship between child personality types and interaction quality in preschools, which is of high predictive importance for the development of children’s competencies. Interaction quality was determined using the Individualized Classroom Assessment Scoring System (inCLASS) in a sample of 181 children attending 61 preschools in Austria. After including control variables, our results indicated that children characterised as ‘overcontrollers’ and ‘undercontrollers’ had significantly less peer interactions, compared to ‘resilients’. Furthermore, ‘undercontrollers’ tended to show less task orientation than ‘resilients’ and had more conflict interactions than ‘overcontrollers’. Consideration of child personality offers opportunities to support children in their interactions with others to improve interaction quality in preschools.