engleski

Can parents' personality traits predict the child's executive function difficulties?

A considerable amount of research has determined the connection between certain personality traits and cognitive abilities, while research focused on the connection between parents’ personality and their children’s cognitive abilities is lacking. This study aimed to explore possible predictors of children’s executive function (EF), assessed by mothers on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) questionnaire. More precisely, it was tested whether mothers’ and fathers’ personality traits can predict a child’s assessed EF difficulties. The research sample consists of 1101 triads (child-mother- father) who participated in the ‘’CHILD WELL’’ project. Children’s average age was 10.48 years (SD = 1.16, 48% male). Relevant socio-demographic variables were controlled for in the first step of the hierarchical regression analysis: child’s gender, age, family structure (intact family vs. other), parent’s education level, family income, and parent’s perceived socio-economic status (SES). The personality traits were assessed in the shortened version of the Big Five Inventory, derived from International 150 Personality Item Pool, measuring conscientiousness, neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and openness. Mother’s perceived SES (β = -.17, p < .01), child’s gender (β = -.15, p < .01), and family structure (β = .11, p < .01) were significant predictors of the EF (R2 =.09, F(8, 823) = 10.30, p < .01). Adding the mother’s personality traits significantly increased the amount of the variance explained (ΔR2= .11, F(5, 818) = 15.57, p < .01), with neuroticism (β = .25, p < .01), extroversion (β = -.14, p < .01), and conscientiousness (β = -.08, p < .05), being significant predictors of EF. Moreover, adding the father’s personality traits significantly increased (ΔR2 = .01, F(5, 813) = 12.20, p < .05) the variance explained, with neuroticism (β = .08, p< .05), and openness (β = -.08, p < .05) showing significance. Altogether, the model explains 21% of the criteria variance. The contribution of this study is connecting the parent’s personality with the child’s EF. The results show that both mother’s and father’s personality traits possibly play a role in explaining executive functioning. Adding mother’s personality traits explained more variance in the criteria (ΔR2 = .11) than adding father’s traits (ΔR2 = .01), which is expected considering the mothers assessed the child’s EF.

executive functions ; personality ; childhood ; Big Five

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