Poster #208 - Japanese Children’s Temperament from Early to Middle Childhood

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

In recent years, it has been revealed that children’s temperament influences various aspects of their development and their social interaction with others. Many researchers have come to recognize the importance of temperament in children’s development. A series of questionnaires based on the temperament theory developed by Rothbart is widely used in the measurement of temperament, and her temperament questionnaires for infants, young children, and adults have been confirmed their applicability and been used in Japanese samples (Hoshi & Kusanagi, 2012; Kusanagi, 1993; Nakagawa & Sukigara, 2005). However, there is no research in the development of Japanese children’s temperament from early to middle childhood.　The purpose of this research is to examine the applicability and the factor structure of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire (TMCQ), and to explore the development of temperament from early to middle childhood with longitudinal Japanese sample.
The TMCQ, consisting of 157 items designed to measure 17 subscales of temperament of middle childhood, were directly translated into Japanese, and was sent by post to 927 parents who participated in an early childhood temperament study in 2012. Although 217 were not delivered due to unknown address, 272 parents have agreed to participate in the research and responded to the questionnaire (return rate of 38.4%). Because the applicable age of TMCQ is 7 to 10 years old, we excluded data of children over 11 and analyzed the remaining 190 (101 boys and 89 girls; 13 8-, 84 9-, and 93 10-years-olds).
The results showed satisfactory high reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) for all subscales except the one for “Low Intensity Pleasure”. In order to examine the structure of the subscale, factor analysis was performed only on subscales included in the three factors of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). Although three factors (Negative Affectivity, Surgency/Extraversion, and Effortful Control) were obtained from the factor loading pattern, the loading pattern of some subscales were different from those of the CBQ obtained in previous study and the reliability coefficients of Effortful Control was low. ANOVA with 2 factors (age × sex) for each of three factor scales calculated similarly to those of the CBQ was performed. Significant sex difference was found in the following factor scores: boy’s score was significantly higher than girl’s score for Surgency/Extraversion (F (1, 184) = 6.93, p < .01), and girl’s score was higher than boy’s score for Effortful Control (F (1, 184) = 5.82, p < .05). There was no interaction between age and sex, and no age differences for the three factor scale scores. The magnitude of correlations of same factor scale score between the CBQ and the TMCQ were moderate (Table 1).
We concluded that the TMCQ is applicable to Japanese school-age children except “Low Intensity Pleasure” scale. While the temperament of Japanese children was moderately stable from early to middle childhood, because of the low reliability for Effortful Control scale, we consider further study of the structure of the TMCQ necessary.

Authors

• Emiko Kusanagi, Kokugakuin University Hokkaido Junior College
  Presenting Author

• Yoshinobu Takahashi, Sapporo Medical University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nobuko Hoshi, Junior College of Sapporo Otani University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shing-Jen Chen, Koen Gakuen Women's Junior College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hitoshi Takamura, Nara Women's University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yusuke Moriguchi, Kyoto University
  Non-Presenting Author