Affective Latent Profiles and Personality Dimensions in Spanish Children

• Background: During the last years, the affective profiles model has been applied to study individual differences among Spanish children in psychological characteristics, such as optimism and pessimism. This research has replicated past studies from adult and adolescent Swedish populations by identifying four profiles using clustering methods on self-reports of children’s experience of positive (PA) and negative affect (NA): self-fulfilling (high PA and low NA), high affective (high PA and high NA), low affective (low PA and NA), and self-destructive (low PA and high NA). Nevertheless, only a few studies have investigated individual differences in personality using the affective profiles model as the framework, none of them among children. Personality is, for instance, a topic with an important impact on child development. Moreover, more advanced person-centred techniques for the clustering of profiles need to be tested to confirm these observed patterns of affectivity or profiles. Aims: Our aims were the identification of affective profiles through latent class analysis (LCA) and to test individual differences in personality between children with these distinct affective profiles. Methods: The Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule for Children-Short Form (PANAS-C-SF) was used to assess positive and negative affect and the Big-Five Questionnaire for Children (BFQ-C) to measures the traits of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. These instruments were administered to a sample of 533 Spanish children aged between 8 and 11 (M = 9.77; SD = 1.09). LCA was used to identify the affective profiles and multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) to study differences in personality traits between children with distinct affective profiles. Results: Three, rather than four, affective latent profiles were identified: self-fulfilling, self-destructive, and neutral affective profile (characterised by neutral scores both in PA and in NA, that is, neither high nor low). The children with a self-fulfilling profile reported the highest scores in Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness in comparison with the rest of the profiles, whereas the children with a self-destructive profile reported higher scores in Neuroticism in comparison with children with a self-fulfilling profile. Conclusions: We verified a three affective profile distribution through LCA, including a new group characterised by neutral affect. Moreover, adaptive personality traits (high Extraversion, high Openness, high Agreeableness, high Conscientiousness, and low Neuroticism) were found to be related to children with a self-fulfilling profile, whereas maladaptive personality traits (e.g. high Neuroticism) were related to children with a self-destructive profile. We suggest that these findings need to be considered in the creation of person-centred programmes for children that aim to promote well-being, welfare, and positive affect and to reduce stress and negative affect.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Positive affect

Negative affect

PANAS

Latent profiles

Personality

Childhood

Affective profiles model

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