Using a Thin Slice Coding Approach to Assess Preschool Personality Dimensions

Background: A large literature assessing personality across the lifespan has used the Big Five as an organizing framework, with much evidence that variation along different dimensions predicts different aspects of psychopathology. There is some evidence from parent reports that these dimensions begin to emerge as early as preschool, but there is a need for objective observational measures of personality in young children, as parent report can be confounded by the parents own personality. Methods: The current study observationally coded personality dimensions in a clinically enriched sample of preschoolers. A clinically heterogeneous preschool sample oversampled for depression (N=299) completed 1-8 structured observational tasks with an experimenter. ‘Big 5’ personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience were coded using a “thin slice” technique with 7,820 unique ratings available for analysis. Results: Thin-slice ratings of personality dimensions were reliably observed in preschoolers’ ages 3-6 years. Within and across-task consistency was also evident, with consistency estimates higher than found in adult samples. Conclusions: Personality dimensions can be observationally identified in preschool-age children and offer reliable estimates that stand across different observational tasks. Refuting standard dogma that personality may not coalesce until adolescence, findings provide evidence that personality dimensions reliably emerge as early as age 3. Study findings highlight the importance of observational approaches to assessing early indicators of potentially lifelong personality dimensions relevant for understanding psychopathology risk.