Ayoub, M., Zhang, B., Göllner, R., Atherton, O. E., Trautwein, U., & Roberts, B. W. (2021).

Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits.
Collabra: Psychology, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.29766

Personality Psychology

Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five

Personality Traits
a
Mona Ayoub 1 , Bo Zhang 2, Richard Göllner 3, Olivia E. Atherton 4, Ulrich Trautwein 3, Brent W. Roberts 5
1 American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, 2 Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, USA, 3 University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-
Württemberg, Germany, 4 University of California, Davis, CA, USA, 5 University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany; University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
Keywords: Parenting, Personality, Big Five, Personality Development
https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.29766

Collabra: Psychology
Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2021

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The goal of this research was to explore the relationships between four parenting
dimensions (academic involvement, structure, cultural stimulation, and goals) and child
personality development. Many theories, such as social learning, attachment theory, and
the psychological resources principle assume that parenting practices influence child
personality development. Most of past research on the associations between parenting
and child Big Five traits specifically has used cross-sectional data. The few longitudinal
studies that examined these associations found small relations between parenting and
child personality. We extended this research by examining the long-term relations
between four underexplored parenting dimensions and child Big Five personality traits
using bivariate latent growth models in a large longitudinal dataset (N = 3,880). Results
from growth models revealed a preponderance of null relations between these parenting
measures and child personality, especially between changes in parenting and changes in
child personality. In general, the observed associations between parenting and child Big
Five personality were comparable in magnitude to the association between factors such as
SES and birth order, and child personality—that is, small. The small associations between
environmental factors and personality suggest that personality development in childhood
and adolescence may be driven by multiple factors, each of which makes a small
contribution.

Personality traits are stable, but also amenable to change 2012). Fewer studies have investigated the associations be-
(Roberts et al., 2006, 2017). Starting from early childhood, tween parenting and child Big Five personality traits, which
several factors are thought to influence personality devel- are relatively enduring, automatic patterns of thoughts,
opment, such as life events and long-term person-environ- feelings, and behaviors manifested in specific contexts
ment transactions (Fraley & Roberts, 2005). Influences on (Roberts, 2009). Most of these studies have examined the
personality encompass factors ranging from family to peer, links between parenting and child Big Five traits using
school, neighborhood and cultural contexts. Due to the cross-sectional methods, while very few studies have em-
amount of time and energy invested in raising a child, it ployed longitudinal methods.
is logical to consider parents-child relationships as central We extend past research using data from a longitudinal
to the development of child personality. Starting from in- study of children transitioning to adolescence to examine
fancy, parents organize the child’s home and environment, the co-development of four parenting dimensions and child
help the child regulate their affect and moral actions, teach, Big Five personality traits. The parenting dimensions in our
and provide opportunities for children to learn (Bornstein, study, which are parental academic involvement, parental
2001). Parents are the most consistent people with whom structure, parental cultural stimulation, and parental goals
children spend their time. In short, all signs point to the are not widely explored in the literature. We focus on the
idea that parents play a crucial role in child personality de- Big Five personality traits for multiple reasons. The Big Five
velopment, but is that really the case? model is among the most widely used and well-established
Past studies have examined the associations between model of personality trait structure; therefore, it is a useful
parenting and an array of child outcomes such as depres- framework for conducting systematic research. Moreover,
sion (e.g., McLeod et al., 2007), behavioral problems (e.g., the Big Five are used to explore child, adolescent, and adult
Pachter et al., 2006), temperament (e.g., Kiang et al., 2004), personality, which facilitates comparisons across develop-
and academic achievement (e.g., Cheung & Pomerantz, mental periods. Furthermore, we know very little about the

a [email protected]
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

factors associated with differential development of the Big practices (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). This means that
Five traits during childhood and adolescence, a gap in the parental goals should be examined as a separate component
literature that we aimed to fill. In the present study, we to wholly understand parental socialization (Darling &
use a longitudinal design to study the association between Steinberg, 1993).
parenting and child personality to better understand di-
rectional associations. Specifically, assessing parenting and Theoretical Models of Parent-Child Relationships
child personality across years allows us to understand their
developmental trajectories, as well as how their trajectories Parental socialization models propose a wide variety of
are related to each other. Longitudinal designs are also ca- different mechanisms for how parents influence child per-
pable of delineating the bidirectional associations, which sonality development. For example, Social Learning Theory
are characteristic of parent-child relationships. Above and (Bandura & Walters, 1963) proposes that children learn be-
beyond these strengths, our study uses a sample size with haviors through observation and imitation. Bandura sug-
adequate statistical power, and uses data from multiple in- gested that children tend to observe behaviors, and sub-
formants to eliminate shared method variance. Below, we sequently encode and imitate them. Moreover, Attachment
review the literature on dimensions of parenting, theoreti- Theory (Bowlby, 1969) proposes that the child’s early expe-
cal models of parent-child relationships, and existing liter- riences with parents (or caregivers in general) shape their

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ature on parenting and child personality associations. mental representations of the self and others. Attachment
theory further proposes that early bonding experiences will
Major Dimensions of Parenting have an impact on the individual’s behavior, adjustment,
and interpersonal relationships later in life (Ainsworth et
Parenting refers to the process of nurturing and support- al., 1978; Bowlby, 1980). The Psychological Resources Prin-
ing the emotional, social, intellectual, and physical devel- ciple (Pomerantz & Thompson, 2008) posits that parents
opment of a child (Brooks, 2013). Generally, researchers are influence their children’s development though promoting
interested in parenting patterns, rather than specific be- or hindering the growth of their psychological (affective,
haviors (Atherton & Schofield, 2021). Therefore, it is popu- behavioral, cognitive) resources.
lar in parenting research to use parenting dimensions that These theories generally propose that parents influence
aim to capture broad variations in parenting, for which the their child’s characteristics and development, but it is also
most commonly identified domains are parental warmth, the case that children influence the parenting they receive.
psychological control, and behavioral control (Pomerantz Prior to the 1960s, most parenting research was devoted to
& Thompson, 2008; Power, 2013). Parental warmth refers examining the unidirectional influences of parents on chil-
to parental activities such as showing physical affection, dren. However, interest in the effects of children on their
praising, encouraging, and attending to a child. Psycholog- parents’ behavior was spurred by Bell’s (1968) paper, in
ical control refers to the extent to which parents promote which he reinterpreted the correlations between parenting
or suppress their children’s autonomy. Parental behavioral and child’s behavior as indications of the effects of child’s
control refers to the extent to which parents provide con- characteristics on parenting. Since then, child effects on
sistency, organization, and predictability in the child’s en- parenting gained increasing attention in the field (e.g.,
vironment. Atherton et al., 2020; Belsky, 1984; Pettit & Arsiwalla,
In parenting research, there are often multiple names 2008).
for the same types (or subcomponents) of parenting dimen- Rather than thinking of parent-child relationships as dri-
sions. For example, parental involvement in children’s ed- ven by either the parents or children, there are theoretical
ucation can be considered an expression of parental behav- models that emphasize the mutual influence of parents and
ioral control. Furthermore, parental structure refers to the children. For example, Sameroff’s (1983, 2009) transac-
parents’ organization of the child’s environment and pro- tional model views child development as resulting from
viding them with consistent rules. Parental structure can be continuous bidirectional interactions between parents and
considered a proxy for parental behavioral control as well children, where each individual’s behavior is modified by
(Atherton & Schofield, 2021; Power, 2013). the other. Similarly, the coercion model (Patterson, 2002)
In addition to the wide use of the parental warmth, assumes that a series of parent-child transactions leads to
parental behavioral control, parental psychological control, child’s antisocial behavior. For example, a coercive cycle
or their proxies in the literature, some researchers have typically starts with the parent scolding a misbehaving
proposed expanding the domains of parenting that are child. The scolding exacerbates the child’s misbehavior, and
studied. For example, Power (2013) argues that parental as a result of the child acting out, the parent increases
cognitive stimulation, which includes behaviors such as their scolding even more. Thus, the child’s misbehavior is
nonverbal stimulation and cultural socialization, is likely a negatively reinforced, resulting in a feedback loop that in-
fourth major dimension of parenting. The extent to which creases misbehavior over time, and the child maintains or
parents expose their children to cultural elements such as even increases their antisocial behavior until the parent
music and arts, is one aspect of parental cognitive stimu- disengages. Thus, it would be important to incorporate
lation that is referred to as “parental cultural stimulation” paths from children to parents when modeling the associ-
and is not typically captured by the existing domains of ation between parenting practices and child personality as
parenting such as warmth, psychological, and behavioral the causal direction may flow from the child to the parent
control. Moreover, prior research has argued that parenting also.
should be disaggregated into parental goals and parental

Collabra: Psychology 2
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Existing Studies on the Associations between correlations were found between initial levels of child
Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits agreeableness and changes in overreactive parenting, as
well as positive correlations between initial levels of over-
Although the associations between parenting and a wide reactive parenting and changes in child’s agreeableness and
range of child characteristics and outcomes have been in- emotional stability. Also, researchers found that increases
vestigated in prior research, less has been done on the lon- in overreactive parenting were related to decreases in child
gitudinal associations between parenting and child Big Five agreeableness and emotional stability. Despite its relatively
personality traits. Some studies have examined these as- sophisticated design, the main limitation of the study was
sociations using cross-sectional data. For example, it was that it included only 290 participants, which may not pro-
found that parental warmth was positively associated with vide adequate statistical power to detect complex, multi-
child extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, open- variate associations such as these. The second study (N =
ness to experience, and negatively associated with child 400-500) used a latent difference score model to investigate
neuroticism (Fadda et al., 2015; Lianos, 2015; Nyhus & bidirectional associations between parental warmth, over-
Webley, 2013). Furthermore, it was found that parental be- reactivity, and the child’s Big Five traits from age 8.5 to 10.5
havioral control was positively correlated with child consci- (van den Akker et al., 2014). It was found that changes in
entiousness (Nyhus & Webley, 2013). parental warmth were positively associated with changes

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On the other hand, only a handful of studies have looked in child’s extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
at the associations between parenting and child personality and openness to experience. On the other hand, changes
traits using longitudinal data. Three of these studies have in overreactivity were negatively associated with changes in
used prospective designs where early parenting was used agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experi-
to predict later child personality, while one study examined ence
the links between early child personality and later parent-
ing. For example, Heaven and Ciarrochi (2008) found that Present Study
family authoritativeness at age 13, which is characterized
by high warmth and high behavioral control, was positively The general aim of the present study was to explore the
correlated with child conscientiousness at age 14. On the longitudinal associations among four parenting dimensions
other hand, family permissiveness at age 13, which is char- (parental academic involvement, parental structure,
acterized by high warmth and low behavioral control, was parental cultural stimulation, parental goals) and child Big
negatively correlated with child conscientiousness at age Five personality traits using data from the Tradition and
14. Also, previous research has shown that, when the child Innovation in Educational Systems (TRAIN) longitudinal
was 13 years old, positive parenting (defined as a combi- study. Specifically, we fit bivariate growth models to the
nation of high warmth and low psychological control) pre- data to examine the changes in parenting, changes in child
dicted greater agreeableness, conscientiousness, and lower personality, and the associations between them. This way,
neuroticism after controlling for prior personality levels our study attempted to clarify the static and dynamic as-
(Schofield et al., 2012). The same results were found when pects of parenting, child personality, and the associations
examining links between early levels of parenting (when between them. Parent-child effects were examined through
the child was 15 years old) and later child personality at correlating parenting at Time 1 with later changes in child
age 17. Despite the positive findings in the aforementioned personality (i.e., intercept-slope association), while child-
studies, Baardstu et al. (2017) found non-significant asso- parent effects were examined through correlating person-
ciations between parental warmth measured when children ality at Time 1 with later changes in parenting (i.e., inter-
were 8.5, and child agreeableness measured at age 16.5. As cept -slope association). We also examined how changes in
for the influence of child’s personality on parenting, it was parenting were related to changes in child personality traits
found that child’s Big Five personality traits, which were (i.e., slope-slope association).
measured at age 11, predicted parental warmth, overreac- The theoretical models of parent-child relationships do
tion, and psychological control 5 years later (Egberts et al., not make specific predictions about parenting influence on
2015). Although these longitudinal designs provide useful child Big Five traits per se. However, based on these theo-
information about parent-child associations , they focused ries, it is reasonable to expect that positive parenting prac-
on either the influence of parenting at Time 1 on child per- tices will be associated with positive child development,
sonality at Time 2 or the influence of child personality at whereas negative parenting practices will be related to neg-
Time 1 on parenting at Time 2 without taking into consid- ative personality development. Drawing from existing the-
eration that both parenting practices and child personal- ories and past research, we hypothesize that parental in-
ity change over time and that these changes may be related volvement, parental structure, parental cultural
also. stimulation, and parental goals on one hand will be pos-
In addition to these four studies, we are aware of only itively associated with child’s extraversion, agreeableness,
two studies that used structural equation modeling tech- conscientiousness, and openness to experience on the other
niques to study longitudinal associations between parent- hand. Moreover, we hypothesize that each of the parenting
ing and child personality traits. The first one used bivariate measures will be negatively associated with child’s neuroti-
latent growth models to examine the correlated change be- cism.
tween overreactive parenting, which is the tendency to re-
spond with irritation to child’s problematic behavior, and
child personality traits (van den Akker et al., 2010). Positive

Collabra: Psychology 3
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Method scales, respectively. Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of the

Participants scales after omitting these items ranged between .66
(agreeableness Time 3) and .83 (openness to experience
We used data from the Tradition and Innovation in Ed- Time 2 and Time 3).
ucational Systems (TRAIN) longitudinal study, which is
hosted by the Center for Educational Sciences and Psychol- Parental Involvement
ogy at the University of Tübingen. The sampling procedure
Parents rated the extent of involvement in their child’s
followed two steps. First, 99 schools were selected in two
school using a 4- point scale (1=not true, 4=very true). The
federal states in Germany. Second, one or two classes were
scale consisted of six items such as “I have enough time and
selected from each of these schools, resulting in a total of
energy to get involved in my child’s school”. Parental in-
136 classes. The total number of participants in the study
volvement was assessed in the first and fourth waves of the
was 3,880 students, who were in the fifth grade during the
study. Cronbach’s alpha reliability of the scale was .81 at
first assessment. Follow-up assessments took place in the
both assessments.
first six weeks of school when the students were in grades
6, 7, and 8. The mean age of the participants at the first as-
Parental Structure

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sessment was 11.10 (SD = .56). The gender distribution in
the sample was 45.00% female, 54.80% male, and 0.2% did Parents rated the extent to which they enforce structure
not report gender information. The students were enrolled in their child’s life using a 4-point scale (1=not true, 4=very
in one of three school tracks; 1,595 students in Hauptschule true). Parental structure was assessed in the four waves of
(non-academic track school), 878 students in Realschule the study. However, only data from waves 1 and 4 were used
(intermediate-track school), and 1,311 students in Mit- to be consistent with other parenting measures. A sample
telschule (school that combines Hauptschule and Re- item of this scale was: “I make sure that my child does his
alschule). homework at fixed times every day”. A total of eight items
were used to assess parental structure. Cronbach’s alpha re-
Instruments
liabilities of the scale were .64 and .75 at Time 1 and Time
4, respectively.
Appendix A shows the Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of
the scales at each assessment wave, and a list of the items
Parental Cultural Stimulation
for the parenting measures used in the present study. Table
A1 in Appendix A reports the waves at which each parenting The extent to which parents exposed their children to
and personality measure was assessed. cultural stimulation, such as taking them to museums, con-
certs, and book readings, was captured using a five-item
Child Personality
scale rated by the parents. The scale was administered in
the first and fourth waves of the study. A sample item of
Participants’ Big Five personality traits were assessed at
the scale was “How often do you go to a museum with your
each of the four assessment occasions (grades 5, 6, 7, and
child?”, and the ratings were 1 (never) to 4 (more than three
8) using the German version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI;
times a year). Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of the scale was
John & Srivastava, 1999; Lang et al., 2001). Participants
.64 and .68 at Time 1 and Time 4, respectively.
rated themselves using a 5-point scale (1=Strongly disagree,
5= Strongly agree). The number of items per trait were:
Parental Goals
extraversion (8), agreeableness (8), conscientiousness (9),
neuroticism (8), and openness to experience (11). However, In the first and fourth assessment waves, participants’
a closer examination of the scales with the complete set parents were asked about the importance they placed on
of items showed low reliabilities, and these low reliabilities raising children who have skills that help them become suc-
were due to the negatively formulated items in each scale cessful in various domains. Using a scale from 1 (less im-
1
(see Göllner et al., 2017, for details). Therefore, we de- portant) to 4 (extremely important), they were asked to rate
cided to omit the negatively worded items in the data analy- 17 items based on the importance they think that the family
23
ses to improve the reliabilities of the scales. , Specifically, should teach them. Sample items include: “order and dis-
we omitted three, four, four, three, and three negatively cipline”, “intellectual curiosity”, and “righteous and helpful
worded items from the extraversion, agreeableness, con- behavior”. Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of the scale was .89
scientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience and .90 at Time 1 and Time 4, respectively.

1 Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of the scales before and after removing the negatively worded items are reported on Open science Frame-
work https://osf.io/qnjp3/?view_only=a2eaa14f0ae640b1ab7572026e4821e7).
2 Rieger (2018) used the same child personality scales in the TRAIN dataset. He also omitted the reverse coded items. To check for robust-
ness, he re-ran the analyses with the complete set of items. The results remained unchanged.
3 We reran the analyses with personality scales that include all the items. Results were similar. They can be found on Open Science Frame-
work https://osf.io/qnjp3/?view_only=a2eaa14f0ae640b1ab7572026e4821e7

Collabra: Psychology 4
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

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Figure 1. Example of Bivariate Latent Growth Model fitted to TRAIN data
For simplicity, associations between indicators are omitted.

Control Variables tudinal associations between parenting and child person-

ality were examined by fitting univariate and bivariate la-
Child Age. Child’s age was recorded at the first assess- tent growth models (Figure 1). Univariate growth models
ment wave. were fit to child personality variables to examine whether
Child Gender. Child’s gender was recorded at the first they exhibited linear or quadratic growth before fitting the
assessment wave (0=female, 1=male). bivariate growth models. If the fit indices of the quadratic
Parental Socioeconomic status. Parental socioeco- growth models did not show significant improvement, the
nomic status was measured using the International Socio- more parsimonious linear growth models were selected. Im-
Economic Index (ISEI), which consists of measures of ed- provement in model fit was decided based on Chen’s (2007)
ucation, occupational status, and income that are typical criteria. If changes in CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR were less than
to each occupation (Ganzeboom, De Graaf, & Treiman). .01, .02, and .01, then they were considered non-significant.
Parental socioeconomic status was measured at each wave. Next, two latent factors were defined using the occasion-
The highest ISEI rating of the mother and the father across specific factors for each of the parenting and personality
all waves was used. variables. A latent intercept was identified by fixing all
Parent Personality. Both mothers and fathers rated loadings to one. As a result, the mean of the intercept rep-
their personalities at the four assessment waves using the resents the mean of parenting or child personality at Time
Ten Item Personality Inventory. Only ratings of the first as- 1. The variance of the intercept represents the amount of
sessment were used. This instrument assessed each of the individual differences in parenting or child personality at
Big Five personality traits using two items. Items were rated Time 1. A latent slope was identified through fixing its load-
using a 5-point scale (1=Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly ing at Time 1 to zero, and its loading at Time 2, Time 3,
agree). Composite scores for each of the Big Five traits were and Time 4 to 1, 2, and 3, respectively for child personal-
created through averaging the scores of the two items. Sep- ity. A latent slope for parenting was identified through fix-
arate composite scores were created for the mothers and fa- ing its loading at Time 1 to zero and its loading at Time 4 to
thers. “3”. Consequently, the mean of the slope reflects the mean
change between two adjacent measurement time points for
Analytic Plan child personality (1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4) and from the first to
last measurement time points for parenting (1 to 4), and the
We conducted a preliminary set of analyses to determine variance of the slope indicates the individual differences in
the factor structure and invariance of the parenting do- the amount of change across these periods. In addition to
mains over time. First, we examined the factor structure these univariate parameters, bivariate latent growth curve
of the parenting variables, and one-factor solutions were models allow for the estimation of the: a) concurrent cor-
retained for all parenting variables. Because the parental relations between parenting and child personality at Time
structure and parental goals scales had more than six items, 1, b) correlations between initial level of latent parenting
we used a parceling technique to reduce the number of es- at Time 1 and change in latent child personality (and vice
timated parameters when conducting the growth models. versa), and c) correlations between changes in parenting
Then, prior to implementing the latent growth curve mod- and changes in child personality. Residual variances of the
els, we examined longitudinal measurement invariance of same indicator were allowed to correlate with each other
the parenting and personality domains. Appendix B con- across the different assessment points.
tains more in-depth details about the factor analyses for the All models controlled for child gender, SES, and age
parenting domains, the parceling technique , and the pro- through adding paths from these variables to the intercepts
cedure used to test longitudinal measurement invariance. and slopes of the parenting and child personality latent
After conducting these preliminary analyses, the longi- variables. Also, we controlled for parents’ personality traits

Collabra: Psychology 5
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations of Variables in TRAIN Dataset

Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Time 4

Parental Involvement 3.26 (.54) --- --- 3.10 (.57)
Parental Structure 3.74 (.28) --- --- 3.56 (.40)
Parental Cultural Stimulation 1.43 (.42) --- --- 1.38 (.41)
Parental Goals 3.07 (.47) --- --- 3.07 (.49)
Child Extraversion 3.46 (.82) 3.48 (.79) 3.51(.77) 3.47 (.77)
Child Agreeableness 3.58 (.85) 3.59 (.81) 3.54 (.76) 3.53 (.76)
Child Conscientiousness 3.65 (.82) 3.58 (.81) 3.53 (.80) 3.42 (.77)
Child Neuroticism 2.84 (.88) 2.79 (.82) 2.74 (.80) 2.78 (.79)
Child Openness to Experience 3.54 (.80) 3.53 (.78) 3.47 (.76) 3.39 (.73)
Mother Extraversion 3.80 (.88) --- --- ---

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Mother Agreeableness 3.42 (.76) --- --- ---
Mother Conscientiousness 4.37 (.68) --- --- ---
Mother Neuroticism 2.60 (.85) --- --- ---
Mother Openness to Experience 3.60 (.93) --- --- ---
Father Extraversion 3.59 (.99) --- --- ---
Father Agreeableness 3.12 (.87) --- --- ---
Father Conscientiousness 4.23 (.83) --- --- ---
Father Neuroticism 2.36 (.88) --- --- ---
Father Openness to Experience 3.28 (.96) --- --- ---
Parental socioeconomic status 47.16 (12.46) --- --- ---

Standard deviations are inside the parentheses.

to rule out the possibility that the association between par- to listwise or pairwise deletion methods (Graham, 2009).
enting and child personality traits is due to parents’ per- FIML estimates the model parameters using all available
sonality traits. We also controlled for multiple testing by data. The function COMPLEX in Mplus 5.1 (Muthén &
adjusting the alpha level of statistical significance using Muthén, 2007) was used to account for the nested structure
Bonferroni’s correction. The conventional alpha level was of the data. Model fit was inspected using chi-square, RM-
divided by the total number of tests (.05 / 20 = .003). A sen- SEA, and CFI statistics. Good model fit was inferred when
sitivity power analysis was conducted to compute the raw χ2 is low and not statistically significant, RMSEA is below
correlations between parenting and child Big Five traits that .06, and CFI is above .95 (L.-T. Hu & Bentler, 1999).
can be detected for power of .80. The analysis revealed that
effect sizes with magnitudes of .06 could be detected, given Results
our sample size and adjusted alpha level. Descriptive Statistics
All longitudinal analyses were conducted using Mplus
5.1 software (Muthén & Muthén, 2007). The analytic plan Table 1 provides the means and standard deviations of
was preregistered on the Open Science Framework parenting, child personality, and control variables. Table 2
(https://osf.io/ shows correlations between observed parenting and child
4
qnjp3/?view_only=a2eaa14f0ae640b1ab7572026e4821e7). personality variables across time. In total, the magnitudes
Example scripts of the analyses are also available on the of the correlations between parenting variables and child
Open Science Framework. Missing values were handled us- personality were small, averaging .05.
ing full information maximum likelihood (FIML) procedure,
which provides less biased parameter estimates compared

4 The preregistered hypotheses and analytic plan are found in the Introduction and Methods documents on OSF.

Collabra: Psychology 6
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Table 2. Correlations between Parenting and Child Personality Variables in TRAIN Dataset
E1 E2 E3 E4 A1 A2 A3 A4 C1 C2 C3 C4 N1 N2 N3 N4 O1 O2 O3 O4
Inv1 .09 .03 .07 .07 .06 .06 .06 .03 .12 .12 .07 .10 .01 -.03 -.06 -.03 .07 .04 .03 .02
Inv4 .10 .06 .08 .09 .08 .11 .05 .08 .12 .12 .11 .12 .08 -.02 -.03 -.04 .08 .05 .06 .07

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Str1 .03 .03 .05 .007 .03 .05 .08 .03 .06 .07 .09 .05 -.001 -.001 -.04 -.03 .04 .03 .03 .009
Str4 .04 .009 .03 .04 .03 .02 .03 .07 .07 .08 .12 .11 .03 -.04 -.11 -.09 .03 .05 .04 .04
CS1 .07 .005 .03 .09 .09 .02 .03 .06 .07 .04 .05 .07 .02 .003 -.05 -.01 .08 .03 .08 .11
CS4 .08 .03 .007 .05 .10 .07 .03 .04 .05 .04 .04 .05 .002 -.09 -.07 -.05 .10 .09 .07 .09
PG1 .09 .05 .09 .07 .10 .05 .05 .07 .09 .06 .06 .07 .02 .03 .02 .021 .09 .06 .10 .03
PG4 .13 .10 .09 .06 .10 .11 .05 .07 .07 .09 .07 .08 .08 .02 -.02 -.02 .10 .08 .10 .08

Inv=Involvement; Str=Structure; CS=Cultural Stimulation; PG= Parental Goals; E=Extraversion; A=Agreeableness; C=Conscientiousness; N=Neuroticism; O=Openness to Experience
Bold Font: p <.001

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Table 3. Model Fit Indices of Bivariate Latent Growth Models Fitted to TRAIN Dataset

Parental Involvement Parental Structure Parental Cultural Stimulation

CFI RMSEA CFI RMSEA CFI RMSEA
Extraversion .94 .02 .95 .02 .93 .02
Agreeableness .96 .02 .99 .01 .96 .02
Conscientiousness .96 .02 .95 .02 .96 .02
Neuroticism .94 .02 .95 .02 .93 .02
Openness to Experience .97 .02 .99 .01 .97 .02
Parental Goals
CFI RMSEA
Extraversion .96 .02
Agreeableness .99 .01

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Conscientiousness .98 .02
Neuroticism .95 .02
Openness to Experience .99 .01

Results of Longitudinal Analyses was small-to-medium, corresponding to .45 and .60 stan-
dardized units of change across time respectively. The vari-
Details of measurement invariance tests are provided in ances of the parenting slopes represent the existence of
Appendix B. These analyses showed that changes in model inter-individual differences in changes in parenting. The
fit indices of child personality variables across the nested variance of the slope of parental academic involvement was
models were not larger than the recommended cutoffs, and relatively larger than the variance of parental structure,
therefore, the child Big Five domains exhibited strong in- which means that there was more variation in changes in
variance across waves. As for the parenting variables, parental involvement trajectories across the two assess-
changes in the fit indices between metric and scalar models ment points. Notably, the mean slopes of parental cultural
were slightly larger than the recommended cutoffs, except stimulation and parental goals were not statistically signif-
for parental goals. This means that full scalar invariance icantly different from zero.
was not supported. Instead, partial scalar invariance held In addition to providing information about changes in
after freeing one or more parameters in each model. parenting, Table 4 shows the results of changes in children’s
After measurement invariance was tested, univariate Big Five traits across time. As children were getting older,
growth models were fit to the child personality variables to they became less conscientious and less open to experience,
examine whether linear or quadratic trends were a better as shown by the negative slopes. The rates of change were
representation of the data. None of the quadratic models small, ranging between -0.05 and -0.08. These numbers cor-
showed significant improvement over the linear models respond to .37 and .31 standardized units of change across
based on Chen’s (2007) criteria. Therefore, linear models for time. Interestingly, the mean slopes of child extraversion,
personality variables were retained. As for parenting vari- agreeableness, and neuroticism were not statistically sig-
ables, linear trends were assumed as two assessment points nificantly different from zero.
were available only. Results of the univariate analyses are It is important to note that the examination of individual
reported in Appendix C. differences in change necessitates the existence of reliable
Following that, second-order bivariate latent growth variance in change. The slope variance parameter is typi-
models were fit to the data. Table 3 provides model fit in- cally inspected for statistically significant variance to justify
dices for each model. All models demonstrated good fit. Af- examining the correlations of change over time. In the cur-
ter testing model fit, the means and variances of the bi- rent case, all parenting and child personality variables ex-
variate growth models were examined. The first and second hibited statistically significant variance in slopes over time,
columns of Table 4 provides the means and variances of ini- justifying the examination of predictors and correlates of
tial levels of parenting and child personality variables. We individual differences in change.
also formally tested for change over time by examining the Next, we tested the concurrent associations between
average slope values for each variable, as shown in the third parenting and child personality (intercept to intercept cor-
and fourth columns of Table 4. Results show that parental relation) and the associations between changes in parent-
academic involvement and parental structure decreased ing dimensions and changes in child personality over time
across time as shown by the negative slope estimates (slope (slope to slope correlations). We follow two approaches for
= -0.21, p < .003; slope = -0.17, p < .003, respectively). This interpreting the results of the longitudinal analyses. In the
means that as children were growing up, parents were be- first approach, we highlight the statistically significant re-
coming less involved in their children’s academic environ- sults only, and ignore statistically non-significant ones. In
ments and provided them with less structure. The magni- the second approach, we interpret the effect sizes regard-
tude of the rates of change in these parenting dimensions less of whether they reached statistical significance or not.

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Table 4. Means and Variances of Intercepts and Slopes in TRAIN Dataset

Intercept Slope
Mean Variance Mean Variance
Parental Involvement 3.35 .24 -.21 .22
Parental Structure 3.78 .05 -.17 .08
Parental Cultural Stimulation 1.52 .22 -.05 .13
Parental Goals 3.79 .36 -.08 .04
Child Extraversion 3.74 .21 -.001 .02
Child Agreeableness 3.71 .26 -.02 .03
Child Conscientiousness 3.79 .37 -.08 .04
Child Neuroticism 2.26 .32 -.02 .03
Child Openness to Experience 3.44 .32 -.05 .03

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Bold font: p < .003

Intercept-Intercept Correlations Slope-Slope Correlations

Column 1 in Table 5 shows the correlations between par- Regarding the correlations between changes in parenting
enting and child personality intercepts at Time 1. Following and changes in child personality, none of the correlations
the first approach for interpreting the results, only four cor- were statistically significant at p < .003. However, the mag-
relations were significant at the adjusted alpha level of p < nitude of several slope-slope correlations exceeded .10 in-
.003 out of 20 correlations. There was a significant positive cluding: changes in parental involvement and changes in
association between parental involvement and child consci- child conscientiousness (r = .12) , neuroticism (r = -.14), and
entiousness (r = .13, p < .003); a significant positive asso- openness to experience (r = .10); changes in parental struc-
ciation between parental structure and child agreeableness ture and changes in agreeableness (r = .12) and neuroti-
(r = .13, p < .003); an association between parental cultural cism (r = -.19); changes in parental cultural stimulation and
stimulation and child conscientiousness (r = .15, p < .003), changes in extraversion (r = -.15); changes in parental goals
and an association between parental goals and child agree- and changes in neuroticism (r = -.15).
ableness (r = .10, p < .003). No other statistically significant
findings at p < .003 were found, suggesting that there were Discussion
few associations between parenting and child personality at
Time 1. The main goal of our research was to explore the asso-
Focusing on the magnitudes of the associations rather ciations among four parenting dimensions and children’s
than their statistical significance, we found that all corre- Big Five personality traits. The present study has several
lations were small or very small. In general, the four sta- strengths. First, we used a large dataset (N= 3,880) that pro-
tistically significant results that we observed were small in vided adequate statistical power to detect effects if they ex-
size, ranging between .10 and .15. The average correlation isted. Second, we examined the associations between multi-
between parenting and child personality intercepts was .08, ple parenting measures and child Big Five personality traits.
and few correlations exceeded .10. Third, we went beyond traditional cross-sectional methods
through fitting bivariate latent growth models. These mod-
Intercept-Slope Correlations els captured an important aspect about parenting and child
personality, which is their changeability across time, and
We examined the correlations between intercepts and allowed for examining the correlations between these
slopes as shown in Table 5. None of the correlations be- changes. Furthermore, bivariate latent growth models pro-
tween parenting at Time 1 and changes in child personality vided information about the extent to which change trajec-
were statistically significant at p < .003. Similarly, none of tories were uniform or variable across individuals.
the correlations between personality at Time 1 and changes There are many theories that suggest parenting and child
in parenting were statistically significant at p < .003. development are related to each other, including Social
Focusing on the magnitudes of the associations instead Learning Theory, Attachment Theory, and the Psycholog-
of statistical significance, we found that the correlations be- ical Resources Principle. However, these theories do not
tween parenting at Time 1 and changes in child personal- make specific predictions about the links between parenting
ity between Time 1 and Time 4 were also very small in all and child personality development per se. We expected that
models, ranging from .02 to .07. Comparably, the correla- positive parenting practices would be associated with the
tions between personality at Time 1 and changes in par- positive development of child extraversion, agreeableness,
enting were also very small. Only the correlation between conscientiousness, emotionality stability, and openness to
changes in parental involvement and neuroticism exceeded experience, whereas negative parenting practices would be
.10. related to negative trait development. Controlling for child

Collabra: Psychology 9
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Table 5. Results of Correlations between Intercepts and Slopes of Parenting and Child Personality Variables in
TRAIN Dataset

Parental Involvement
i1 with i2 i1 with s2 i2 with s1 s1 with s2
Extraversion .09[.02,.16] -.04[-.11,.04] -.01[-.11,.08] .08[-.02,.18]
Agreeableness .11[.03,.19] -.06[-.17,.04] .01[-.09,.11] .06[-.07,.19]
Conscientiousness .13[.07,.19] -.03[-.11,.05] -.02[-.10,.07] .12 [0,.23]
Neuroticism -.02[-.09,.04] -.04[-.15,.07] .13[.04,.22] -.14[-.27, -.01]
Openness to Experience .05[-.02,.12] -.07[-.15,.02] -.002[-.09,.09] .10[-.01,.21]
Parental Structure
i1 with i2 i1 with s2 i2 with s1 s1 with s2
Extraversion .08[-.006,.16] -.06[-.16,.04] -.003[-.10,.10] .04[-.08,.17]

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Agreeableness .13[.05, .21] -.03[-.14,.07] -.03[-.14,.08] .12[-.009, .26]
Conscientiousness .10[.02,.18] -.02[-.12,.09] .05[-.06,.16] .09[-.03,.22]
Neuroticism .02 [-.06,.10] -.06[-.18,.06] .03[-.08,.13] -.19[-.34, -.04]
Openness to Experience .04[-.04,.12] -.06[-.17,.05] .03[-.07,.14] .05[-.08,.18]
Parental Cultural Stimulation
i1 with i2 i1 with s2 i2 with s1 s1 with s2
Extraversion .08[.008,.15] .04[-.08,.15] .09[-.03,.22] -.15[-.30,.002]
Agreeableness .11[.03,.19] -.02[-.14,.10] .02[-.09,.13] -.04[-.20,.12]
Conscientiousness .15[.08,.21] -.02[-.12,.08] -.02[-.12,.09] -.002[-.13,.13]
Neuroticism .01[-.07,10] -.05[-.17,.06] -.09[-.22,.04] .09[-.09,.26]
Openness to Experience .08[.01,.14] .04[-.07,.15] .06[-.04,.16] -.05[-.20,.10]
Parental Goals
i1 with i2 i1 with s2 i2 with s1 s1 with s2
Extraversion .09[.03,.15] -.02[-.09,.06] .07[-.02,.15] -.05[-.17,.07]
Agreeableness .10[.04,.16] .06[-.03,.16] -.001[-.08,.08] -.02[-.15,.11]
Conscientiousness .08[.01,.14] -.03[-.12,.06] .01[-.07,.09] .08[-.02,.19]
Neuroticism .02[-.05,.09] .03[-.08,.14] .08[-.02,.18] -.15[-.29, -.02]
Openness to Experience .09[.03,.16] .03[-.05,.11] .03[-.05,.11] .05[-.07,.17]

i1 = intercept of parenting variable; s1= slope of parenting variable; i2=intercept of child personality variable; s2= slope of child personality variable
Bold font: statistically significant at p < .003

age, gender, socioeconomic status, and parents Big Five few individual differences in how parenting practices
personality traits, along with corrections for multiple test- change over time.
ing, we found several interesting findings regarding the lon- Second, child personality also changed across time. Chil-
gitudinal associations between parenting and child person- dren perceived themselves as less conscientious and less
ality. open to experience. The decrease in child conscientiousness
First, parenting changed across time, which is consistent shows that adolescents were not developing in the direction
with results of previous studies (e.g., van den Akker et al., of maturation, which is consistent with findings of previous
2010). The general trend was a decrease in parenting behav- research (Atherton et al., 2020; van den Akker et al., 2014).
iors. As children entered adolescence, parents became less Another thing to note is that the rates of change and vari-
involved in their children’s academic lives and provided less ability in change were modest, which is also consistent with
structure. It is understandable that parents’ roles change past studies.
during this period because adolescence is characterized by Third, surprisingly, there was a preponderance of sta-
children’s striving for autonomy and independence (Galam- tistically non-significant results when examining the asso-
bos & Costigan, 2003). The strongest decrease was in ciations among parenting practices and child personality.
parental involvement in their child’s academics. Parental After adjusting the alpha level using the conservative Bon-
goals and parental cultural stimulation showed no mean- ferroni’s adjustment, only four correlations were statisti-
level change across time. An important finding to note is cally significant. The four significant correlations were be-
that the variances of parenting variables were generally tween initial levels of parenting and initial levels of child
small, ranging from .04 and .22, indicating that there were personality (i.e., concurrent associations) and their magni-

Collabra: Psychology 10
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

tudes ranged from .10 to .15. The correlations were between date genes” that explain large amount of variance in the
parental involvement and child conscientiousness; parental phenotype. It appears that an analogous situation holds
structure and child agreeableness; parental cultural stimu- for personality development in childhood and adolescence.
lation and child conscientiousness; parental goals and child Much like the threads of a tapestry, environmental factors
agreeableness. combine in an intricate and complex way to drive personal-
Because focusing on statistical significance only can ob- ity development, and each factor is an essential, yet small
scure important information about the phenomenon under thread that contributes to the tapestry that is personality.
investigation (Fraley & Marks, 2007), we also interpreted Third, and more practically, our findings should not dis-
the magnitudes of the associations regardless of their sta- courage research on, and the implementation of, parenting
tistical significance. In general, the associations between interventions. Effect sizes that are modest at the individual
initial levels or changes in parenting and child personality level could be consequential at the population level. The
were small or very small. The average correlations between modest change in parenting and child personality that par-
the initial levels of parenting and child personality was .08. enting interventions can do are important when multiply-
The average correlation between initial levels of parenting ing the effect by the number of people who underwent the
and changes in child personality was .04. The average corre- interventions. It could also be comforting for parents to re-
lation between changes in child personality and initial lev- alize that parenting goes both ways. The link between par-

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els of parenting was .04. The average correlation between enting and child personality is complex, transactional, and
changes in parenting and changes in child personality was dynamic.
.08. Taken together, using either statistical significance or
effect size metrics leads to the conclusion that parenting di- Limitations and Future Directions
mensions and child personality dimensions are not strongly
related to one another, either cross-sectionally or longitu- There are several limitations of the present study worth
dinally, in this dataset. noting. First, the present study is not the final word on this
topic – future work should replicate the present findings
Theoretical and Practical Implications with both similar and different samples, in order to deter-
mine the replicability and generalizability of these findings.
What do the pervasively small and non-significant as- Second, this study examined longitudinal associations be-
sociations between parenting and child personality mean tween parenting and child personality between late child-
for our understanding of the association between parenting hood and adolescence. Therefore, the conclusions we can
and child personality? Using Cohen’s (1988) standards, draw from them are limited to this age group. It would
most of the obtained correlations between parenting and be interesting to examine these longitudinal associations
child personality were small or very small. However, Funder in younger children and compare them to our age groups.
and Ozer (2019) have warned against dismissing small ef- Third, our study included measures that were related to
fect sizes. They argued that magnitudes of effect sizes are parental behavioral control, but no measures that were re-
better evaluated when compared against “benchmarks” lated to parental warmth and parental psychological con-
such as correlations that are believed to be well-understood trol. It will be more informative to examine in future studies
or average correlations in psychology research. Following whether associations between parental warmth, parental
their recommendations, it becomes clear that correlations psychological control, and child Big Five personality are
between parenting and child personality are comparable comparable in effect size to the results of our study. Fourth,
to associations found between other environmental factors there was little to learn about the shape of the develop-
and child personality such as parental socioeconomic status mental trajectories of parenting because they were assessed
(Ayoub et al., 2018) and birth order (Damian & Roberts, across only two waves. It is preferable that future studies
2015), which are also small in magnitude. have at least four assessment points for parenting in order
On a related note, the fact that the cumulative evidence to examine non-linear change patterns, as well as wave-to-
appears to point to a preponderance of small associations wave dynamics in change. Fifth, the measurement of child
between different environmental factors and personality personality and the parenting domains were not ideal in the
trait development should modify our thinking about how present study. For example, the reverse coded items of child
personality development comes about. Instead of searching personality variables had to be omitted because children’s
for a few large environmental factors that make or break misunderstanding of them grossly reduced the scales’ relia-
our personalities, whether it is parenting, peers, or birth or- bilities. Moreover, it is worth noting that the parental goals
der, we should acknowledge that such factors with large ef- measure had more items compared to the other measures;
fects probably do not exist. Rather, evidence points to the therefore, it had a higher reliability. It is preferable that all
fact that personality development is influenced by a large parental measures have similar high reliabilities in future
number of environmental factors, each of which makes a studies. Furthermore, parenting measures, such as parental
small contribution to children’s personality development. academic involvement were specific to academic domains;
This framework of personality development parallels the yet it is unknown what the relations between broad parental
infinitesimal model in genetics, which is currently widely involvement and child personality would be. This is analo-
used in behavior genetics research (see Z. Hu et al., 2012; gous to examining associations at the facet level vs broad
Turelli, 2017). Consensus is growing in genetics that pheno- level of the variable. Future studies that involve broad per-
types are influenced by a very large number of genes, that sonality traits should include broad parenting measures, so
each has an infinitesimal contribution, rather than “candi- that both parenting and child personality are examined at

Collabra: Psychology 11
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

the same level of granularity. Fifth, although using longi- has little contribution to make towards personality develop-
tudinal data helps us to infer some directionality, we did ment.
not randomly assign participants to experimental condi-
tions and therefore, causal inference in the strictest sense is
not possible. Sixth, although we controlled for parents’ per-
sonality traits to rule out the possibility that the association Contributions
between parenting and child personality traits is due to par-
ents’ personality traits, it could be that parents’ personality Contributed to conception and design: Mona Ayoub
is part of the process linking parenting and child personal- Contributed to acquisition of data: Richard Göllner, Ul-
ity (see Rohrer, 2018). rich Trautwein
Contributed to analysis and interpretation of data: Mona
Conclusion Ayoub, Bo Zhang
Drafted and/or revised the article: Mona Ayoub, Bo
The longitudinal associations between multiple parent- Zhang, Richard Göllner, Olivia E. Atherton, Ulrich
ing dimensions such as parental involvement, structure, Trautwein, and Brent W. Roberts
cultural stimulation, goals, and children’s Big Five person- Approved the submitted version for publication: Mona

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ality traits were examined using a large longitudinal Ayoub, Bo Zhang, Olivia E. Atherton, and Brent W. Roberts
dataset. Using bivariate latent growth models, we found
that the correlations between initial levels of parenting and Competing Interests Statement
child personality, or changes in parenting and changes in
child personality, were small or very small. Very few asso- No competing interests exist.
ciations reached statistical significance after adjusting for
multiple testing. The obtained small associations were Data Accessibility Statement
comparable in magnitude to ones between other environ-
Material related to the study such as data as variance-co-
mental factors and child personality, such as parental so-
variance matrices and Mplus scripts can be accessed using
cioeconomic status and birth order. The recurrent small ef-
this Open Science Framework link: https://osf.io/
fects provoke thoughts about personality development in
qnjp3/?view_only=a2eaa14f0ae640b1ab7572026e4821e7
childhood and adolescence. Instead of assuming that there
is one factor that makes or breaks personality, evidence
shows that each environmental factor, including parenting, Submitted: July 28, 2021 PST, Accepted: October 19, 2021 PST

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(CCBY-4.0). View this license’s legal deed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 and legal code at http://creativecom-
mons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode for more information.

Collabra: Psychology 12
 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

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Appendices 12. righteous and helpful behavior

Appendix A 13. knowledge for profession
14. moral judgment
Items of Instruments in TRAIN Dataset 15. enjoy life
16. Awareness of religious beliefs
Parental Involvement 17. Intellectual curiosity

I have enough time and energy to Child Big Five Personality Traits
1. talk intensively about school day
I am someone who is
2. take care that child is doing his/her homework
3. go through schoolwork with child 1. is talkative, likes to talk (E1)
4. get involved in child school 2. tends to criticize others (A1R)
5. go to parents’ evenings 3. does the tasks thoroughly (C1)
6. study classwork with child 4. is eclectic (O1)
5. is depressed (N1)
Parental Structure 6. is original, develops new ideas (O2)

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7. is reserved (E2R)
I make sure that 8. is helpful and selfless towards others (A2)
1. my child goes to bed early on school days 9. conventional, prefers tradition (O3R)
2. my child does his homework at fixed times everyday 10. can be careless (C2R)
3. my child has breakfast in the morning 11. is relaxed, cannot be disturbed by stress (N2R)
4. we get up together and have breakfast at the weekend 12. is often involved in quarrels (A3R)
5. my child brushes his/her teeth in the morning and in 13. works reliably and conscientiously (C3)
the evening 14. can be tense (N3)
6. my child packs the school bag for the next day in the 15. is rather quiet and taciturn (E3Reversed)
evening 16. appreciates artistic and aesthetic impressions (O4)
7. family eats together at least once a day 17. tends to be messy (C4R)
8. my child gets up on time in the morning on school 18. is balanced, not easily upset (N4)
days 19. has a vivid imagination, is imaginative (O5)
20. does not give up until the job is done (C5)
Parental Cultural Stimulation 21. can be rude and dismissive to others (A4R)
22. is inventive and resourceful (O6)
How often does it happen that you 23. full of energy and zest for action (E4)
1. go to the theater together with your child 24. prefers routine and simple tasks (O7R)
2. go to the museum together with your child 25. worries a lot (N5)
3. go to classical concerts together with your child 26. is sometimes shy and inhibited (E5Reversed)
4. go to an opera / ballet performance together 27. is not resentful, forgives others easily (A5)
5. go to a book reading with your child 28. works well and fast (C6)
29. can be moody (N6)
Parental Goals 30. is profound, likes to think about things (O8)
31. is enthusiastic and can carry others along (E6)
In your opinion, how important that family teaches child 32. can behave cold and distant (A6R)
1. personal independence 33. makes and executes plans (C7)
2. performance and effort 34. stays calm, even in tense situations (N7R)
3. order and discipline 35. trusts others (A7)
4. versatile knowledge 36. is negligent (C8R)
5. political judgement 37. likes to reflect, play with ideas (O9)
6. sound knowledge in main subjects 38. is considerate and empathetic to others (A8)
7. social responsibility 39. gets a bit nervous and unsure (N8)
8. appropriate social manners 40. knows music, art and literature well (O10)
9. respect/respect for parents 41. is assertive and energetic (E7)
10. mastery of cultural skills 42. is easily distractible (C9R)
11. willingness to learn 43. is outgoing, sociable (E8)
44. has little artistic interests (O11R)

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Information about Instruments in TRAIN Dataset

Table A1. Information about Variables in TRAIN Dataset

Variable Rater Waves Assessed

Child Personality Child 1,2,3,4
Parental involvement Parents (unspecified) 1,4
Parental Structure Parents (unspecified) 1,2,3,4
Parental Cultural Stimulation Parents (unspecified) 1,4
Parental Goals Parents (unspecified) 1,4

Table A2. Cronbach’s Alpha Reliabilities of Scales in TRAIN Dataset

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Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Time 4
Parental Involvement .81 --- --- .81
Parental Structure .64 --- --- .75
Parental Cultural Stimulation .64 --- --- .68
Parental Goals .89 --- --- .90
Child Extraversion .71 .73 .76 .77
Child Agreeableness .67 .67 .66 .67
Child Conscientiousness .77 .80 .80 .81
Child Neuroticism .71 .68 .69 .72
Child Openness to Experience .82 .83 .83 .82

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Appendix B change in these indices. We followed the recommendations

by Chen (2007) suggesting changes in CFI (–.01), RMSEA
Determining the Factor Structure of Parenting (–.02), and SRMR ( –.01) to indicate no substantial change
Variables and Testing Measurement Invariance in model fit.

Factor Structure of Parenting Variables

A series of exploratory factor analyses were conducted to

determine the underlying factor structure of the parenting
constructs using Mplus. The default GEOMIN rotation was
applied. The number of retained factors was decided based
on the examination of the scree plot and using common
sense to interpret the factors’ meaning. In Study 1, one-fac-
tor solutions were decided for parental involvement, struc-
ture, and cultural stimulation. Regarding parental goals, it
was clear from the scree plot that multiple factors under-

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lie the items. However, the two or three factor structures
did not make sense; therefore, a one-factor solution was de-
cided for parental goals as well. This one factor was called
“Success Parental Goals” and includes a list of skills that
parents think they are important for the child to have to
be successful. Because parental structure and parental goals
scales had more than six items, a parceling technique was
used to reduce the number of items when the cross-lag and
growth models were estimated. Parceling was conducted
through the following steps. First, factor loadings of the
items were arranged in descending order. Second, the high-
est loading item was assigned to parcel 1, the second high-
est loading to parcel 2, and the third highest loading to par-
cel 3. Third, the remaining items were assigned to parcels in
the reverse order to achieve item-content balancing. Each
parcel constituted the average score of the included items.
Exploratory factor analyses were followed by a series of con-
firmatory factor analyses to test the robustness of the cho-
sen models. Model fit was inspected using χ2, RMSEA, and
CFI statistics. Good model fit is inferred when χ2 is low
and not statistically significant, RMSEA is below .06, and
CFI is above .95 (L.-T. Hu & Bentler, 1999). In Study 2, one-
factor models were selected for all the variables. Items of
parental monitoring, routines, and goals were assigned to
three parcels. Similarly, items of the child personality traits
were assigned to parcels to reduce their number. The same
parceling procedure in Study 1 was used.

Measurement Invariance

Measurement equivalence of latent factors across the

study waves was tested before running the longitudinal
models. This was done to make sure that changes in the la-
tent factors represent real changes in the constructs rather
than changes in the relations between the factor and its
indicators across time. Measurement invariance was tested
through analyzing a series of models that varied in the level
of imposed invariance. The first model (Baseline Model)
was the least restrictive as it had no invariance constrains
on any parameters. The second model (Metric Model) con-
strained the factor loadings to be invariant. The third model
(Scalar Model) fixed the factor loadings and the intercepts
to be invariant. The CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR fit indices of
the different models were compared to each other. Mea-
surement invariance was concluded if there was no or little

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Table B. Results of Measurement Invariance Tests in TRAIN Dataset

Parental Involvement Parental Structure Parental Cultural Stimulation

CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR
Baseline .97 .04 .04 1 .02 .02 .95 .04 .04
Metric .97 .04 .04 1 .02 .03 .95 .04 .04
P Metric --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Scalar .95 .04 .04 .98 .04 .06 .93 .04 .04
P Scalar .96 .04 .05 1 .03 .04 .94 .04 .04
Parental Goals Child Extraversion Child Agreeableness
CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR
Baseline 1 0 .009 .97 .03 .03 .99 .02 .02
Metric 1 .005 .02 .97 .03 .03 .99 .02 .02

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P Metric --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Scalar 1 .007 .02 .96 .03 .03 .99 .02 .03
P Scalar --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Child Conscientiousness Child Neuroticism Child Openness to Experience
CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR
Baseline .98 .03 .02 .97 .03 .03 1 .01 .01
Metric .98 .02 .03 .97 .03 .03 1 .01 .02
P Metric --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Scalar .97 .03 .03 .96 .03 .03 1 .01 .02
P Scalar --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

P Metric= Partial Metric; P Scalar= Partial Scalar

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

Appendix C

Results of Univariate Latent Growth Models

Table C. Model Fit Indices of Linear and Quadratic Univariate Models (TRAIN Dataset)

Linear Quadratic
CFI RMSEA SRMR CFI RMSEA SRMR
Child Extraversion .96 .03 .03 .96 .03 .03
Child Agreeableness .99 .02 .03 .98 .02 .03
Child Conscientiousness .95 .04 .04 .95 .04 .04
Child Neuroticism .96 .03 .04 .96 .03 .03
Child Openness to Experience .95 .03 .04 .95 .03 .04

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 Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

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