Big Five Personality Traits in Childhood and Adolescence

7 days ago

18 min read

Author: Ukrainian Psychological Hub · Published: October 9, 2026 · Editorial Policy

Big Five personality traits can be studied in children and teenagers. By school age, young people show recognizable differences in curiosity, organization, sociability, cooperation, and emotional reactivity, while the ways these tendencies appear and the accuracy with which they can be measured continue to develop. The Big Five describe five broad, continuous dimensions of personality; they do not assign children to fixed personality types or diagnose psychological disorders.

The most useful developmental question is how a young person's characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are organized at a particular age, how they change as cognitive and social abilities mature, and how researchers can distinguish a lasting tendency from a temporary reaction. Research reviews find meaningful similarities between youth and adult personality, alongside age-specific structure, developmental change, and measurement challenges (Soto and Tackett, 2015; Shiner and Caspi, 2003).

What Are the Big Five Personality Traits in Children and Adolescents?

The Big Five, also called the Five-Factor Model in much contemporary research, organize broad individual differences into Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These dimensions are often remembered with OCEAN. Each refers to a range of typical tendencies across situations and time, rather than a permanent verdict about a child's character. For the complete model, see Big Five Personality Traits: What They Are, What OCEAN Means, and How the Model Works.

Child development gives the five dimensions distinctive expressions. Cognitive growth can make curiosity appear through increasingly complex interests. New school routines create additional opportunities to observe planning and follow-through. Peer relationships allow sociability and cooperation to emerge in changing forms. Expanding social awareness and emotion regulation also alter how negative emotionality is experienced and reported. These are examples of developmental expression, not rigid age-specific definitions.

Openness to Experience: Curiosity, Imagination, and Interests

Openness encompasses tendencies toward intellectual curiosity, imagination, appreciation of ideas, and interest in novel experiences. In younger children, relevant behavior might include creative play, exploratory questions, and sustained interest in stories or unfamiliar activities. Among adolescents, these tendencies may be expressed through abstract ideas, cultural interests, identity exploration, and willingness to consider competing viewpoints. An imaginative child need not excel academically, and preference for familiar activities does not imply a deficit.

Conscientiousness: Organization, Responsibility, and Self-Regulation

Conscientiousness concerns typical differences in organization, persistence, dependability, and goal-directed behavior. Children's ability to display these qualities depends partly on opportunities and demands: a seven-year-old's management of a classroom task is meaningfully different from a seventeen-year-old's independent long-term planning. A child may be careful with artwork and disorganized with homework. The construct summarizes a broader pattern, not performance on one assignment.

Extraversion: Sociability, Assertiveness, and Positive Engagement

Extraversion includes social engagement and assertive participation, with narrower components depending on the instrument. One adolescent may enjoy large-group discussion while another prefers a few close friends; both can have healthy social relationships. Social confidence, excitement, and initiative can change with setting, familiarity, and age. Reserved behavior in an unfamiliar classroom by itself tells us little about an enduring trait.

Agreeableness: Cooperation, Compassion, and Interpersonal Style

Agreeableness covers tendencies such as consideration, kindness, cooperativeness, and ways of handling interpersonal conflict. A child's behavior will also reflect family and school expectations, social understanding, fatigue, and the immediate situation. A teenager's willingness to disagree with adults can reflect growing autonomy; it cannot automatically be scored as a lack of agreeableness. High or low standing on this dimension carries no moral grade.

Neuroticism: Emotional Reactivity and Negative Emotionality

Neuroticism is the established Big Five dimension most closely associated with tendencies toward worry, frustration, distress, and related negative emotions. Some scales instead label a closely related domain Negative Emotionality or score its opposite pole as Emotional Stability. These names must be interpreted within the instrument used; numerical scores from different instruments are not automatically interchangeable. The specific childhood and adolescent development, measurement, and implications of this domain are covered by the existing Neuroticism in Childhood and Adolescence article.

Do Children Really Have the Same Five-Factor Structure as Adults?

A broad five-domain framework is useful for children and adolescents, but structure is an empirical question at each developmental stage. Factor-analytic studies of ratings by children and observers have recovered recognizable Big Five-like dimensions. The Big Five Questionnaire for Children study00051-X), for example, examined child, parent, and teacher ratings and identified five broadly congruent factors; agreement between reporters was meaningful but incomplete.

A key developmental study analyzed parental descriptions of approximately 16,000 individuals from ages 3 to 20. It investigated the hierarchy of youth personality and the possibility that dimensions shift in meaning with age (Soto and John, 2014). This matters because an outwardly similar score may encompass different specific behaviors at different ages. The evidence also allows for childhood structures with an additional activity dimension, including the Little Six framework in which Activity is distinguished from five familiar domains (Soto, 2016).

The best conclusion is that the adult five-factor framework provides a strong organizational starting point, while researchers need to test whether each proposed dimension, item, and narrower component works in the children being studied. The number and configuration of lower-order facets are instrument-specific. The Big Five hierarchy of domains, aspects, and facets explains this distinction.

Why the Same Trait Can Look Different at Different Ages

Developmental psychology distinguishes continuity of an underlying disposition from continuity of a particular visible behavior. A young child who readily approaches other children may, years later, express a related tendency through initiating conversations, participating in groups, or taking leadership roles. The actual behavior changes as opportunities and social skills change. Meanwhile, a child can learn a new coping skill without necessarily changing a broad trait to the same degree.

Such developmental transformations complicate direct comparison across ages. Researchers must ask whether a questionnaire measures the same construct over time before interpreting rising or falling scores as substantive personality change. A changed answer could also reflect altered reading comprehension, self-awareness, response style, or the social meaning of an item.

At What Age Can the Big Five Be Measured?

There is no single scientifically established birthday at which the five traits begin or suddenly become measurable. Preschool research often relies on adult observers and temperament-related behavioral descriptions. In middle childhood, age-appropriate Big Five questionnaires and ratings can be useful. By adolescence, more young people can complete sufficiently sophisticated self-reports, although age, language, and the instrument still matter.

A 2025 systematic review examined 24 developmental and validation articles covering 10 self-report questionnaires designed or adapted for young people, mostly from ages 7 to 18. It found meaningful differences in target age, item format, language, trait labels, facet coverage, and quality of psychometric evidence. Thus, a test validated for one population or age range should not be assumed suitable for all children.

Research on youths aged 10 to 20 found that self-reported Big Five dimensions generally became more internally coherent and more differentiated across domains with age, but the patterns differed by trait. Younger respondents also varied more in acquiescence, or a tendency to agree with questionnaire statements regardless of content (Soto et al., 2008). Being able to read every item is therefore only one part of meaningful assessment.

How Researchers Measure Children's Personality

Child and Teen Self-Reports

Age-appropriate self-report can provide access to experiences that parents and teachers might not observe, including private worries, interests, and thoughts. It also depends on the young person's comprehension, self-reflection, attention, willingness to answer honestly, and ability to compare behavior across contexts. A questionnaire is an instrument-specific measurement procedure, not a direct reading of personality.

The Big Five Questionnaire for Children (BFQ-C) is one research example. Other instruments discussed in the 2025 systematic review include pictorial approaches for children and adolescent adaptations of inventories developed for older respondents. The NEO Personality Inventory-3 and junior adaptations appear within specific validation traditions. Selecting among them requires checking the target population and published evidence rather than assuming their scores, domains, and facets are identical.

Parent and Teacher Reports

Parents observe behavior at home and across family life; teachers observe classroom routines, task behavior, and peer interactions. Differences between their descriptions may reveal genuine contextual variation in addition to informant biases or limited observation. Researchers therefore often use multiple reporters rather than treating disagreement as proof that someone is mistaken.

In the original BFQ-C validation study00051-X), reports from children, parents, and teachers converged to a moderate extent. A study of elementary-school academic outcomes found that the perspectives of teachers and parents contributed distinct information when examining associations between children's personality ratings and school performance. Such findings support multi-informant research, while leaving the interpretation of any individual child dependent on context.

Observation and Developmentally Appropriate Methods

Observational descriptions and structured tasks may be useful when self-report is limited by language or developmental level, although they bring their own sampling and interpretation problems. One observed episode cannot establish a stable trait. The number of contexts, duration of observation, definition of behavior, and agreement among observers all influence what can reasonably be concluded.

The most appropriate assessment may combine child report, observer report, repeated observation, and developmental history. A research questionnaire should not be used as a substitute for comprehensive clinical or educational evaluation when a young person has a significant functional concern.

Are Big Five Traits Stable Throughout Childhood and Adolescence?

Personality development involves several distinct kinds of stability and change. Rank-order stability concerns whether individuals maintain roughly the same relative standing among peers over time. Mean-level change concerns whether the average trait level in a population rises or falls. Individual-level change concerns how each person follows a particular developmental trajectory. These questions can produce different answers in the same study.

A major 2022 meta-analysis synthesized longitudinal studies of personality stability and change, including 189 studies and 178,503 participants for rank-order stability and 276 studies and 242,542 participants for mean-level change. It found that relative stability rises through early life and reaches a broad plateau in young adulthood, while average trait levels also change. An increasing likelihood of retaining relative position does not mean that young people stop developing.

A 2026 meta-analysis integrated 229 longitudinal studies with a combined sample of 230,492 and quantified individual differences in trait change. Such differences were especially pronounced in childhood, declined into young adulthood, and remained detectable across the lifespan. Youth development is therefore heterogeneous: two same-age children can follow different trajectories despite belonging to the same overall age trend.

What Rank-Order Stability Does and Does Not Mean

Imagine two classmates who differ in typical organization at age eleven. They may continue to differ at age sixteen even if both improve their planning skills. That pattern would combine some rank-order continuity with mean-level growth. Equally, one child may become considerably more organized while the other's habits change little. A statistical stability coefficient describes a sample pattern; it never predicts an individual child's future with certainty.

Why Repeated Tests Can Be Misleading

When repeated scores differ, the explanation could include real development, temporary mood, changes in self-description, different informants, changes in environmental demands, or measurement error. More precise longitudinal research examines comparable measures over time and evaluates whether the construct retains a sufficiently similar meaning. It may also examine multiple occasions rather than treating a two-time-point difference as a verified trend.

How the Big Five Change During Middle Childhood

Middle childhood brings increasing academic responsibilities, peer comparison, self-knowledge, and opportunities for independent action. The personality tendencies researchers observe emerge through these changing environments. Domain-level averages may move differently across samples; narrow components can show patterns that a broad domain total conceals.

Parent-reported research across ages 3 to 20 identified nonlinear age patterns for Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness, among other age-related trends (Soto, 2016). These findings come from a cross-sectional design, so they describe differences between age groups rather than tracking the same children through every age. Cohort composition, reporting differences, and shared historical circumstances can contribute to apparent age trends.

School expectations may make organization particularly visible, but observers should not equate a child's performance with a trait score. A child with difficulty completing assignments could be dealing with insufficient instruction, incompatible expectations, stress, learning barriers, sleep problems, or a demanding environment. Big Five concepts become useful when interpreted alongside these circumstances.

What Happens to Personality During Adolescence?

Adolescence changes educational demands, friendships, identity work, social independence, sleep patterns, and emotional regulation. It is therefore a period when the expression and relative organization of personality may shift. Yet the research does not support a universal claim that all teenagers become less agreeable, more anxious, or less conscientious.

In a very large cross-sectional online sample spanning ages 10 to 65, Soto and colleagues (2011) found particularly pronounced childhood and adolescent age differences for some Big Five domains, with patterns that sometimes differed from adulthood. Narrower facets also followed different trajectories within the same broad domain. The very large sample improves statistical precision but does not erase the limits of self-selection or cross-sectional interpretation.

Another parent-report study found U-shaped patterns in some dimensions across ages 3 to 20 and identified different trends for more specific characteristics (Soto, 2016). These results reinforce the need to distinguish a developmental population tendency from an expectation for an individual teenager.

Does Puberty Change Big Five Personality?

Pubertal maturation and personality development can be studied together, but chronological age, pubertal status, social experiences, and hormonal processes overlap. A 2021 study of adolescent Big Five traits and pubertal development examined associations with measured hormones and self-reported pubertal status. Such research is relevant to developmental mechanisms; the presence of an association by itself cannot show that a particular hormone caused a particular trait change in a specific adolescent.

Puberty also occurs within educational, family, peer, and cultural contexts. A young person's increased irritability or changed social preferences should be interpreted through the full context of development rather than reduced to a fixed personality explanation.

Why Do Children Differ in Their Personality Development?

Genetic differences, environmental experiences, social relationships, developmental maturation, chance events, and the changing fit between a young person's dispositions and surroundings all contribute to trajectories over time. Their contributions cannot be converted into a simple formula for an individual family. A familial resemblance in personality is not proof of genetic determinism, and the association between parenting and personality is not automatically a causal effect of parenting.

Children may seek or evoke different environments because of their existing tendencies; parents and teachers may also adapt responses to the child's behavior. These reciprocal processes create associations that are difficult to interpret without longitudinal and genetically informed designs. The broad developmental review by Shiner and Caspi (2003) discusses early temperament, personality, and the importance of gene–environment processes.

Parents, educators, and caregivers can support skills, routines, emotional safety, and constructive relationships without attempting to engineer a predetermined Big Five profile. Supporting functioning is a practical goal even when the precise effect on an enduring personality dimension is unknown.

Temperament and Big Five Personality: How Are They Connected?

Temperament usually refers to early-appearing differences in emotionality, activity, reactivity, attention, and regulation. As a child develops, those tendencies interact with growing cognitive capacities and social experience, contributing to personality patterns that become describable with broader Big Five dimensions.

The relationship is developmental and conceptual, not a numerical identity between two tests. A temperament scale measuring effortful control should not be treated as the same quantity as a later conscientiousness scale. Likewise, infant behavioral inhibition does not provide a certain forecast of an adolescent's extraversion. Reviews emphasize both continuity and meaningful changes in the structure and manifestation of individual differences (Shiner and Caspi, 2003; Soto and Tackett, 2015).

How Personality Traits Relate to School, Peers, and Well-Being

Big Five traits have group-level statistical relationships with learning-related behavior, peer adjustment, emotional functioning, and later outcomes. These are probabilistic associations whose size and interpretation depend on measurement, context, and research design. Even a robust association does not justify predicting a particular child's grades, friendships, diagnosis, or adult achievements from one score.

Learning and Academic Performance

Conscientiousness-related behaviors, such as organization and persistence, may be associated with school performance, while curiosity and other dimensions may relate to different aspects of learning. The association between personality and achievement can reflect shared environmental conditions, teacher perceptions, motivation, instruction, and other influences. The multi-informant elementary-school study illustrates how observer source changes the information available about these relationships.

Educational practice should target modifiable processes: appropriate structure, effective teaching, study skills, feedback, accessibility, and support. An inferred personality trait does not determine a student's academic potential.

Friendships and Social Behavior

Extraversion and agreeableness can correlate with patterns of participation or cooperation, but friendship quality cannot be reduced to sociability. Quiet children may form deep attachments; assertive teenagers can be compassionate or unkind; social behavior changes with group norms and opportunities. Assessing relationships requires direct consideration of the relationships themselves.

Emotional Functioning and Mental Health

Emotional reactivity can be relevant to experiences of stress and adjustment, but a Big Five score is a personality assessment result rather than a mental-health diagnosis. Significant anxiety, depression, behavioral difficulties, or impairment warrant age-appropriate assessment of symptoms, duration, severity, and functioning. The existing Neuroticism childhood and adolescence guide owns the detailed N-specific mental-health and measurement questions.

Long-Term Outcomes

Prospective studies have connected childhood personality with some later health-related and educational outcomes. For example, Hampson and colleagues (2007) examined educational attainment and health behaviors in the relationship between childhood personality and adult health. Such analyses concern pathways and statistical associations across groups; they should not become deterministic forecasts for a child or justification for labeling.

Are Big Five Scores Different for Girls and Boys?

Some studies report mean differences between groups on particular dimensions during development, and some differences emerge or change across adolescence. For example, parent reports in the Little Six study documented average differences and age-related patterns for several domains (Soto, 2016). Such group distributions overlap. They do not identify a child's personality from sex or gender, and their magnitude can depend on sample, culture, reporter, and instrument.

Differences between age groups or demographic groups also invite questions about measurement equivalence: Are the same questions understood and answered similarly, and are reporters using comparable expectations? These issues matter before interpreting group averages as pure differences in an underlying trait.

Does the Big Five Work in Every Culture?

The Big Five has substantial empirical support across many languages and populations, while developmental research is unevenly distributed across countries, socioeconomic settings, and instruments. A measure validated in one language is not automatically validated in another. Cultural expectations can alter which behaviors are considered assertive, cooperative, independent, or responsible, and a translated item may change meaning.

Research in children's Big Five traits must test the population and assessment method being used. Recognizable five-domain organization in several settings does not mean every lexical study, child sample, or instrument replicates an identical factor structure. The 2025 questionnaire review highlights differences across languages and validation evidence. Cross-cultural conclusions should be proportionate to the populations actually studied.

Can a Child Be High or Low on a Big Five Trait?

People differ continuously along each measured dimension. The descriptions high and low only make sense relative to a particular scoring method, reference group, and validated interpretation. A raw score of four is not universally high or low; neither a percentile nor a domain total can be interpreted independently of instrument-specific norms and uncertainty.

A child's score is especially sensitive to age-related expectations and comparison groups. A ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old can show very different typical levels of independence without either difference being pathological. Comparing them using an adult-derived cutoff could distort both interpretations.

Domains, Aspects, and Facets in Young People

Broad domains summarize many behaviors. Aspects and facets examine narrower patterns that depend on the questionnaire or research model. For example, a child may be socially enthusiastic in familiar settings but hesitant to initiate contact with strangers. A broad extraversion domain score may conceal that distinction.

NEO measures, BFI-2 instruments, Big Five Aspect Scales, and child-specific inventories do not share one universal facet inventory. It is inaccurate to say the Big Five inherently contains exactly 30 facets: that number belongs to particular NEO measurement traditions. Specific child inventories may have different lower-order structures, and the instrument must be named before discussing its facet scores.

Should Parents or Teachers Give Children Personality Tests?

An assessment is most useful when there is a clearly defined purpose, appropriate validated instrument, qualified interpretation, and an understanding of limitations. Research questionnaires can support scientific investigation or structured discussion, but their results are not instructions for how to treat a child.

Avoid attaching permanent labels such as a difficult child, born leader, introvert forever, or low-conscientiousness student on the basis of a score. Personality results should not be used to restrict educational opportunities, select friendships, judge moral worth, or infer a clinical disorder. A child should have room to change, learn, experiment, and behave differently across settings.

If personality assessment is undertaken in research or practice, age-appropriate communication, consent and assent as applicable, minimal data collection, confidentiality, and clear limits on data sharing are important. Children's psychological profiles are sensitive information. Automated personality inference from online behavior or school data requires especially careful scrutiny of consent, validity, privacy, and potential bias.

What the Scientific Evidence Establishes—and What It Does Not

The evidence supports meaningful, measurable individual differences in the Big Five during much of childhood and adolescence. It also establishes substantial age-related variation in measurement quality, developmental change, and the expressions of narrower traits. Longitudinal syntheses consistently indicate that relative stability grows with age, while individual trajectories remain diverse (Bleidorn et al., 2022; Haehner et al., 2026).

There are several important limits. A cross-sectional age comparison is not a longitudinal trajectory. Statistical group averages are not individual predictions. A reporter's impression may be context-specific. Correlation between environment and trait does not by itself identify causation. A child-friendly test is not necessarily validated in every language or age group. Finally, psychological traits summarize tendencies; they do not diagnose conditions, establish moral worth, or fully explain behavior.

Practical Guidance for Parents, Educators, and Adolescents

Use personality vocabulary to ask more precise questions about patterns of behavior: In which settings does a young person prefer novelty? What kinds of structure help them follow through? When do they enjoy social participation? How do they navigate conflict? Which emotional demands are challenging, and what support is available?

Notice change over months and years rather than interpreting a single difficult day. Compare behavior across contexts without expecting identical behavior everywhere. Give young people opportunities to develop planning skills, confidence, cooperation, curiosity, and coping strategies. Help them make decisions informed by their experiences and aspirations, rather than treating an assessment as their destiny.

When a child is distressed or functioning poorly, focus on the concrete concern and access to appropriate educational, developmental, or clinical support. A personality score can at most provide one descriptive part of a broader picture. Support, belonging, and effective intervention do not depend on having a particular Big Five profile.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Children Have the Big Five Personality Traits?

Yes. Developmental research identifies broad, recurring individual differences that correspond substantially to the Big Five. The structure and assessment of those differences are sensitive to age, instrument, and who provides the rating.

At What Age Does Personality Become Stable?

There is no universal point at which personality becomes fixed. Relative stability generally increases from childhood into young adulthood, while average levels and individual characteristics may continue to change (Bleidorn et al., 2022).

Can the Big Five Be Measured in a Seven-Year-Old?

Some child-specific tools have been developed or studied within that age range. Selection requires evidence for the exact questionnaire, language, developmental level, and population. The existence of a youth instrument does not validate every online adult quiz for a seven-year-old (Vicentini et al., 2025).

Does Puberty Automatically Make Teenagers Less Conscientious?

No. Research reports average age-related trends in some samples, with variation across domains, facets, populations, and reporters. Individual trajectories can differ from the average, and age correlations alone do not prove a puberty-driven cause.

Are Big Five Traits Inherited from Parents?

Personality development involves genetic and environmental influences and their interplay. A parent's trait level does not determine their child's outcome, and family resemblance should not be confused with a one-to-one prediction.

Is a Quiet Child Low in Extraversion?

Quiet behavior in a single situation cannot establish a broad trait score. Researchers examine patterns across contexts and time with age-appropriate measurement, while allowing for situational preferences and relationships.

Can a Personality Test Diagnose ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, or a Personality Disorder?

No. Big Five scales describe normal-range personality dimensions and do not replace condition-specific diagnostic evaluation. Concerns about attention, neurodevelopment, anxiety, or functioning should be evaluated using appropriate clinical or educational methods.

Are Personality Tests Useful for Choosing a Child's Future Career?

A childhood Big Five score is insufficient for predicting a particular career or limiting options. Interests, abilities, opportunity, support, education, and developmental change all matter. A trait description can support reflection but cannot choose a child's future.

Can Teachers Change a Student's Personality?

Education and school relationships may influence behavior, opportunities, and long-term development, but an association between a teaching practice and a personality score does not automatically establish a broad causal trait change. Supporting useful skills is worthwhile on its own.

What Is the Difference Between Temperament and the Big Five?

Temperament frameworks emphasize early-appearing differences in reactivity and regulation. Big Five models organize broader characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings. The constructs have developmental links, yet their measures and numerical scales are distinct.

References

Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., Rabasca, A., & Pastorelli, C. (2003). A questionnaire for measuring the Big Five in late childhood. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(4), 645–664. DOI00051-X).

Bleidorn, W., Schwaba, T., Zheng, A., Hopwood, C. J., Sosa, S. S., Roberts, B. W., & Briley, D. A. (2022). Personality stability and change: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 148(7–8), 588–619. DOI.

Brandt, N. D., Becker, M., Tetzner, J., Brunner, M., & Kuhl, P. (2021). What teachers and parents can add to personality ratings of children: Unique associations with academic performance in elementary school. European Journal of Personality. DOI.

Haehner, P., Hopwood, C. J., Schellenberg, L., Schwaba, T., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Individual differences in personality trait changes across the lifespan: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 152(4), 420–447. DOI.

Hampson, S. E., Goldberg, L. R., Vogt, T. M., & Dubanoski, J. P. (2007). Mechanisms by which childhood personality traits influence adult health status: Educational attainment and healthy behaviors. Health Psychology, 26(1), 121–125. DOI.

Shiner, R., & Caspi, A. (2003). Personality differences in childhood and adolescence: Measurement, development, and consequences. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44(1), 2–32. DOI.

Soto, C. J. (2016). The Little Six personality dimensions from early childhood to early adulthood: Mean-level age and gender differences in parents' reports. Journal of Personality, 84, 409–422. DOI.

Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2014). Traits in transition: The structure of parent-reported personality traits from early childhood to early adulthood. Journal of Personality, 82(3), 182–199. DOI.

Soto, C. J., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2008). The developmental psychometrics of Big Five self-reports: Acquiescence, factor structure, coherence, and differentiation from ages 10 to 20. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(4), 718–737. DOI.

Soto, C. J., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2011). Age differences in personality traits from 10 to 65: Big Five domains and facets in a large cross-sectional sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 330–348. DOI.

Soto, C. J., & Tackett, J. L. (2015). Personality traits in childhood and adolescence: Structure, development, and outcomes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(5), 358–362. DOI.

Van den Akker, A. L., Briley, D. A., Grotzinger, A. D., Tackett, J. L., Tucker-Drob, E. M., & Harden, K. P. (2021). Adolescent Big Five personality and pubertal development: Pubertal hormone concentrations and self-reported pubertal status. Developmental Psychology, 57(1), 60–72. DOI.

Vicentini, G., Raccanello, D., & Burro, R. (2025). Self-report questionnaires to measure Big Five personality traits in children and adolescents: A systematic review. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 66(5), 627–653. DOI.

Psychological Encyclopedia