Young Children's Self-Concepts Include Representations of Abstract Traits and the Global Self

There is debate about the abstractness of young children's self-concepts—specifically, whether they include representations of (a) general traits and abilities and (b) the global self. Four studies (N = 176 children aged 4-7) suggested these representations are indeed part of early self-concept...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inChild development Vol. 88; no. 6; pp. 1786 - 1798
Main Authors Cimpian, Andrei, Hammond, Matthew D., Mazza, Giulia, Corry, Grace
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Wiley for the Society for Research in Child Development 01.11.2017
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
Child
Child Development
Child, Preschool
Childhood
Children
Children & youth
Concepts
Female
Humans
Male
Personality
Self
Self Concept
SPECIAL SECTION: ORIGINS OF CHILDREN'S SELF-VIEWS
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Summary:There is debate about the abstractness of young children's self-concepts—specifically, whether they include representations of (a) general traits and abilities and (b) the global self. Four studies (N = 176 children aged 4-7) suggested these representations are indeed part of early self-concepts. Studies 1 and 2 reexamined prior evidence that young children cannot represent traits and abilities. The results suggested that children's seemingly immature judgments in previous studies were due to peculiarities of the task context not the inadequacy of children's self-concepts. Similarly, Studies 3 and 4 revealed that, contrary to claims of immaturity in reasoning about the global self, young children update their global self-evaluations in flexible, context-sensitive ways. This evidence suggests continuity in the structure of self-concepts across childhood.
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ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.12925