Personality correlates of problematic tendencies and links to relational competences in adolescence

During the transition from early to mid- adolescence some adolescents’ personality characteristics may represent risk factors for their later adjustment or promoting factors for their positive development (Caspi & Roberts, 1990; Tackett, 2006). In particular, in the last years, research has found specific association among some personality profiles and negative behavior or with positive interpersonal experiences (e.g., Asendorpf & Van Aken, 1999; De Clerq et al, 2012, Yu et al, 2014; Xie et al, 2016) According to those studies, our contribution was aimed to examine: a) preadolescents’ personality profiles based on the Big Five personality traits model (McCrae & Costa, 1999); b) the role of personality profiles in predicting problematic behaviors (i.e. externalizing problems), and relational competence (i.e. prosocial behavior, PB, and Quality of Friendship, QoF) three years later; c) the moderating role of gender in the association between personality profiles and indicators of (mal)adjustment. Participants were 331 boys and 284 girls Italian preadolescents (age M = 12.5) from Genzano Longitudinal Study. They were examined at age 12 (T1) and three years later (T2). Latent Profile Analysis on personality traits at T1 suggested four different personality profiles: (a) Resilient (high on all traits); (b) Moderate (average on all traits); (c) Vulnerable (low on all traits); and (d) Undercontrolled (low on Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability, high on Extraversion). Multiple group path analysis suggested that Vulnerable profile predicted at T2 lower PB in boys and girls, and higher externalizing problems and QoF only in girls; Undercontrolled profile predicted higher externalizing problems and lower PB in boys and girls, and better QoF in boys. Our findings suggested that adolescents’ personality profiles may affect adolescents’ proneness to positive or negative interpersonal behavior, and the quality of their relations with peer over time. Furthermore, those longitudinal associations may be partially different for boys and girls.