The Relationship between Personality Traits and Stress Levels in Children

Abstract

This study assessed the relationship between the personality traits and stress levels in children. The Scale of Children Personality Traits and the Scale of Infant Stress were administered. The personality trait dimensions refer to neuroticism, psychoticism, extroversion and sociability, and the stress dimensions refer to levels of stress resistance, alertness, near-exhaustion and exhaus-tion and the stress reaction types regarding the psychological, psychological with depressing com-ponent, psychophysiological and physic types. Fifty children of both genders were assessed; all of them studied in classes from the first to the fourth grades of an elementary public school. The data indicate moderate and positive correlations between the neuroticism and stress levels traits, be-ing mainly evidenced in psychological reactions. On the other hand, the traits psychoticism, ex-troversion and sociability did not present significant correlations with the sample stress levels.