Age of Acquisition of personality terms

The relationship between age of acquisition (AoA), word frequency, word desirability, and factor loading in the Big Five and Hexaco models of 274 and 408 personality adjectives was studied. It was found that young children (2nd graders or younger) acquire personality terms that represent traits at the core of the broad personality factors in the Big Five and Hexaco models slightly earlier than words that represent more peripheral traits. In older children beyond second grade, the correlation between factor loading and AoA is weak. Words that describe the broad Openness and Stability aspects of personality are learned later than words for the other broad factors. Word frequency (in book texts) and desirability have a weak negative correlation with AoA. It is hypothesized that the age of acquisition of a personality term reflects the importance of the corresponding trait for children and may be used as one criterion for ranking facet level traits. Further analyses of age of acquisition of personality terms are proposed, as they may contribute to theories of childhood personality, the development of the theory of mind in children, and the development of personality tests.