"You might belong in Gryffindor": children's courage and its relationships to anxiety symptoms, big five personality traits, and sex roles.
This study describes a first exploration of the construct of courage in youths. Children aged 8-13 years were invited to report on the most courageous action that they had ever performed during their life. In addition, the Courage Measure for Children (CM-C) was construed as an index of children's level of personal courage, and this scale was administered in two samples of school children (Ns being 168 and 159) along with a number of other questionnaires. Results indicated that children were familiar with the concept of courage as more than 70% reported to have carried out a courageous action during their life. In addition, self-reported courage as indexed by the CM-C was positively correlated with scores on a vignette measure of courage, parent ratings of children's courage, extraversion, openness/intellect, and a masculine sex role, whereas a negative correlation was observed with anxiety symptoms. The implications of these findings and potential directions for future research are briefly discussed.
Muris
Peter
P
Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. muris@fsw.eur.nl
Mayer
Birgit
B
Schubert
Tinke
T
D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012737:Sex Factors; D012945:Social Values; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires