Associations Between Early Childcare Environment and Different Aspects of Adulthood Sociability: The 32-Year Prospective Young Finns Study

Elli Oksman,Laura Pulkki-Råback,Aino Saarinen,Tom Rosenström,Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen,Kia Gluschkoff,Olli Tuomas Raitakari,Mirka Hintsanen,Jorma Viikari

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02060

Abstract

Sociability is a widely studied trait that has been linked both with individual well- and ill-being. Although early childcare has been shown to affect social competence in children, its role in the development of different aspects of adulthood sociability is poorly understood. Using a longitudinal population-based sample (N = 464), this study investigated whether childcare arrangements at ages 3 or 6 are associated with self-reported adulthood sociability at ages 20 to 35 years. A total of five aspects of sociability were measured using three well-established personality inventories (EAS, NEO-FFI, and TCI). Multilevel modeling was applied to examine the association between early care and adulthood sociability, adjusting for several sources of random variation (between-individual variance, within-individual variance between measurement times, variance between used sociability indicators, and error variance that cannot be attributed to the previously mentioned) and potential confounders (disruptive behavior in childhood, parental socio-economic status, parent–child relationship quality, maternal age, and the number of children in the family). Based on our results, in comparison to home care, family daycare and center-based daycare at age 3 and center-based daycare at age 6 were associated with higher sociability later in life. The association was strongest for aspects of sociability that emphasize the willingness to be surrounded by other people and to be attached to them. In other words, characteristics of early care may contribute uniquely to the development of these aspects of sociability with effects that persist into adult life.

Highlights

Sociability is a widely studied trait that can be found in all personality theories and inventories, in one form or another
Exposure to family daycare (β = 0.19, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.29, p = 0.007) or centerbased daycare (β = 0.21, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.34, p = 0.014) at age 3 predicted a higher degree of overall adulthood sociability later in life
When the childcare at age 6 was adjusted for child care status at age 3, daycare history of outside-home care at age 3 combined with center-based daycare at age 6 associated with higher overall sociability in comparison to home care at age 3 and 6

Summary

Introduction

Sociability is a widely studied trait that can be found in all personality theories and inventories, in one form or another. Prior work has established associations between early child care and the development of personality and social competence (Howes, 1988; Gluschkoff et al, 2018), there is a lack of longitudinal studies on the possible effects of child care arrangements on sociability in adulthood. As the majority of children in industrialized countries are cared for outside the home at least for some period of time, childcare arrangements offer a natural setting to study the role of different early care environments in the development of sociability. The unique characteristics of different care arrangements, such as opportunities to interact with peers or exposure to pedagogically planned early education, might play a role in the development of sociability. This study investigates early childcare as an exposure that could be linked to adulthood individual differences in overall sociability and its finer aspects

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