DOI: 10.3886/icpsr36737
title: The Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort, 1959-1967: Childhood Personality Data
title: Archival Version

description: These data are being released in BETA version to facilitate early access to the study for research purposes. This collection has not been fully processed by NACDA or ICPSR at this time; the original materials provided by the principal investigator were minimally processed and converted to other file types for ease of use. As the study is further processed and given enhanced features by ICPSR, users will be able to access the updated versions of the study. Please report any data errors or problems to user support and we will work with you to resolve any data related issues.
The Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort consists of teacher ratings of their students' personalities. John M. (Jack) Digman orchestrated the collection of the child personality data between 1959 and 1967, during his tenure as a professor at the University of Hawaii. Childhood data was collected on 2418 children in classrooms on the islands of Oahu and Kauai. Six waves of data collection were completed, and eighty-eight teachers provided assessments of their students. Children ranged in age from 5 to 14, and were in grades 1,2,3,5 or 6. 
The initial goal of this work was to generate ratings using a broad set of items to allow for research on the structure of personality in childhood. The data collection predated the acceptance of the Big Five model of personality. Items were selected to capture the entire range of observable personality, which at the time was thought to be characterized by 10 or more domains. Subsequent analysis by Dr. Digman, and later by Lewis R. (Lew) Goldberg, demonstrated a consistent five factor structure in the child personality data. In the early days of the emergence of the Big Five model of personality structure, the Hawaii child data provided initial evidence to support the acceptance of Big Five model of personality. 

Subsequent follow-up of the sample in adulthood has included multiple questionnaires, and assessments of objective markers of health. These follow-up data allowed for the first ever assessment of the stability in the Big Five over a span of 40 years. At average age 50, participants were recruited for a half day clinic visit. Objective markers of health collected at this time have supported work testing childhood personality as a predictor of physical health, and also research testing lifespan pathways linking childhood personality to physical health in adulthood. 

This initial release includes the full childhood cohort data. Also included are a set of Big Five scores that have been used in published research on the Hawaii Personality Cohort, and a number of different sets of personality scales derived from these data. Basic demographic information is also provided. Subsequent data releases will include questionnaire and clinic data collected in adulthood.

For additional information about the correspondence between these datasets, please see the accompanying Excel file, which provides a table of overlapping variables across the datasets. Further information about this crosswalk file can be found in the "Item Overlap" section of the accompanying Study Description document.

Demographic variables included in this study include gender, cultural identity, and year of birth.
description: None
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of 
				disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major 
				statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to 
				these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
			   		Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Presence of Common Scales: 
					Data set 4 consists of a series of personality scale scores using 39 shared items across the Kauai and Oahu samples. These include Big Five scale scores, a set of midlevel cluster scores described by Goldberg (2001), Big Five scores harmonized for use with the Terman child data (Kern, Hampson, Goldberg, and Friedman, 2014), and ARC type scores derived in three different ways (Chapman and Goldberg, 2011).
description: Datasets: 
					
						DS0: Study-Level Files
						DS1: Combined Childhood Big 5 Factor Scores and Demographics
						DS2: Kauai Child Sample
						DS3: Oahu Child Sample
						DS4: Oahu and Kauai Samples: Child Scales
						DS5: Lab School 1959 Sample
						DS6: Lab School 1960 Sample
						DS7: Lab School 1963 Sample
description: on-site questionnaire
					
										The variable ID is the individual-level linking variable for the seven datasets.
description: Children in grades 1, 2, 3, 5, or 6 at schools on the islands of Oahu and Kauai.
				   		Smallest Geographic Unit: Island
description: Sample size and composition varies by dataset, although all samples were drawn from elementary schools on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Kauai. Additional information about the six samples can be found in the accompanying Study Description document as well as the following articles:
Goldberg, L. R. (2001). Analyses of Digman's child-personality data: Derivation of Big-Five factor scores from each of six samples. Journal of Personality, 69, 5, 709-743.
Hampson, S. E., Dubanoski, J. P., Hamada, W., Marsella, A. J., Matsukawa, J., Suarez, E., and Goldberg, L. R. (2001). Where are they now? Locating former elementary-school students after nearly 40 years for a longitudinal study of personality and health. Journal of Research in Personality, 35, 375-387.