‘‘Show me the child and I’ll show you the man.’’ Alas, the folk beliefembodied in this aphorism is not widely shared by behavioralscientists. Classic theories of personality are divided by competingviews about the nature of continuity and change in development,and clashing opinions are often impervious to data (Block, 1984;Kagan, 1996). Although longitudinal evidence now points to thelong-term continuities of personality characteristics from latechildhood and adolescence to adulthood (Caspi, 1998; Shiner,1998), as well as across lengthy periods of adult life (Roberts &Friend-DelVecchio, 2000), some reviewers claim that it is nearlyimpossible to predict the course of adult personality from earlychildhood (Lewis, 1997). This empirical question has taken on newimmediacy because human personality traits have become a primarytarget of the research of geneticists (Hamer, 1997), psychiatristssearching for pharmaceutical means to alter personality (Cloninger,1999), as well as early-childhood interventionists (Bruer, 1999). Suchresearch could benefit from a solid knowledge base about thenatural course of human personality development. The goal of thisarticle is to test the links between behavioral qualities observed atage 3 and personality functioning measured at age 26.

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