Probably very similar to how I was at 5 but I don’t remember back that far.
I have it on good authority that while I may have been 5, I’ve never actually been a child.
All I got is self-reporting. My parents kept my “report card” from when I was in preschool at age four. I was surprised at how it sounds like the person described is the opposite of me now. The report said I was “a happy little girl who loves games and school routine.” It said I had many friends, but I that I showed no interest in books and did not enjoy art.
Funny because I read all the time, love books and consider myself an artist. I also spent years battling depression and was anything but “a happy little girl.” I had a hard time making friends as well growing up. So since these personality traits are 90% set in stone by age five, and this report card was from age four, does this mean that I did a complete personality reversal over the course of one year?
For what it’s worth, I spent most of my twenties getting past the depression and other problems, and these days I actually have a lot of friends and enjoy going out, going to parties, meeting new people, etc. I haven’t been treated for mental illness in over 12 years and I can honestly say that I don’t need it- I’m pretty happy. The love of books and art has persisted, though.
So just from self-reporting, I’d say that one’s personality can be pretty mutable if you want it to be.
When I was 5 years old, I was an incredibly self-centered narcissist who cared only for the pleasures in life, ignoring responsibility and obligation, expecting the world to provide for him and his needs forever without payment or recompense, receiving unconditional love from all those around him and having his every injury, real or imagined, magically kissed away.
So yeah, I can see it.
If the OP is correct, they should just arrest my grandson now and lock him away in a supermax prison. This is a kid who just told Santa that he wanted an xbox. Santa said “You’ll have to be extra good to get a present like that.” The kid replies “Okay, then I’ll just take a new scooter.” He is, no shit, one of the worst-behaved kids I’ve ever seen.
Have you all seen the 7 UP series of films?
They filmed a group of kids from a variety of backgrounds starting at 7. They visited them every 7 years to see how they turned out. They just passed 56 and most have turned out as expected, with some exceptions.
It’s basically correct, I guess.
Note: My daughter’s 5th birthday is today. I hope it’s true, because she is a wonderful person and I want her to stay the same. 
I think you confuse basic personality or character with a variable trait.
I always understood the age to be 3, which is why it is so important for a child to be cared for by someone that loves them for the first 3 years of their lives, not hived off to some uncaring childcare worker for what should be quality developmental time.
It’s no surprise to me that since one working parent could no longer support the family and child care became the norm, young people have become self centered, selfish, over confident and lack humility.
I wondered how long it would take for this thread to devolve into a mommy war. There needs to be the equivalent of Godwin’s Law that any internet discussion about children will eventually turn into bashing working mothers.
With bonus unfounded whining about young people.
Where did I mention “mothers”? Either parent will do.
How would these studies tell how much of personality is formed by the first five years of life and how much is inborn?
I think the vast majority - maybe all - of personality traits are inborn, but how those traits are expressed is learned and can change enormously over time. Like, if you have a kid who’s easily overstimulated by lots of social interaction, then - depending on the phase in the kid’s life and on how well he learns to work with that trait - he might be very solitary, might have a strong network of friends that he mainly interacts with one-on-one, might go to lots of parties and have a brilliant time but be wrecked afterwards. And IvoryTowerDenizen’s son, for example, might be unusually aware of other people and attuned to the nuances of social interaction - which initially made him overwhelmed and shy, but once he got the hang of it, made him very social and gregarious. The underlying personality trait stays the same, but the way it’s expressed develops and changes.
Me, I’m basically exactly who I was when I was five (and before), but it’s expressed very differently now - just for example, I still have a temper, but I’ve learned to manage it. And looking at my two kids, they are who they are - and have been since they were born. They weren’t just amorphous lumps to be moulded into whatever we felt like; they were always who they are. We can teach them how to work with their different personalities, so that the better traits come out fully and the counterproductive ones are expressed in healthier and more productive ways, but we can’t change those basic traits.
I wonder if parents who swear that their babies have a distinct personality immediately after they’re born are projecting somewhat, and how their kids turn out is to an extent based on confirmation bias.
When a baby is only a few weeks old, there aren’t many personality traits other than “cries a lot” or “doesn’t cry that much.” And really, those are more actions than personality traits. So the baby that’s crying all the time is considered fussy or stubborn, while the baby that doesn’t cry as much is considered sweet. And from then on, when the kid who was the crybaby is being stubborn or headstrong or depressed or aggressive or whatever, the parents can say “Oh, he’s been that way since birth…” while every time the noncrier does something kind or gentle or sweet, the parents can claim the same thing.
So you’re saying this became a problem when more fathers entered the workforce? 
Thank you for phrasing that much more nicely than I was about to.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
This is closer to what you said, but it’s not an actual citation. It repeats the claim but doesn’t tell us what the scientists studied or how they came to this conclusion. I can believe that large parts of our personalities are often set by 5 or 7 or something, but I’d like a better source and I’m suspicious of a round number like 90%. How do you even measure that?
[/QUOTE]
Sorry I’ve been busy lately with cold weather, but here’s some clues, plus my own observation that we do have a personality that is very similar to when we are younger than say seven (7) years old is true for me and my son and my daughter.
Well maybe not my daughter for she was not a bitch when she was five lol … that didn’t happen till she was 30 or more, plus I wish it wasn’t true, but it does happen and no I’m not a male chauvinist …
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110413053620AAmcVd0
True if Freud said it doesn’t mean it’s true, but it is a starting point.
Here’s another doctor on the same subject:http://www.chacha.com/question/is-it-true%3A-he-reported-that-our-personality-is-developed-by-the-age-of-5-or-6-years-old
Here’s one that says seven (7) years old
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Our-Personality-Is-Fully-Developed-By-the-Age-of-7-151093.shtml
We know some people say this is true. We’re asking about the factual basis for what they say.
Did you know that 87.5% of statistics are made up?
Cite?
That’s not true, though. It’s a lot more complicated than that. Take three two-week-old babies into a shopping centre, crowds, loud music, bright lights: one howls, one shoves its face into its mother’s shoulder and falls asleep, one wiggles and looks around. Turn on the blender near them: one bursts into tears, one tries to look at it, one doesn’t really react at all. Put two one-day-old babies into their first bath: one screams, one kicks and splashes. One of them turns up the hunger complaints gradually, starting with whimpering and only slowly building to an actual cry; the other one yells at the top of its lungs the second it starts feeling hungry. One of them will look at something for ages, one gets bored fast. One will lie contentedly on its own for ages, the other one yells if it’s left alone for more than a few minutes.
I wonder (obviously I could be way off) if you’ve got either no kids or just one. I only really noticed the differences when our second kid came along and I realised how very different she is from the first one. I’d say they cried about the same amount - neither one of them was a big crier - but there are huge differences all the same. Stuff that I took for granted in the first one, as default baby stuff, turned out not to be default at all.
And since a recent survey has shown that 98.5% of stay home parents were mothers then it’s obvious who you’re blaming.
Yes, that’s one of the really amazing things in life, isn’t it? Same parents and completely different kids. I get a kick out of one-child parents who are convinced that they are doing such a fantastic job because everything they did work out well. Well yes. So did I, until my son was born and everything which worked out perfectly with my daughter was absolutely the wrong thing for him.
I don’t know where I stand on the nature vs. nurture question. It’s far to complex for simple answers.
I don’t even know if I understand what exactly the claimed meaning of 90% of your personality is set by age five.