As children enter and move through their school years, they become increasingly able to manage matters like homework and school projects on their own. _______, each year they should take on more responsibilities in the classroom and at home. These daily chores (家务) and responsibilities are an important part of learning that life requires _______, not just play.

Normally, of course, children are still single-minded with their _______ to have fun. While they may join in, particularly if _______ gives them time with their parents, children are not _______ to ask for household tasks, and parents often need to assign responsibilities as part of _______ to the family. At this age, many children find it difficult to _______ their chores, at least initially. Responsibility and initiative (积极性) are learned through a _______ process of guidance and reward.

As your own child takes on more responsibilities, he or she will probably have periods of acting _______, procrastinating(拖延) and dawdling (懒散). Most children do. During these times, parents need to step in and, with encouragement and gentle guidance, point him in the ________ direction.

Sometimes parents may demand too much ________ their children, or may see a problem in everything their children do. They may ________ them with too many responsibilities — an unfair number of chores, extra hours of taking care of younger siblings or a too strict schedule of after-school activities. When that happens, children may ________ taking on any responsibility at all. Parents need to ________ this kind of overloading, while still making sure that their youngsters are assuming a(n) ________ of responsibility. Children, of course ________ in the personalities. Some are simply not very persistent in the middle of chores. Others have difficulty getting organized. ________ others have trouble shifting from one activity to another. You should have a good ________ of your child’s style, and shape your ________ accordingly.

Children need to have some obligations and duties within the family, ________ they will notlearn to accept responsibility.

While people who are both trustworthy and capable are the most sought after when it comes to team assembly, friendliness and trustworthiness are often more important factors than ability.

“We assume that people are_________for important task forces and teams because of the knowledge, skills and abilities they bring to the table. However, this research suggests that people may often get picked because team members feel_________with them,” said Cynthia Maupin, assistant professor of organizational behavior and leadership in Binghamton University’s School of Management. “People may be willing to_________a bit in terms of performance in order to have a really positive team experience.”

Maupin and her colleagues focused on a group of MBA students to conduct their study. Students were_________ assigned to teams at the beginning of the semester to work on class projects and assignments. Toward the end of the semester, students were asked to form their own teams and _________why they selected each member of their group.

“We wanted to find out what people did to_________ to others that they might be someone who would be good to team up with in the future,” Maupin said.

The researchers_________looked at how students signaled their human capital, the ability to do their tasks well, and their social capital, the_________to which they were friendly and trustworthy, to other students by studying their use of either challenging or supportive voice:

●Challenging voice: Communicating in a way that challenges the present circumstances and is _________new ideas and efficiency.

●Supportive voice: Communicating in a way that __________ social ties and trust, and builds friendly unity of a team.

The researchers found that people who__________both abilities, through the use of challenging voice, and trustworthiness, through the use of supportive voice, were the most in-demand people when it came to__________teams.

“As might be expected, anyone who was very strong in terms of signaling both their human and social capital were extremely sought after. They’re doing all the right things to__________that they’re both trustworthy and a good worker,” Maupin said.

However, the researchers found that students who only exhibited social capital through__________voice were more sought after than those who only signaled their ability through the use of challenging voice.

“Our findings suggest that when people feel like they can trust you, even if you’re not__________ the best worker, they’re going to be more likely to want to work with you,” Maupin said. “They know that there are likely to be fewer interpersonal issues in that case.”

Personality is one of the most interesting ways in which people are different from one another. But where does our personality come from? Are we ________ with it or does it change as we get older? A great deal of research into personality indicates that people’s personalities are more or less ________ before they are born. However, not everyone is ________. Psychologist Sanjay Srivastava and a team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have just completed a large-scale study into personality. The researchers evaluated data from 132, 515 adults aged between 21 and 60. The team focused on five personality traits—what scientists call “The Big Five”. These are:

1. Conscientiousness—how careful, thorough and self-disciplined are you?

2.________ —how considerate and helpful are you?

3. Neuroticism—how self-conscious and tense are you?

4. Openness—how ________ , imaginative and open to new experiences are you?

5. Extraversion—how sociable and energetic are you?

What they found contradicted long-held assumptions about ________ personalities are set. Conscientiousness, a trait marked by organization and discipline and linked to success at work and in relationships, was found to increase through the age ranges studied, with the most ________ occurring in a person’s twenties. Similarly, agreeableness, a trait associated with being warm, generous and helpful, contradicted the theory that personalities don’t change after the age of 30.________, people in the study showed the most change in agreeableness during their thirties and continued to improve through their sixties.

The changes in these two traits revealed in the study seem to ________ the experiences that people tend to have at certain stages of their lives. Common sense tells us that people become more responsible and conscientious as they ________ and become better at managing their jobs and relationships. Similarly, agreeableness changes most in people’s thirties when many of them are raising a family and take on the role of ________. Openness showed small ________ in both men and women over time, a change that indicates less interest in forming new relationships, and reflects the tendency we have as we get older to spend more time with a small group of well-known relatives and friends, and less time going out and meeting ________ people.

The personality traits were ________ consistent between men and women, except for neuroticism and extraversion, with young women scoring higher than young men in both. However, the difference in neuroticism is only apparent in youth and young adulthood, and the gap between men and women in both neuroticism and extraversion ________ as people age.