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Personality and Academic Performance

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Personality and Academic Performance

Anna Vedela* and Arthur E. Poropatb

a
Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
b
School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia

Keywords

Personality; Big Five; Five Factor Model, Academic Performance, GPA, grades

Definition

Personality refers to individual differences in the way we feel, think, and behave. Personality is the

unique combination of characteristics and qualities that makes you “you” across situations and

contexts. As such, personality is both fundamental for our understanding of and engagement with

the world. Academic performance is the assessment of the extent to which an individual—typically

a student—has achieved an educational goal. Most often academic performance is operationalized

as grades (e.g. Grade Point Average (GPA)), or, alternatively, highest level of educational

attainment.

Introduction

A high educational level is desirable not only for the individual, but also their societies and

associated economies. Educational success commonly leads to enhanced occupational status and

high earnings (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991), and societies with well-educated workforces tend to

*Email: avedel@psy.au.dk

1
enjoy both greater economic growth (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2012) and social gains such as

greater civic engagement and reduced crime rates (Bloom, Hartley, & Rosovsky, 2007). This value

accruing to educational success places a premium upon the identification of factors predicting

academic performance. The following sections provide a brief historical overview of this research

with an emphasis on the role of personality in academic performance.

Cognitive Predictors of Academic Performance

Historically, the search for predictors of academic performance began with a strong focus on

cognitive abilities. The influential work of Binet and Simon (1916) aimed at measuring students’

differential academic potential by means of intelligence tests, while Spearman (1904) identified a

general intelligence factor, g, by applying an early version of factor analysis to academic

performance measures. These works inspired considerable educational research throughout the

twentieth century and led to findings that intelligence can reliably predict academic performance

(for an overview, see Chamorro-Premuzic, 2007).

Early Research on Personality Predictors of Academic Performance

In parallel with this research has been a long tradition of research on non-cognitive predictors of

academic performance. A notable early study was reported by Webb (1915), who examined the

importance of students’ “character” for academic performance, and provided early evidence that

intelligence was not the only individual difference associated with academic performance.

Specifically, Webb identified a will factor, which he labeled w, implying a comparison with

Spearman’s g. Like g, Webb’s w effectively summarized a range of measures of students, and had

an important association with academic performance, yet this association was independent from g.

However, Webb’s w factor received little attention in subsequent research until relatively recently.

2
Instead, reviews during the twentieth century concluded that research on personality and academic

performance was hampered by the use of inconsistent approaches to and measurements of

personality, leading to inconsistent results that were difficult to interpret (De Raad &

Schouwenburg, 1996). De Raad and Schouwenburg (1996) particularly argued for the adoption of a

consistent personality framework, making use of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality to

organize their review. This advocacy has been reflected in subsequent research, and the widespread

use of FFM-based measures in educational research has enabled a reassessment of the relationship

between personality and academic performance, leading to the recognition of reliable and important

estimates of the role of personality in education.

The Five-Factor Model and Academic Performance

The history of the FFM is dealt with elsewhere in this encyclopedia, but it is important to note its

components here. Put simply, the FFM includes the most frequently appearing lexical personality

dimensions on which people vary (Poropat & Corr, 2015). These dimensions can be summarized as:

agreeableness (reflecting qualities of being friendly, modest, and accommodating);

conscientiousness (dutiful, diligent, and orderly); emotional stability (relaxed, balanced, patient),

though often denominated by its opposite pole, neuroticism (moody, ruminating, irritable);

extraversion (outgoing, sociable, active); and openness (curiosity about and tolerance for diverse

cultural and intellectual experiences), sometimes denoted intellect (Saucier & Goldberg, 1996).

Recent meta-analyses of educational research based on FFM measures (Poropat, 2009; Richardson,

Abraham, & Bond, 2012) have shown that there are indeed consistent associations between

personality and academic performance.

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Conscientiousness

Encompassing facets such as achievement striving and self-discipline, conscientiousness has much

in common with Webb’s w factor, and conscientiousness is indeed the FFM factor showing the

strongest correlations with academic performance (Poropat, 2009; Richardson et al., 2012).

Conscientiousness consistently predicts grades in primary, secondary, and tertiary academic

education, rivaling intelligence (r = .21: Richardson et al., 2012) in predictive validity in tertiary

education (r = .23: Richardson et al., 2012). These correlations are substantially stronger when

conscientiousness has been rated by a knowledgeable other-rater, such as students’ parents, peers

and teachers, both in primary education (r = .50: Poropat, 2014a) and in secondary and tertiary

education (r = .38: Poropat, 2014b).

The exact processes by which conscientiousness is linked with academic performance are

incompletely understood, but research has linked conscientiousness to a wide range of behaviors

and abilities conducive to academic performance, which may explain part of the association.

Importantly, conscientiousness is strongly associated with effortful control (Poropat, 2016), a

dimension of temperament reflecting self-regulatory abilities such as the ability to willfully direct

attention to and sustain focus on a task, as well as the ability to intentionally initiate or inhibit

actions (Rothbart, 2007). These self-regulatory abilities are fundamental for goal-directed behavior,

planning, impulse control, and norm following, which are all defining features of conscientiousness

(Roberts, Jackson, Fayard, Edmonds, & Meints, 2009).

In the educational context, more conscientious students score more highly on learning-related

factors such as persistence (Komarraju & Karau, 2005), achievement motivation (Richardson &

Abraham, 2009), class attendance (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003; Conard, 2006), and use

of self-regulatory learning strategies (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007; McKenzie, Gow, & Schweitzer,

2004) than their non-conscientious counterparts. Each of these factors reliably predicts student

4
achievement (Hattie, 2009), so these associations may account for much of the association between

conscientiousness and academic performance. Further, conscientious students have been shown to

be more highly task-focused and employ more problem-focused coping strategies, which facilitates

their learning and academic performance in the face of adversity (MacCann, Lipnevich, Burrus, &

Roberts, 2012; Saklofske, Austin, Mastoras, Beaton, & Osborne, 2012).

Ultimately, conscientiousness is associated with retention (e.g. Alarcon & Edwards, 2013). More

conscientious students are more likely to complete their educational programs, which is likely to be

due to the same conscientiousness-related abilities and behaviors promoting academic performance.

Openness

Apart from conscientiousness, openness is the FFM factor most strongly associated with academic

performance (Poropat, 2009, 2014a, 2014b; Richardson et al., 2012). In primary education self-

rated openness is almost equally effective as conscientiousness in statistically predicting academic

performance, though less effective in secondary and tertiary education (Poropat, 2009).

However, as with other-rated conscientiousness, other-rated openness is more closely linked with

academic performance than is intelligence, at least in secondary and tertiary education (r = .28:

Poropat, 2014b).

Among the FFM dimensions, openness is probably the most complicated and certainly the most

highly debated. The reason for this indeterminacy is that the openness factor includes both a

creative component reflecting artistic and contemplative interests, and an intellect component that

reflects curiosity and approach to learning. It is the intellect-curiosity component in particular that

drives the correlations between openness and academic performance (von Stumm, Hell, &

Chamorro-Premuzic, 2011), and the intellect-curiosity component also seems to account for the

correlations between openness and intelligence consistently found (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997;

5
Goff & Ackerman, 1992). Individuals who score more highly on openness tend to seek out and

enjoy new and cognitively stimulating activities, apparently resulting in cognitive growth and

accumulation of knowledge. As such, openness, and especially the intellect aspect of openness,

belongs among the “intellectual investment traits” (von Stumm & Ackerman, 2013).

Research on motivational constructs supports the notion that openness facilitates academic

performance partly through self-imposed “intellectual investment”. Students high on openness are

more curious and investigative, more intrinsically motivated to know, think, and analyze, and more

interested in improving mental abilities and increasing competencies (Bernard, 2010; Clark &

Schroth, 2010; Komarraju & Karau, 2005; Komarraju, Karau, & Schmeck, 2009). Such students

also tend to have a deep learning approach (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2009) and reflective

learning styles and learning strategies, such as elaborative processing and critical thinking

(Bidjerano & Dai, 2007; Komarraju, Karau, Schmeck, & Avdic, 2011), all of which have been

shown to mediate the relationship between openness and academic performance (Komarraju et al.,

2011; Swanberg & Martinsen, 2010). Additionally, openness is the FFM factor most strongly

associated with learning goal orientation (Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007). Learning goal

orientation is itself reliably associated with academic performance (Richardson et al., 2012), and

also mediates the relationship between openness and academic performance (Steinmayr, Bipp, &

Spinath, 2011). These motivational aspects to openness appear to affect not only short-term

academic outcomes: openness also predicts overall educational attainment, so that individuals high

on openness are more likely to achieve a high educational level during their lives (e.g. Costa et al.,

1986).

6
Agreeableness

Self-rated agreeableness has positive correlations with academic performance (Poropat, 2009;

Richardson et al., 2012), but these correlations are modest except in primary education (r = .30:

Poropat, 2009). When other-rated, correlations between agreeableness and academic performance

are unaffected by level of education, but remain relatively modest (r = .09: Poropat 2014a; r = .10:

Poropat, 2014b). Agreeableness is associated with accommodating and cooperative attitudes

towards the social environment and a compliant response to social demands. As such, the agreeable

student’s desire to “get along” with others (e.g. teachers and parents) manifests itself in academic

motivation and in behaviors aimed at improving academic performance, predominantly through

surface learning (Vermetten, Lodewijks, & Vermunt, 2001). Likewise, agreeableness is associated

with extrinsic types of academic motivation, meaning that more agreeable individuals tend to

choose to identify with and integrate socially accepted values they meet in academia, leading more

agreeable students to value academic performance because it is the socially accepted value in

educational settings (Clark & Schroth, 2010; Komarraju et al., 2009). Consistent with this,

agreeableness has been associated with academic persistence motivation, interest in self-

improvement, and grades orientation (Komarraju & Karau, 2005).

This social compliance is reflected behaviorally, with more agreeable students spending more time

on homework and procrastinating less (Lubbers, Van Der Werf, Kuyper, & Hendriks, 2010),

employing more self-regulatory learning strategies and learning styles, such as time management,

effort regulation, elaborative processing, and fact retention (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007; Komarraju et

al., 2011). These motivational and behavioral factors help to explain why agreeableness has a

positive, though limited, association with academic performance.

7
Emotional Stability

In primary education, there is a noteworthy association between self-rated emotional stability and

academic performance (r = .20: Poropat, 2009), but in secondary and tertiary education this

correlation is negligible (r = .01 and -.01, respectively: Poropat, 2009). However, as with

agreeableness, correlations between academic performance and other-rated emotional stability

remain stable across educational levels (r = .18 at all levels: Poropat, 2014a, 2014b). This

difference in correlations appears to be due to the fact that emotional stability is the FFM dimension

that is most subject to rater biases (Poropat & Corr, 2015).

Emotional stability encompasses a relaxed and calm mode of feeling, thinking, and behaving, and it

is a robust predictor of subjective well-being (Steel, Schmidt, & Shultz, 2008). Emotionally stable

individuals have lower levels of negative affect and higher quality of life, and they are less prone to

suffer from psychological disorders (Kotov, Gamez, Schmidt, & Watson, 2010; Steel et al., 2008).

Emotional stability is also associated with performance self-efficacy (Judge & Ilies, 2002), which in

turn is strongly predictive of academic performance (r = .59: Richardson et al., 2012).

In light of this, one might expect that emotional stability would translate into purely positive

motivations and outcomes in academia. However, the relationship between emotional stability and

academic performance has proven to be more complex. Demonstrating this complexity, more

emotionally stable individuals are more likely to willfully focus on and learn from errors (Zhao,

2011) and employ learning styles and strategies conducive to academic performance in general,

such as analyzing, organizing, and integrating new material with previous knowledge (Komarraju et

al., 2011; Lubbers et al., 2010). However, emotional stability is also associated with being less

likely to rehearse material, and more emotionally stable students allocate less time to homework

(Bidjerano & Dai, 2007; Lubbers et al., 2010). Adding to this complexity, low levels of emotional

stability are associated with academic amotivation, debilitating anxiety, withdrawing, and feeling

8
discouraged about school (Clark & Schroth, 2010; Komarraju & Karau, 2005; Komarraju et al.,

2009), but also with an orientation towards achieving good grades (Komarraju & Karau, 2005). The

latter possibly reflects fear of failure, since low emotional stability is associated with goals of

avoiding negative evaluations and the perception of incompetence relative to others (Payne et al.,

2007).

So, it appears that because individuals who are higher on emotional stability are less motivated by

such avoidance goals, they are less inclined to spend time on homework and rehearsal.

Extraversion

Extraversion has only modest correlations with academic performance overall (Poropat, 2009;

Richardson et al., 2012) with the strongest relationship being between self-rated extraversion and

academic performance in primary education (r = .18: Poropat, 2009). Correlations of other-rated

extraversion with academic performance in primary (r = .11: Poropat, 2014a) and secondary and

tertiary education (r = .05: Poropat, 2014b) are also relatively modest when compared with the

other FFM dimensions. So, extraversion has some relevance to academic performance, but care

should be taken to avoid over-interpreting these modest associations.

However, extraversion has been reliably linked with a range of learning-relevant variables.

More extraverted individuals generally have higher subjective well-being such as positive affect

and quality of life, most likely due to the creation of positive life experiences facilitated by the

sociability component of extraversion (Steel et al., 2008). This sociability, assertiveness, and active

engagement with the social environment characterizing extraverted individuals may be beneficial

for learning that involves frequent interactions with teachers or peers. Consistent with this, more

extraverted students are better at seeking help from peers and instructors, when they encounter

learning difficulties (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007). This enables better understanding, but it also makes

9
the student more visible to the teacher (Poropat, 2014a). Being visible can have a positive effect on

the student’s academic standing, because teachers in primary education, where interaction between

students and teachers is most frequent, have the tendency to perceive shy children as less intelligent

and less academically gifted than their more talkative counterparts (Coplan, Hughes, Bosacki, &

Rose-Krasnor, 2011). This may explain the positive association between extraversion and academic

performance found at this educational level. However, these same characteristics of sociability and

orientation towards the social environment may also pose a challenge to the extraverted student.

Students high on extraversion are generally more academically motivated and have higher learning

goal orientation (Clark & Schroth, 2010; Payne et al., 2007), but they are also motivated to spend

time with friends, participate in societies and events, explore the social environment, etc. (Bernard,

2010). This sociability-induced distractibility may partly explain why the association between

extraversion and academic performance is reduced at higher academic levels, where students have

more responsibility for their own learning.

Alternative Personality Models and Academic Performance

The past few decades have seen the domination of research on personality and academic

performance by the FFM, but other trait constructs and personality models have been employed as

well. The biologically based Eysenckian personality model (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) has been an

influential alternative to the FFM, in educational research as in psychology in general. Two of the

personality factors in the Eysenckian personality model, extraversion and neuroticism, are very

similar to extraversion and emotional stability (reversed) in the FFM and show similar associations

with academic performance. Furthermore, the psychoticism factor in the Eysenckian model partly

overlaps with conscientiousness (reversed), but unlike conscientiousness, psychoticism shows only

limited predictive validity for academic performance (Poropat, 2011). Taken together, the

10
Eysenckian personality model does not offer incremental validity for academic performance when

compared to the FFM.

Various isolated personality constructs have also been associated with academic performance,

though much less frequently studied. Notably, need for cognition and emotional intelligence have

shown positive correlations with GPA, whereas procrastination is negatively associated with GPA

(Richardson et al., 2012), which is consistent with the strong negative association between

procrastination and conscientiousness (Steel, 2007).

One of the limitations of the FFM is that it was developed on the basis of factor-analyzing common-

language descriptors of personality (Saucier & Goldberg, 1996), rendering it largely atheoretical,

even if it has been shown to be highly useful. It is for this reason that so much attention has been

paid to efforts at explaining why these empirically-derived personality factors should be associated

with academic performance. By contrast, reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) provides a model

of personality that is rooted in behavioral learning theory (Corr, 2004), which makes RST appealing

as a model that potentially could explain the associations between personality and academic

performance. However, research on RST in academic settings is scarce (Poropat, 2016), and it

remains uncertain what utility RST has in educational research in relation to individual differences

in learning and performance (Matthews, 2008).

Moderators

As indicated earlier, academic level moderates the relationship between the FFM and academic

performance. Only conscientiousness is consistently associated with academic performance across

primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Openness, agreeableness, emotional stability, and

extraversion all have lower correlations with academic performance in secondary and tertiary

education (Poropat, 2009, 2016).

11
However, the moderating effect of educational level interacts with the way personality is measured.

For the past half-century, personality has typically been assessed using self-ratings, and most

research on relationships between personality and academic performance therefore reports results

based on self-rated personality. But as summarized previously, use of other-rated measures of the

FFM produce markedly different correlations of FFM traits with academic performance.

Some of the explanation for the discrepancies in predictive validity between self-rated and other-

rated personality may originate in self-raters’ desirability biases. A recent study has found that more

educated individuals perceive openness as more desirable and are also more prone to overstate their

level of openness in self-reports (Ludeke, 2014), while self-raters tend to assess emotional stability

in ways that make it less useful for predicting academic performance (Poropat, 2014b). In research

on academic performance, this bias would not only make self-reported levels of openness

unreliable, it would also result in an underestimation of the true correlation between openness and

academic performance. Other-ratings are less influenced by desirability bias, and they have the

additional strength that they are based on observed behavior, not on intentional behavior.

Finally, academic major has been shown to moderate the associations between the FFM traits and

academic performance in tertiary education (Vedel, 2014; Vedel, Thomsen, & Larsen, 2015).

Conscientiousness, for example, appears to be a comparatively stronger predictor of GPA for

psychology and law students than for economics students. And whereas openness seems to benefit

political science students academically, the opposite seems to be the case for law students (Vedel et

al., 2015). Research has consistently shown that students in different majors differ from each other

at the group level on the FFM traits (Vedel, 2016), and it seems likely that different personality

traits are beneficial in different academic disciplines. This would parallel findings from job

performance research showing differential predictive validity of the FFM traits in different

occupations (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001). However, academic major is

12
a little studied moderator, and our current knowledge about its effect on the associations between

the FFM traits and academic performance is limited.

Conclusion

A century has passed since Webb (1915) highlighted the need to look beyond cognitive abilities in

the search for predictors of academic performance, but it is only in recent reviews that it has

become clear that personality is at least as, if not more, important than intelligence in educational

settings. Conscientiousness has emerged as the personality factor most strongly correlated with

academic performance, but both openness and emotional stability have important associations with

educational success. It is now clear that Webb was right to look past intelligence to “character”

when attempting to understand academic performance. Personality matters in important life

outcomes from health to occupational attainment and romantic relationships (Roberts, Kuncel,

Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007)—it is clear that academic performance is no exception.

Cross-References

• Big Five Model

• Intelligence-Personality Associations

• Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

• Lexical Approach

• Observer-Report Assessment of Personality and Individual Differences

• Performance goals

• Persistence

• Personality and Occupational Success

• Personality, Personnel Selection and Job Performance

13
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