Personality Trait and

Academic Performance

Dr. Govind Singh Kushwaha

Department of Social Science & Humanities
G.B Pant University of Agriculture & Technology
Pantnagar
 Personality
 Personality comes from the Greek work persona –which referred to a
role play by an actor in a play

Allport’s definition of Personality

 “Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to the
environment.” (1937)

 “Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those

psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and
thought” (1961)
 Psychologists define personality as a relatively stable pattern of
thinking, feeling, and behaving that distinguishes one person
 Personality Trait- A trait can be thought of as a relatively stable
characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways.
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 Types of Traits
 Cardinal Traits: These are traits that
dominate an individual’s whole life, often to
the point that the person becomes known
specifically for these traits. People with such
personalities often become so known for these
traits that their names are often synonymous
with these qualities.

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 Central Traits: These are the general
characteristics that form the basic foundations
of personality. These central traits, while not
as dominating as cardinal traits, are the major
characteristics you might use to describe
another person.
 Secondary Traits: These are the traits that
are sometimes related to attitudes or
preferences and often appear only in certain
situations or under specific circumstances. 4
 The 16 Personality Factor
 These Personality factors are considered relatively unchanging features
that strongly influence human performance.
 But the way in which the human being performs is mainly influenced by
environment.
 The underlying personality is there all the time, but the way in which
people understand themselves is affected by intelligence, and by culture,
upbringing and education, which may have taught people either to
emphasis or suppress aspects of their personality.
 Presumably if a person can understand what his or her personality is,
s/he can then make better use of the strengths, and make allowances for
the resultant weaknesses.
 Because personality is relatively unchanging through adult life, this
understanding will be of long-term value.

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 Cattell proposed that all human behavior and
personality could be described by sixteen
traits or personality factors.
 Cattell’s sixteen source traits are described on
a continuum, that is to say that everybody has
some amount of these traits.

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 Surface traits are stable characteristics that
can be observed in certain situations.
 These are the traits that people perceive in
other’s behavior
 Source traits are stable characteristics that can
be considered to be at the core of personality

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 The 16 Personality Factors

 Each factor can be measured on a scale,

determined by completing a questionnaire, and
the word pairs indicate the extremes of each
scale. The letter codes were ascribed to each
scale as a shorthand notation.

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 The 16 PF Scales
Primary Source Traits
Warmth (Reserved vs. Warm) Factor A
Reasoning (Concrete vs. Abstract) Factor B
Emotional Stability (Reactive vs. Emotionally Stable) Factor C
Dominance (Deferential vs. Dominant) Factor E
Liveliness (Serious vs. Lively) Factor F
Rule-Consciousness (Expedient vs. Rule-Conscious) Factor G
Social Boldness (Shy vs. Socially Bold) Factor H
Sensitivity (Utilitarian vs. Sensitive) Factor I
Vigilance (Trusting vs. Vigilant) Factor L
Abstractedness (Grounded vs. Abstracted) Factor M
Privateness (Forthright vs. Private) Factor N
Apprehension (Self-Assured vs. Apprehensive) Factor O
Openness to Change (Traditional vs. Open to Change) Factor Q1
Self-Reliance (Group-Oriented vs. Self-Reliant) Factor Q2
Perfectionism (Tolerates Disorder vs. Perfectionistic) Factor Q3
Tension (Relaxed vs. Tense) Factor Q4
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The 16 PF Scales
The Secondary Traits or (5 Global Traits)
Extraversion
Neuroticism
Tough-Mindedness
Independence
Self-Control

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Objectives
 Whether and to what extent the personality trait can
predict academic performance of students.
 Which, among the global and primary traits, are the
most significant correlates and predictors of
academic performance?
 Whether the prediction of academic performance by
personality can be more accurate at the global- or
primary trait level

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 Types of Personality Assessments

 Formal
 Structured personality instruments
• MMPI
• 16 PF
• NEO-PI-R
• MBTI
 Projective techniques
• Roschach
• TAT
 Informal
 Observation
G.B. Pant University of Agriculture
& Technology Pantnagar 12