Personality, academic majors and performance: Revealing complex patterns

Abstract

Personality–performance research typically uses samples of psychology students without questioning their representativeness. The present article reports two studies challenging this practice. Study 1: group differences in the Big Five personality traits were explored between students (N=1067) in different academic majors (medicine, psychology, law, economics, political science, science, and arts/humanities), who were tested immediately after university enrolment. Study 2: six and a half years later the students’ academic records were obtained, and predictive validity of the Big Five personality traits and their subordinate facets was examined in the various academic majors in relation to Grade Point Average (GPA). Significant group differences in all Big Five personality traits were found between students in different academic majors. Also, variability in predictive validity of the Big Five personality traits and facets was found between different academic majors; R2 varied from .05 to .15 for the Big Five personality traits and from .16 to .57 for the Big Five facets. Complex patterns emerged; several Conscientiousness and Openness facets were good predictors of GPA in some majors, but not in others. The findings call for new directions in personality–performance research with broader sampling strategies and exploration of predictive validity of the Big Five facets.