Abstract
The present paper investigates the power of personality to predict important life outcomes in the context of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). On the most global level, personality can be described by the Big Five dimensions, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. These five dimensions were assessed in the German PIAAC longitudinal study (N = 4122) and can thus be directly related to the central competence and outcome indicators measured in PIAAC. In a first step, we report the relationships between the Big Five dimensions and the basic competencies literacy and numeracy. In a second step, we investigate the extent to which the five personality dimensions can contribute to explaining six important life outcomes, above and beyond competencies and sociodemographic characteristics. Our results indicate that personality is substantially related to all six life outcomes. The portion of variance explained by personality was similar to, and sometimes larger than, that explained by competencies. After adjusting for competencies, personality was incrementally predictive of life satisfaction and health, in particular, and, to a lesser extent, of educational attainment, employment status, and income. The only outcome of which personality was not incrementally predictive over and above competencies was participation in continuing education. Overall, these findings highlight the merit of including measures for the Big Five personality domains in upcoming cycles of PIAAC.
Highlights
Cognitive skills, such as literacy and numeracy, are undoubtedly powerful predictors of important life outcomes such as educational attainment, income, and health (Herrnstein and Murray 1994)
Personality and basic competencies In a first step, we examined the degree to which the Big Five dimensions were related to the basic competencies literacy and numeracy
We investigated the relations between the personality domains of the Big Five approach to personality and (a) the cognitive skills assessed in PIAAC, namely literacy and numeracy, and (b) central economic and social outcomes
Summary
Cognitive skills, such as literacy and numeracy, are undoubtedly powerful predictors of important life outcomes such as educational attainment, income, and health (Herrnstein and Murray 1994). During the last decade, other traits besides cognitive skills have emerged as potent predictors of life outcomes. These traits—often collectively referred to as “non-cognitive skills”—include personality, motivation, interests, and beliefs. Many researchers and studies have heeded this call Influential national surveys, such as the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), and international surveys, such as the World Values Survey (WVS) and the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), have included measures of personality and other non-cognitive skills in their core questionnaires
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