Personality in primary school children. 1. Ability and achievement.

Abstract

Summary. Scores of some 4,000 11‐year‐old boys and girls on the JEPI were analysed in relation to performance on scholastic and ability tests at the primary school leaving age. Analysis by correlation and analysis of variance methods revealed that extraverted boys and girls are scholastically superior to introverted ones, the regression being linear; that stable boys and girls did only marginally better than unstable ones, the regression being somewhat curvilinear; that interaction effects between N and E only occurred in conjunction with sex, unstable extraverted girls doing unexpectedly well, unstable extraverted boys unexpectedly poorly. Grammar school entrance proportions favoured extraverted and stable boys and girls, and disfavoured ‘liars' on the L scale. Personality determined performance on ability/achievement tests more closely in the case of girls than of boys. The results suggest the importance of personality variables, particularly extraversion/introversion, in the attempt to predict scholastic success; it seems likely that introverts are ‘late developers' as compared with extraverts, but in the absence of proper follow‐up studies this conclusion remains speculative.