Michela Balsamo, Marco Lauriola, Aristide Saggino
Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy.
Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, Roma, Italy.
DOI: 10.4236/psych.2012.35056   PDF    HTML     10,420 Downloads   19,395 Views   Citations

Abstract

The present study attempts to solve the nature of the known individual differences in personality related to academic college major choice. The question whether these precede or follow the choice of an academic major is still open. To rule out environmental influences during academic study, group differences in personality were assessed in perspective college students, thus before the incoming in a specific academic major. The Big Five Questionnaire-60 (BFQ; Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vecchione, & Barbaranelli, 2006) and a questionnaire assessing the behavioural intention to enrol in different university faculties were administered to a sample of 886 last-year students who enrolled in different senior high schools. Among the Big-Five Factors, Extraversion and Conscientiousness have been found the explanatory variables predicting high-school students’expressed choice for their perspective academic career. These findings give a preliminary empirical support to the hypothesis of the pre-existence of group differences in personality at the moment of their choice for a specific academic career. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Keywords

Personality Traits; College Major Choice

Share and Cite:

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Allen, J., & Robbins, S. (2008). Prediction of college major persistence based on vocational interests and first-year academic performance. Research in Higher Education, 49, 62-79. doi:10.1007/s11162-007-9064-5
[2]	Allen, J., & Robbins, S. (2010). Effects of interest-major congruence, motivation, and academic performance on timely degree attainment. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57, 23-35. doi:10.1037/a0017267
[3]	Barbaranelli, C., & Caprara, G. V. (2000). Measuring the Big Five in self-report and other ratings: A multitrait-multimethod study. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 16, 31-43. doi:10.1027//1015-5759.16.1.31
[4]	Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Borgogni, L., & Perugini, M. (1993). The Big Five questionnaire: A new questionnaire to assess the Five Factor Model. Personality and Individual Differences, 15, 281-288. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(93)90218-R
[5]	Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., & Livi, S. (1994). Mapping persona- lity dimensions in the Big Five model. European Review of Applied Psychology, 44, 9-15.
[6]	Caprara, G.V., Schwartz, S., Capanna, C., Vecchione, M., & Barbaranelli, C. (2006). Personality and Politics: Values, Traits, and Political Choice. Political Psychology, 27, 1-28. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00447.x
[7]	Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Bermudez, J., Maslach, C., & Ruch, W. (2000). Multivariate methods for the comparison of factor structures in cross-cultural research: An illustration with the Big Five questionnaire. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 31, 437-464. doi:10.1177/0022022100031004002
[8]	Corulla, W.J., & Coghill, K.R. (1991). Can educational streming be linked to personality? A possible link between extraversion, psychoticism and choice of subjects. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 367-374. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(91)90052-D
[9]	De Cooman, R., Gieter, S. D., Pepermans, R., Hermans, S., Bois, C. D., Caers, R., & Jegers, M. (2009). Person-organization fit: Testing socialization and attraction-selection-attrition hypotheses. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74, 102-107. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2008.10.010
[10]	De Fruyt, F., & Mervielde, I. (1996). Personality and interests as predictors of educational streaming and achievement. European Journal of Personality, 10, 405-425. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0984(199612)10:5<405::AID-PER255>3.0.CO;2-M
[11]	De Raad, B., & Schouwenburg, H.C. (1996). Personality in learning and education: A review. European Journal of Personality, 10, 303-336. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0984(199612)10:5<303::AID-PER262>3.0.CO;2-2
[12]	Dickson, L. (2010). Race and gender differences in college major choice. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 627, 108-124. doi:10.1177/0002716209348747
[13]	Galotti, K. M. (2007). Decision structuring in important real-life decisions. Psychological Science, 18, 320-325. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01898.x
[14]	Gilbreath, B., Kim, T.-Y., & Nichols, B. (2010). Person-environment fit and its effects on university students: A response surface metho- dology study. Research in Higher Education, 52, 47-62. doi:10.1007/s11162-010-9182-3
[15]	Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216-1229. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216
[16]	Harris, J. A. (1993). Personalities of students in three faculties: Perception and accuracy. Personality and Individual Differences, 15, 351-352. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(93)90229-V
[17]	Holland, J. L. (1985). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocation personalities and work environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
[18]	Holland, J. L. (1996). Exploring careers with a typology what we have learned and some new directions. American Psychologist, 51, 397- 406. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.51.4.397
[19]	Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
[20]	Hu, C., & Gong, Y. (1990). Personality differences between writers and mathematicians on the EPQ. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 637-638. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(90)90047-U
[21]	John, O.P. (1990). The “Big Five” factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and questionnaires. In: L. A. Pervin, (Ed), Handbook of personality theory and research (pp. 66-100). New York: Guilford.
[22]	Kline, P., & Lapham, S. (1992). Personality and faculty in British universities. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 855-857. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(92)90061-S
[23]	Lauriola, M., Saggino, A., Balsamo, M., & Gioggi, A. (2005). Tratti di personalità nel contesto educativo: successo ed orientamento scolastico [Personality traits in education: School achievement and interests]. GIPO- Giornale Italiano di Psicologia dell’Orientamento, 6/1, 13-25.
[24]	Leppel, K., Williams, M.L., & Waldauer, C. (2001). The impact of parental occupation and socioeconomic status on choice of college major. Journal of Family and Economic, 22, 373-394.
[25]	Lievens, F., Coetsier, P., De Fruyt, F., & De Maeseneer, J. (2002). Medical students’ personality characteristics and academic perfor- mance: A five-factor model perspective. Medical Education, 36, 1050-1056. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01328.x
[26]	Lounsbury, J. W., Smith, R. M., Levy, J. J., Leong, F. T., & Gibson, L. W. (2009). Personality characteristics of business majors as defined by the Big Five and narrow personality traits. Journal of Education for Business, 84, 200-205. doi:10.3200/JOEB.84.4.200-205
[27]	Ma, Y. Y. (2009). Family socioeconomic status, parental involvement, and college major choices-gender, race/ethnic, and nativity patterns. Sociological Perspectives, 52, 211-234. doi:10.1525/sop.2009.52.2.211
[28]	Ma, Y. Y. (2011). College major choice, occupational structure and demographic patterning by gender, race and nativity. Social Science Journal, 48, 112-129. doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2010.05.004
[29]	Marrs, H., Barb, M. R., & Ruggiero, J. C. (2007). Self-reported influences on psychology major choice and personality. Individual Differences Research, 5, 289-299.
[30]	Miech, R. A., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Wright, B. R., & Silva, P. A. (1999). Low socioeconomic status and mental disorders: A longitudinal study of selection and causation during young adulthood. American Journal of Sociology, 104, 1096-1131. doi:10.1086/210137
[31]	Niu, S. X., & Tienda, M. (2008). Choosing college: Identifying and modeling choice sets. Social Science Research, 37, 416-433. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2007.06.015
[32]	Porter, S. R., & Umbach, P. D. (2006). College major choice: An analysis of person-environment fit. Research in Higher Education, 47, 429-449. doi:10.1007/s11162-005-9002-3
[33]	Roese, N. J., & Summerville, A. (2005). What we regret most … and why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1273-1285. doi:10.1177/0146167205274693
[34]	Rubinstein, G. (2005). The big five among male and female students of different faculties. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1495-1503. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.012
[35]	Schneider, B., Goldstein, H. W., & Smith, D. B. (1995). The ASA framework: An update. Personnel Psychology, 48, 747-774. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1995.tb01780.x
[36]	Schmitt, N., Oswald, F. L., Friede, A., Imus, A. & Merritt, S. (2008). Perceived fit with an academic environment: Attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 317-335. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2007.10.007
[37]	Slaughter, J. E., Stanton, J. M., Mohr, D. C., & Schoel III, W. A. (2005). The interaction of attraction and selection: Implications for college recruitment and schneider’s ASA model. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54, 419-441. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.2005.00218.x
[38]	Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2006). Using multivariate statistics (5th ed.). New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
[39]	Tracey, T. J., & Robbins, S. B. (2006). The interest-major congruence and college success relation: A longitudinal study. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69, 64-89. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2005.11.003
[40]	Tracey, T. J. C., Allen, J., & Robbins, S. B. (2011). Moderation of the relation between person-environment congruence and academic success: Environmental constraint, personal flexibility and method. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 38-49. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2011.03.005
[41]	Van Der Molen, H. T., Schmidt, H. G., & Kruisman, G. (2007). Personality characteristics of engineers. European Journal of Engineering Education, 32, 495-501. doi:10.1080/03043790701433111
[42]	Wilson, G. D., & Jackson, C. (1994). The personality of physicists. Personality and Individual Differences, 16, 187-189. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)90123-6
[43]	Wintre, M., Knoll, G., Pancer, S., Pratt, M., Poliyy, J., Birnie-Lefco- vitch, S., et al. (2008). The transition to university: The student- university match (SUM) questionnaire. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23, 745-769. doi:10.1177/0743558408325972
[44]	Worthington, A. C., & Higgs, H. (2003). Factors explaining the choice of a finance major: The role of students’ characteristics, personality and perceptions of the profession. Accounting Education: An International Journal, 12, 261-281. doi:10.1080/0963928032000088831