Big Five Differences in Personality Traits Based on High School Backgrounds
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Published:
Dec 12, 2019
Keywords:
Big five personality traits, five-factor model, undergraduates, Thailand, international school
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Abstract
Using the five-factor model, this research compares how personality traits differs between students graduating from a Thai high school, those finishing from an international school within the country, and those that graduate from outside of the country. Participants were 937 first-term undergraduate majoring in 17 different programs. When comparing traits to an American sample of 21-year-olds, Thai undergraduates scored significantly lower on openness, conscientiousness, agreeability, and neuroticism (all p=0.000). Extraversion scores between the two were not significantly different. When comparing high school backgrounds, female students coming from a Thai school had significantly higher scores in conscientiousness (p=0.008) than those who came from an international school. They also had significantly lower neuroticism scores than the international school graduates (p=0.000). Males who study abroad had significantly higher agreeableness (p=0.013) and openness scores (p=0.004) than those who studied at a Thai high school. In conclusion, Thai students coming from different secondary educational systems showed distinct character traits differing according to students’ gender. Prior research has associated these factor differences to future academic and career success.
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References
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Barrick, M., & Mount, M. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26.
Caldwell, D., & Burger, J. (1998). Personality characteristics of job applicants and success in screening interviews. Personnel Psychology, 51, 119-136.
Cattell, R. (1945). The description of personality: Principles and findings in a factor analysis. The American Journal of Psychology, 58(1), 69-90.
De Haan, A., De Pauw, S., Van den Akker, A., Dekovic, M., & Prinzie, P. (2017). Long-term developmental changes in children’s lower-order big five personality facets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 616-631.
Derrick, B., Toher, D., & White, P. (2016). Why Welch’s test is Type I error robust. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 12(1), 30-38.
Deveney, B. (2005). An investigation into aspects of Thai culture and its impacts on Thai students in an international school in Thailand. Journal of Research in International Education, 4(2), 153-171.
Emre, M. (2018). The personality brokers: The strange history of Myers-Briggs and the birth of personality testing. New York, NY, USA: Doubleday.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY, USA: W.W. Norton & Company.
Felmlee, D., Eder, D., & Tsui, W. (1985). Peer influence on classroom attention. Social Psychology Quarterly, 48(3), 215-226.
Flay, B., Hu, F., & Richardson, J. (1998). Psychosocial predictors of different stages of cigarette smoking among high school students. Preventive Medicine, 27, a9-a18.
Mala, D. (2016). Thai students plunge in Pisa test rankings . Bangkok Post. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1154113/thai-students-plunge-in-pisa-test-rankings
Frost, J., & McKelvie, S. (2004). Self-esteem and body satisfaction in male and female elementary school, high school, and university students. Sex Roles, 51(1/2), 45-54.
Fry, R. (2017). It’s becoming more common for young adults to live at home – and for longer stretches. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/05/its-becoming-more-common-for-young-adults-to-live-at-home-and-for-longer-stretches/
Goldberg, L. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The big-five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1216-1229.
Goldberg, L. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48(1), 26-34.
Goodman, J. (2017, July ). Unpacking the narrative of educational failure: Thailand in the standardized testing era. Paper presented at the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies, Globalized Thailand? Connectivity, Conflict and Conundrums of Thai Studies, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Hallinan, M., & Williams, R. (1990). Students’ characteristics and the peer-influence process. Sociology of Education, 63(2), 122-132.
Hammon, D., & Hendricks, C. (2005). The role of the generations in identity formation: Erikson speaks to teachers of adolescents. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 79(2), 72-75.
Hill, P., & Edmonds, G. (2017). Personality development in adolescence. In J. Specht (Ed.), Personality development across the lifespan. London, UK: Academic Press.
Hodgen, J., Pepper, D., Sturman, L., & Ruddock, G. (2010). An international comparison of upper secondary mathematics education: 24 country profiles. Retrieved from https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/
default/files/files/Country%20profiles_outlier_NuffieldFoundation.pdf
Huang, J., Ryan, A., Zabel, K., & Palmer, A. (2014). Personality and adaptive performance at work: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(1), 162-179.
Hurtz, G., & Donovan, J. (2000). Personality and job performance: The big five revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(6), 869-879.
Institute for Education Sciences. (2017). The Condition of Education 2017. Washington, DC, USA: National Center for Educational Statistics, US Department of Education.Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/
2017144.pdf
Jackson, J., Thoemmes, F., Jongmann, J., Ludtke, O., & Trautwein, U. (2012). Military training and personality trait development: Does the military make the man, or does the man make the military? Psychological Science, 23(3), 270-277.
John, O., Naumann, L., & Soto, C. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality (3rd ed., pp. 114-158). New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.
John, O., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 102-138). New York, NY, USA: Guilford.
Komarraju, M., Karau, S., Schmeck, R., & Avdic, A. (2011). The big five personality traits, learning styles, and academic achievement. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(4), 472-477.
Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the big five personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 63, 58-63.
Machin, D. (2017). The great Asian international school gold rush: An economic analysis. Journal of Research in International Education, 16(2) 131-146.
McCann, S. (2015). Big five personality and residential mobility: A state-level analysis of the USA. The Journal of Social Psychology, 155(3), 274-291.
McCrae, R., & Costa, P. (1985). Updating Norman's "adequate taxonomy": Intelligence and personality dimensions in natural language and in questionnaires. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 710-721.
McCrae, R., & Costa, P. (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality (3rd ed., pp. 159-181). New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.
McCrae, R., Costa, P., Terracciano, A., Parker, W., Mills, C., De Fruyt, F., & Mervielde, I. (2002). Big five personality development in adolescence and adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1456-1468.
Migali, G., & Zucchelli, E. (2017). Personality traits, forgone health care and high school dropout: Evidence from us adolescents. Journal of Economic Psychology, 62, 98-119.
O-Net Scores Still Disappoint. (2018, March 31). Bangkok Post. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/ thailand/general/1438387/o-net-scores-still-disappoint
Nutton, V. (2013). Ancient medicine (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge
OECD. (2016a). Education in China: A snapshot. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/china/Education-in-China-a-snapshot.pdf
OECD. (2016b). Education policy outlook Korea. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/Education-Policy-Outlook-Korea.pdf
Paunonen, S., & Ashton, M. (2013). On the prediction of academic performance with personality traits: A replication study. Journal of Research in Personality, 47(6), 778-781.
Pimpa, N., & Suwannapirom, S. (2008). Thai students’ choice of vocational education: Marketing factors and reference groups. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 7(2), 99-107.
Pinyakong, K., Virasilp, P., & Somboon, U. (2007). Development of private secondary schools in Thailand. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000150157
Pollock, D., & Van Reken, R. , & Pollock, M. (2017). Third culture kids: Growing up among worlds (3rd ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Poropat, A. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 322-338.
Rammstedt, B., Goldberg, L., & Borg, I. (2010). The measurement equivalence of big five factor markers for persons with different levels of education. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(4), 53-61.
Richardson, M., Abraham, C., & Bond, R. (2012). Psychological correlates of university students' academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 353-387.
Roberts, B., & DelVecchio, W. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 126(1), 3-25.
Robins, R., Fraley, R., Roberts, B., & Trzesniewski, K. (2001). A longitudinal study of personality change in young adulthood. Journal of Personality, 69(4), 617-640.
Roberts, B., Wood, D., & Smith, J. (2005). Evaluating FiveFactor Theort and social investment perspective on personality trait development. Journal of Research in Personality, 39(1), 166-184.
Rothmann, S., & Coetzer, E. (2004). The big five personality dimensions and job performance. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 29(1), 68-74.
Salgado, J. (1997). The five factor model of personality and job performance in the European community. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(1), 30-43.
Schmeck, R., & Ribich, F. (1978). Construct validation of the inventory of learning process. Applied Psychological Measurement, 2(4), 551-562.
Schmitt, D., Allik, J., McCrae, R., & Benet, V. (2007). The geographic distribution of the big five personality traits: Patterns and profiles of human self-description across 56 nations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38(2), 173-212.
Soto, C. (2016). The little six personality dimensions from early childhood to early adulthood: Mean‐level age and gender differences in parents' reports. Journal of Personality, 84(4), 409-422.
Srivasrava, S., John, O., Gosling, S., & Potter, J. (2003). Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change? Journal or Personality and Social Psychology, 84(5), 1041-1053.
Thai Ministry of Education. (2017). 2016 Educational statistics. Retrieved from Bangkok, Thailand: http://www.en.moe.go.th/enMoe2017/index.php/educational-statistics/educational-statistics-2016
Thurstone, L. (1934). The vectors of mind. Psychological Review, 41(1), 1-32.
Thorndike, E. (1910). The contribution of psychology to education. The Journal of Educational Psychology, 1, 5-12.
US International Trade Administration. (2017). Thailand-education services: Thailand country commercial guide. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20170418191117/https://www.export.gov/article?id= Thailand-education-services
Vedel, A. (2014). The big five and tertiary academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 61-76.
Ziegler, M., Bensch, D., Maaß, U., Schult, V., Vogel, M., & Buhner, M. (2014). Big five facets as predictor of job training performance: The role of specific job demands. Learning and Individual Differences, 29, 1-7.
Zimmermann, J., & Neyer, F. (2013). Do we become a different person when hitting the road? Personality development of sojourners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 515-530.
Arthur, J. (2008). Traditional approaches to character education in Britain and America. In L. P. Nucci & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Handbook of Moral and Character Education (1st ed.). New York, NY, USA: Routledge.
The ASEAN Secretariat. (2014). ASEAN state of education report 2013. Retrieved from https://www.asean.org/
storage/images/resources/2014/Oct/ASEAN+State+of+Education+Report+2013.pdf
Australian Department of Education. (2017). International Student Data 2017. Retrieved from https://internat ionaleducation.gov.au/research/International-Student-Data/Pages/InternationalStudentData2017.aspx
Barenbaum, N., & Winter, D. (2008). History of modern personality theory and research. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality (3rd ed.). New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.
Barrick, M., & Mount, M. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26.
Caldwell, D., & Burger, J. (1998). Personality characteristics of job applicants and success in screening interviews. Personnel Psychology, 51, 119-136.
Cattell, R. (1945). The description of personality: Principles and findings in a factor analysis. The American Journal of Psychology, 58(1), 69-90.
De Haan, A., De Pauw, S., Van den Akker, A., Dekovic, M., & Prinzie, P. (2017). Long-term developmental changes in children’s lower-order big five personality facets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 616-631.
Derrick, B., Toher, D., & White, P. (2016). Why Welch’s test is Type I error robust. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 12(1), 30-38.
Deveney, B. (2005). An investigation into aspects of Thai culture and its impacts on Thai students in an international school in Thailand. Journal of Research in International Education, 4(2), 153-171.
Emre, M. (2018). The personality brokers: The strange history of Myers-Briggs and the birth of personality testing. New York, NY, USA: Doubleday.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY, USA: W.W. Norton & Company.
Felmlee, D., Eder, D., & Tsui, W. (1985). Peer influence on classroom attention. Social Psychology Quarterly, 48(3), 215-226.
Flay, B., Hu, F., & Richardson, J. (1998). Psychosocial predictors of different stages of cigarette smoking among high school students. Preventive Medicine, 27, a9-a18.
Mala, D. (2016). Thai students plunge in Pisa test rankings . Bangkok Post. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1154113/thai-students-plunge-in-pisa-test-rankings
Frost, J., & McKelvie, S. (2004). Self-esteem and body satisfaction in male and female elementary school, high school, and university students. Sex Roles, 51(1/2), 45-54.
Fry, R. (2017). It’s becoming more common for young adults to live at home – and for longer stretches. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/05/its-becoming-more-common-for-young-adults-to-live-at-home-and-for-longer-stretches/
Goldberg, L. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The big-five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1216-1229.
Goldberg, L. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48(1), 26-34.
Goodman, J. (2017, July ). Unpacking the narrative of educational failure: Thailand in the standardized testing era. Paper presented at the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies, Globalized Thailand? Connectivity, Conflict and Conundrums of Thai Studies, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Hallinan, M., & Williams, R. (1990). Students’ characteristics and the peer-influence process. Sociology of Education, 63(2), 122-132.
Hammon, D., & Hendricks, C. (2005). The role of the generations in identity formation: Erikson speaks to teachers of adolescents. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 79(2), 72-75.
Hill, P., & Edmonds, G. (2017). Personality development in adolescence. In J. Specht (Ed.), Personality development across the lifespan. London, UK: Academic Press.
Hodgen, J., Pepper, D., Sturman, L., & Ruddock, G. (2010). An international comparison of upper secondary mathematics education: 24 country profiles. Retrieved from https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/
default/files/files/Country%20profiles_outlier_NuffieldFoundation.pdf
Huang, J., Ryan, A., Zabel, K., & Palmer, A. (2014). Personality and adaptive performance at work: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(1), 162-179.
Hurtz, G., & Donovan, J. (2000). Personality and job performance: The big five revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(6), 869-879.
Institute for Education Sciences. (2017). The Condition of Education 2017. Washington, DC, USA: National Center for Educational Statistics, US Department of Education.Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/
2017144.pdf
Jackson, J., Thoemmes, F., Jongmann, J., Ludtke, O., & Trautwein, U. (2012). Military training and personality trait development: Does the military make the man, or does the man make the military? Psychological Science, 23(3), 270-277.
John, O., Naumann, L., & Soto, C. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality (3rd ed., pp. 114-158). New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.
John, O., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 102-138). New York, NY, USA: Guilford.
Komarraju, M., Karau, S., Schmeck, R., & Avdic, A. (2011). The big five personality traits, learning styles, and academic achievement. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(4), 472-477.
Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the big five personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 63, 58-63.
Machin, D. (2017). The great Asian international school gold rush: An economic analysis. Journal of Research in International Education, 16(2) 131-146.
McCann, S. (2015). Big five personality and residential mobility: A state-level analysis of the USA. The Journal of Social Psychology, 155(3), 274-291.
McCrae, R., & Costa, P. (1985). Updating Norman's "adequate taxonomy": Intelligence and personality dimensions in natural language and in questionnaires. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 710-721.
McCrae, R., & Costa, P. (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality (3rd ed., pp. 159-181). New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.
McCrae, R., Costa, P., Terracciano, A., Parker, W., Mills, C., De Fruyt, F., & Mervielde, I. (2002). Big five personality development in adolescence and adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1456-1468.
Migali, G., & Zucchelli, E. (2017). Personality traits, forgone health care and high school dropout: Evidence from us adolescents. Journal of Economic Psychology, 62, 98-119.
O-Net Scores Still Disappoint. (2018, March 31). Bangkok Post. Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/ thailand/general/1438387/o-net-scores-still-disappoint
Nutton, V. (2013). Ancient medicine (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge
OECD. (2016a). Education in China: A snapshot. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/china/Education-in-China-a-snapshot.pdf
OECD. (2016b). Education policy outlook Korea. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/Education-Policy-Outlook-Korea.pdf
Paunonen, S., & Ashton, M. (2013). On the prediction of academic performance with personality traits: A replication study. Journal of Research in Personality, 47(6), 778-781.
Pimpa, N., & Suwannapirom, S. (2008). Thai students’ choice of vocational education: Marketing factors and reference groups. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 7(2), 99-107.
Pinyakong, K., Virasilp, P., & Somboon, U. (2007). Development of private secondary schools in Thailand. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000150157
Pollock, D., & Van Reken, R. , & Pollock, M. (2017). Third culture kids: Growing up among worlds (3rd ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Poropat, A. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 322-338.
Rammstedt, B., Goldberg, L., & Borg, I. (2010). The measurement equivalence of big five factor markers for persons with different levels of education. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(4), 53-61.
Richardson, M., Abraham, C., & Bond, R. (2012). Psychological correlates of university students' academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 353-387.
Roberts, B., & DelVecchio, W. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 126(1), 3-25.
Robins, R., Fraley, R., Roberts, B., & Trzesniewski, K. (2001). A longitudinal study of personality change in young adulthood. Journal of Personality, 69(4), 617-640.
Roberts, B., Wood, D., & Smith, J. (2005). Evaluating FiveFactor Theort and social investment perspective on personality trait development. Journal of Research in Personality, 39(1), 166-184.
Rothmann, S., & Coetzer, E. (2004). The big five personality dimensions and job performance. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 29(1), 68-74.
Salgado, J. (1997). The five factor model of personality and job performance in the European community. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(1), 30-43.
Schmeck, R., & Ribich, F. (1978). Construct validation of the inventory of learning process. Applied Psychological Measurement, 2(4), 551-562.
Schmitt, D., Allik, J., McCrae, R., & Benet, V. (2007). The geographic distribution of the big five personality traits: Patterns and profiles of human self-description across 56 nations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38(2), 173-212.
Soto, C. (2016). The little six personality dimensions from early childhood to early adulthood: Mean‐level age and gender differences in parents' reports. Journal of Personality, 84(4), 409-422.
Srivasrava, S., John, O., Gosling, S., & Potter, J. (2003). Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change? Journal or Personality and Social Psychology, 84(5), 1041-1053.
Thai Ministry of Education. (2017). 2016 Educational statistics. Retrieved from Bangkok, Thailand: http://www.en.moe.go.th/enMoe2017/index.php/educational-statistics/educational-statistics-2016
Thurstone, L. (1934). The vectors of mind. Psychological Review, 41(1), 1-32.
Thorndike, E. (1910). The contribution of psychology to education. The Journal of Educational Psychology, 1, 5-12.
US International Trade Administration. (2017). Thailand-education services: Thailand country commercial guide. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20170418191117/https://www.export.gov/article?id= Thailand-education-services
Vedel, A. (2014). The big five and tertiary academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 61-76.
Ziegler, M., Bensch, D., Maaß, U., Schult, V., Vogel, M., & Buhner, M. (2014). Big five facets as predictor of job training performance: The role of specific job demands. Learning and Individual Differences, 29, 1-7.
Zimmermann, J., & Neyer, F. (2013). Do we become a different person when hitting the road? Personality development of sojourners. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 515-530.