Childhood personality and academic performance: A sibling fixed‐effects study

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study investigated the associations between personality traits at age 8 and academic performance between ages 10 and 14, controlling for family confounds.BackgroundMany studies have shown links between children’s personality traits and their school performance. However, we lack evidence on whether these associations remain after genetic and environmental confounders are accounted for.MethodSibling data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) were used (n = 9701). First, we estimated the overall associations between Big Five personality traits and academic performance, including literacy, numeracy, and foreign language. Second, we added sibling fixed effects to remove unmeasured confounders shared by siblings as well as rating bias.ResultsOpenness to Experience (between‐person β = 0.22 [95% CI: 0.21–0.24]) and Conscientiousness (between‐person β = 0.18 [95% CI 0.16–0.20]) were most strongly related to educational performance. Agreeableness (between‐person β = 0.06 [95% CI −0.08–0.04]) and Extraversion (between‐person β = 0.02 [95% CI 0.00–0.04]) showed small associations with educational performance. Neuroticism had a moderate negative association (between‐person β = −0.14 [95% CI −0.15–0.11]). All associations between personality and performance were robust to confounding: the within‐family estimates from sibling fixed‐effects models overlapped with the between‐person effects. Finally, childhood personality was equally predictive of educational performance across ages and genders.ConclusionsAlthough family background is influential for academic achievement, it does not confound associations with personality. Childhood personality traits reflect unbiased and consistent individual differences in educational potential.

Social origins and socioeconomic outcomes: A combined twin and adoption study

“…Parents are genetically more similar to their offspring than they are to a random stranger, and this similarity should be expected to induce a similarity in traits and abilities that in turn leads to more similar life outcomes. Genetically influenced traits include cognitive abilities (Okbay et al 2022), personality traits (Constantinou et al 2023), physical and mental health (Gatt et al 2014;Steenstrup et al 2013), physical appearance (Mobius and Rosenblat 2006), or indeed -as a massive review of the twin-study literature put it -"all human traits" (Polderman et al 2015). Social and genetic transmission are both plausible contributors to intergenerational persistence in socioeconomic status.…”