Marion Spengler

Background: Social support is assumed to play a key role in motivation at university, particularly for disadvantaged students, such as first‐generation and community college transfer students. However, longitudinal research investigating reciprocal associations between social support and motivation is lacking. Aims: We examined such associations between confidence in getting support from faculty and peers and students' expectancies and subjective task values in their most difficult and most important course. Sample: Data stemmed from two cohorts of undergraduate students ( n = 320/417 in Fall 2019/2020) at a diverse Southern Californian university. Methods: Students reported on their confidence in getting support and their expectancies and subjective task values at the beginning, in the middle and (only for motivation) at the end of the academic term. Results: Results indicated no differences in confidence in getting support based on university generation or transfer student status. Cross‐lagged panel models provided some evidence for reciprocal associations between students' confidence in getting support and their expectancies and subjective task values. Findings were similar across the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 cohorts, providing support for the generalizability across in‐person vs. remote learning settings. Longitudinal associations tended to be stronger for first‐generation and transfer students. Conclusions: Future research should, therefore, examine whether university programmes targeting social support are especially effective for disadvantaged students.

Objective: Educational track choices have far‐reaching consequences because they are associated with long‐term life success. Theoretical approaches and previous empirical research have nearly exclusively identified family background and achievement as determinants of these choices. Although students’ educational track choices might fit their personality, individual differences in personality have not been explored. We investigated the effects of two personality aspects—RIASEC interests and Big Five traits—on hierarchically ranked track choices (vocational vs. general educational track), alongside family background and achievement.Method: We used two German data sets (TOSCA 10 study: N = 473; TOSCA study: N = 4,218) focusing on choices between the general educational track (leading to higher educational attainment) and the vocational track (leading to work life) at two different stages in educational careers. We ran several multiple (logistic) regressions.Results: The results showed that certain aspects of students’ personality matter for educational track choices. Accordingly, across both studies, students with high Investigative or Enterprising interests more often chose the general educational track, whereas students with high Social or Conventional interests more often chose the vocational track—after the Big Five personality traits, achievement, and family background were controlled for. The Big Five traits showed no or only small significant associations with educational track choices.Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of considering individual differences when investigating important life outcomes such as track choices.

According to the social-investment principle, entering new environments is associated with new social roles that influence people’s behaviors. In this study, we examined whether young adults’ personality development is differentially related to their choice of either an academic or a vocational pathway (i.e., entering an academic-track school or beginning vocational training). The personality constructs of interest were Big Five personality traits and vocational-interest orientations. We used a longitudinal study design and propensity-score matching to create comparable groups before they entered one of the pathways and then tested the differences between these groups 6 years later. We expected the vocational pathway to reinforce more mature behavior and curtail investigative interest. Results indicated that choosing the vocational compared with the academic pathway was associated with higher conscientiousness and less interest in investigative, social, and enterprising activities.

Personality and intelligence are defined as hierarchical constructs, ranging from broad g-factors to (domain-)specific constructs. The present study investigated whether different combinations of hierarchical levels lead to different personality-intelligence correlations. Based on the integrative data analysis approach, we combined a total of five data sets. The focus of the first study (N = 682) was an elaborated measurement of personality (NEO-PI-R), which was applied with a relatively short intelligence test (Intelligence Structure Test 2000 R). In the second study (N = 413), a comprehensive measurement of intelligence (Berlin Intelligence Structure test) was used with a shorter personality questionnaire (NEO-FFI). In line with the Brunswik symmetry principle, the findings emphasize that personality-intelligence correlations varied greatly across the hierarchical levels of constructs considered in the analysis. On average, Openness showed the largest relation with intelligence. We recommend for future studies to investigate personality-intelligence relations at more fine-grained levels based on elaborated measurements of both personality and intelligence.

A well-known hypothesis in the behavioral genetic literature predicts that the heritability of cognitive abilities is higher in the presence of higher socioeconomic contexts. However, studies suggest that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on the heritability of cognitive ability may not be universal, as it has mostly been demonstrated in the United States, but not in other Western nations. In the present study we tested whether the importance of genetic and environmental effects on cognitive abilities varies as a function of parental education in a German twin sample. Cognitive ability scores (general, verbal, and nonverbal) were obtained on 531 German twin pairs (192 monozygotic, 339 dizygotic, ranging from 7 to 14 years of age; M_age = 10.25, SD = 1.83). Data on parental education were available from mothers and fathers. Results for general cognitive ability and nonverbal ability indicated no significant gene x parental education interaction effect. For verbal ability, a significant nonshared environment (E) x parental education interaction was found in the direction of greater nonshared environmental influences on verbal abilities among children raised by more educated parents.

We examined how self–reported and teacher–rated student characteristics in primary school were associated with adult self–reported health. A representative sample of Luxembourgish students was assessed in 1968 ( M _age = 11.9, SD = 0.6) and 2008 (N = 745; M _age = 51.8, SD = 0.6). Self–reported sense of inferiority and pessimism in childhood were negatively related to subjective health and vitality–related quality of life/health in adulthood (rs = −.08 to −.12); teacher–rated studiousness (age 12 years) was positively related to subjective health, healthcare utilization and vitality–related quality of life/health (age 52 years; rs = .13 to .16). After controlling for childhood IQ, parental socio–economic status, educational attainment and sex in multiple regression analyses, most effects of teacher–rated studiousness showed incremental validity beyond the controls. School entitlement, sense of inferiority, impatience and pessimism were positively related to body mass index (rs = .08 to .13). The responsible student scale and teacher–rated studiousness were negatively related to body mass index (rs = −.09 to −.13). The findings demonstrate that childhood characteristics and behaviours are important life–course predictors of key health dimensions beyond childhood IQ and parental socio–economic status. In addition, this narrower level of assessment adds significantly to the empirical body of knowledge on long–term predictors of health outcomes in adulthood. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology.

Little longitudinal research has addressed the question of whether the Big Five personality traits (i.e., O, C, E, A, N) predict educational outcomes and whether the Big Five provide incremental predictive validity for educational outcomes when prior achievement, intelligence, and academic self-concept are controlled for. Also, little is known about whether noncognitive factors are related to change in academic success, especially grades, after controlling for its stability. To address these research questions, we used data from the Luxembourg longitudinal extension of the 2009 cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). We included data from two student cohorts that were followed across 4 years: The first cohort was in ninth grade when they participated in PISA (N = 240); the second cohort in 10th grade (N = 276). Correlational results showed that Conscientiousness and Openness were substantially related to subject-specific grades in Mathematics, French, and German across several school years. There was evidence for incremental predictive validity beyond intelligence and academic self-concepts. When controlling for the stability of grades, there were only small effects of all predictors on later grades. In summary, students’ personality (but also intelligence and academic self-concepts) predicted the stable part of grades rather than change.