Neuroticism and School Attainment—a Linear Relationship?

Abstract

In a follow-up study 2,995 Aberdeen children aged about 13 years were given the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory. School attainment was measured by teachers' average rank order in class, scaled on a verbal reasoning test. The relationships between attainment and the personality dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion were examined. Evidence is presented which suggests that the relationship between neuroticism and attainment is linear ; high attainment in this age-group was associated with stability. The results for extraversion showed a sex difference, which may explain earlier conflicting findings. Girls who were stable extraverts and boys who were stable introverts formed superior groups. These relationships were also present among the brightest children.

The sleep habits, personality and academic performance of medical students

“…These findings are consistent with the present results although the latter were derived only from medical students who were continuing their university course. By contrast, some other attempts to relate academic performance to measures of neuroticism and of introversion‐extroversion (derived, for example, from Eysenck's Personality Inventory) have yielded conflicting results in different groups of subjects and in each sex (Entwhistle & Cunningham, 1968; Welford, 1973; Dubley, unpublished).…”

Emotional disorder and educational underachievement.

“…These variations in findings appear to be associated in part with differences in ability level, in age, and in sex (e.g. Entwistle and Welsh, 1969;Eysenck and Cookson, 1969;Entwistle and Cunningham, 1968;Kline and Gale, 1971;Leith and Davis, 1972). It may well be that with further study sense will be made of these findings, but at the moment the correlations are too low and too variable for any conclusions to be drawn about their possible role in underachievement.…”

Success and Failure Among Social Scientists and Health Scientists at a Technological University

“…There are indications that high neuroticism may interact with introversion in examination success (Furneaux, 1962 ;Kelvin et al, 1965), but according to Wankowski (1968), it is the stable introverts who do best. None of these relationships appears to hold at the school level (Entwistle and Cunningham, 1968).…”