Ruminating on the nature of intelligence: Personality predicts implicit theories and educational persistence

Abstract

Research in schools has shown that those who hold Incremental Theories of Intelligence (i.e. intelligence can grow and improve) generally outperform those who hold Entity Theories of Intelligence (i.e. intelligence is 'fixed' and cannot improve). Recently, there have been attempts to establish a stronger theoretical explanation for individual differences in educational success, by relating the Big Five's Conscientiousness to higher school attainment. In this study, we aimed to demonstrate further relationships between Implicit Theories of Intelligence and a well-known neurologically based theory of personality, namely Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST). A sample of 319 adults completed personality measures of RST, the Big Five and Implicit Theories of Intelligence, as well as a proxy measure for educational persistence (highest academic qualification achieved). The results showed that participants who hold an Incremental (growth) Theory of Intelligence score higher on the RST Behavioural Approach System traits oriented toward future reward and the Big Five's Conscientiousness. Those that hold an Entity (fixed) Theory of Intelligence score higher on RST Behavioural Inhibition System and the Big Five Neuroticism measure. The paper discusses the implications of these relationships and explores the benefits of the simultaneous use of both theoretically underpinned and applied measures of individual differences.

Risk as reward: Reinforcement sensitivity theory and psychopathic personality perspectives on everyday risk-taking

“…The factor loadings for BAS-Reward Reactivity were similar for the impulsive and non-impulsive summary factors and it could be considered that signs of Now and Future BAS are found in the current data. Future BAS traits are known to principally relate to the Big Five's Conscientiousness whereas the Now BAS relate more prominently to the Big Five's Extraversion (Corr & Cooper, 2016;Satchell, Hoskins et al, 2017). Separation of BAS in this way also explains sex differences in antisocial behaviour tendencies, with male antisociality being better predicted by Future BAS and female antisociality being predicted by Now BAS (Bacon et al, 2018).…”

“…Although there is a welldeveloped and growing RST literature, there is still limited evidence on its explanatory utility to predict everyday behaviours. There has been some work along these lines, including educational outcomes (Satchell, Hoskins, Corr & Moore, 2017), antisocial behaviour (Bacon et al, 2018) and organisational behaviour , but little else. Indeed, RST has not been widely used to explore everyday risk in any great detail, whilst other models (psychopathic personality research) often explicitly focus on the broad behavioural outcome of risk-taking.…”

The Relationship Between Personality Traits, Resilience, School Support, and Creative Teaching in Higher School Physical Education Teachers

“…Personality traits are an inherent tendency, representing the uniqueness of each individual, and have a sustained and stable influence on individual behavior and thoughts (Satchell et al, 2017). Empirical research shows that of all the variables that affect creativity, personal factors are the most explanatory, and the creative people often possess certain specific personality traits (Fajkowska and DeYoung, 2015;Huang et al, 2019a).…”

What motivates academic dishonesty in students? A reinforcement sensitivity theory explanation

“…However, these findings may also suggest that students with an achieving approach to study are at risk for academic dishonesty, as they also have goal strivings, albeit not necessarily to master the subject in depth. Recent research by Satchell, Hoskins, Corr, and Moore (2017) has further shown that academic persistence beyond compulsory education is predicted by GDP while Impulsivity predicted desistance.…”