Your Child's Personality is More Important Than Intelligence for School Success

School is important for forming a child's early years. Now, though, scientists have found that when it comes to schooling, personality is more important than intelligence in school success.

In order to better understand what plays a role in school success, the researchers conducted the largest ever reviews of personality and academic performance. They based these reviews on the fundamental personality factors, which include conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness, emotional stability and extraversion.

In the end, the researchers found that conscientiousness and openness had the largest influence on academic success.

"With respect to learning, personality is more useful than intelligence for guiding both students and teachers," said Arthur Poropat, one of the researchers, in a news release. "In practical terms, the amount of effort students are prepared to put in, and where that effort is focused, is at least as important as whether the students are smart. And a student with the most helpful personality will score a full grade higher than an average student in this regard."

In fact, the researchers found that a student's assessment of their own personality is as useful for predicting university success as intelligence ratings. And for people who know the student well who provide the personality rating, it's nearly four times more accurate for predicting grades.

"Intelligence tests have always been closely linked with education and grades and therefore relied upon to predict who would do well," said Propat. "The impact of personality on study is genuinely surprising for educational researchers, and for anyone who thinks they did well at school because they are 'smart.'"

The findings are published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences.

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