Five Factor Personality Traits and Psychological

Resilience Among Secondary School Students in

Egypt

Adel Abdulla Mohammed* & Amaal Ahmed Mostafa**

*Dean, College of Education, Zagazig University , Egypt

** Assistant professor of Special Education , Beni Swif University , Egypt

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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between the big five personality
traits: (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion)
and psychological resilience among secondary school students in Egypt. The sample
consisted of 200 male secondary school students. Aged ranged from 15-17 years (M=16.02,
SD=5.12). It was found that significant positive associations existed between the
psychological traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience)
and psychological resilience. Nevertheless, one personality trait; neuroticism, was found to
be negatively associated with psychological resilience.

Keywords: Factor personality traits, psychological resilience, secondary school students

Introduction
The concept of resilience has received a variety of different and inconsistent
definitions in previous studies (Ahern 2006). Hjemdal et al. (2006: 84) have defined resilience
as “the protective factors, processes, and mechanisms that, despite experiences with stressors
shown to carry significant risk for developing psychopathology, contribute to a good
outcome”. Protective factors consist of individual and environmental factors (Compas &
Reeslund 2009; Tusaie & Dyer 2004) that operate to protect from the negative effects of
adverse situations and risks (Tusaie & Dyer 2004). The protective factors connected to
resilience can be divided into three overarching categories; the personal characteristics and
positive resources of the individual; a family environment marked by stability, support, and
coherence; and a social environment external to the family that supports and strengthens an
individual’s capacity to adapt and cope (Hjemdal 2009; Hjemdal et al. 2007). Though all
individuals have the capacity and potential to develop resilience (Masten 2001), adolescent’s
protective factors may change during the different stages of the development, whereas some
protective factors may remain stable during the same period (Ahern 2006; Compas &
Reeslund 2009). Factors protecting in one situation may therefore not be protective in another
situation (Hjemdal 2009). That implies that being considered resilient at one developmental
stage during adolescence does not necessarily imply that the same individual will be
considered resilient at a later point during development or in life ( Hjemdal 2009). Though
studies of resilience have seldom focused on gender differences regarding resilience (Friborg
et al. 2003), some studies have shown that adolescent boys tend to score higher in resilience
compared to girls (Pinquart 2009; Scoloveno 2013; Skrove, Romindstad & Indredavik 2013).

Big Five Personality traits and psychological resilience

In the ‘Big Five model’, individual differences in personality are described by five
factors: openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and
neuroticism which is also referred to as lack of emotional stability. Studies investigating the
relationship between these personality factors and resilience often demonstrated a positive
relationship between extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness,
and optimism and a negative relationship with neuroticism or emotional instability (e.g.,
Davey et al., 2003; Furnham, Crump, & Whelan, 1997; Riolli, Savicki, & Cepani, 2002).
Conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience were also shown in Turkish
samples to be associated with growth experiences following traumatic experiences (Karanci et
al., 2012).

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 However, openness was negatively related with resilience in the study by Furnham et
al. (1997). Friborg, Barlaug, Martinussen, Rosenvinge, and Hjemdal (2005) found that
subscales of the Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA) were positively correlated with some
personality factors. Emotional stability, which was indicated by absence of neuroticism, was
significantly and positively correlated with RSA-personal strengths (perception of self and
perception of future). Conscientiousness was correlated with RSA-perception of future and
RSA-personal structure. Social competence subscale of RSA was strongly associated with
extraversion and agreeableness; and RSA-social resources was associated with agreeableness,
indicating a possible relationship between a supporting, reinforcing social network and
authentic, trusting, empathic personality. Therefore, psychological resilience is mostly
associated in the literature with relatively positive personality characteristics including
optimism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and negatively associated with
neuroticism.(Gozde, 2014).
Chun Bun Lam & Catherine A. McBride-Chang (2007)explore the resilient
(moderating) influences of gender-related personality traits and coping flexibility on the
relations between life event stress and psychosocial adjustment in a sample of 291 Chinese
young adults. Multiple outcomes (i.e., psychological, physical, and interpersonal aspects of
adjustments) were separately examined with regression analysis. The interaction effects
explained 5% of the unique variance in the psychological distress model and 4% of the unique
variance in the interpersonal functioning model beyond the main effects. Coping flexibility
tended to reduce the associations between life event stress and depression. Furthermore,
masculinity buffered the link between life event stress and interpersonal functioning. The
three-way interaction masculinity× femininity× stress also predicted additional unique
variance in interpersonal functioning, which indicates that non-gender-typed respondents
showed greater resilience to recent life stress than did their gender typed counterparts.
In his cross-sectional study, Grace Fayombo(2010) investigated the relationships
between the big five personality traits: (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism,
openness to experience, extraversion) and psychological resilience among 397 Caribbean
secondary school adolescents. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Stepwise Multiple
Regressions were conducted to analyse the data. Results revealed statistically significant
positive relationships between the personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness,
openness to experience, extraversion) and psychological resilience, while neuroticism was
negatively correlated with psychological resilience. The personality traits also jointly
contributed 32% (R square = 0.324) of the variance being accounted for in psychological
resilience and this was found to be statistically significant with conscientiousness being the
best predictor while agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience were other
significant predictors, however, extraversion did not contribute significantly.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between the big five
personality traits: (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience,
extraversion) and psychological resilience among secondary school students in Egypt.

Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 200 male secondary school students . Aged ranged from 15-
17 years( M= 16.02, SD= 5.12) .

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Measures
Personality Test Based on Adjectives (PTBA) was developed by Bacanli et al. (2009)
based on the model of Big Five Personality Traits (Costa and McCrae 1992). PTBA is a
Likert type scale including 40 pairs of opposite adjectives that can be graded from 1 to 7.
PTBA consists of five dimensions: extraversion (9 items), agreeableness (9 items),
conscientiousness (7 items), neuroticism (7 items), and openness to experience (8 items). Five
dimensions explain 52.63 percent of the variance of PTBA. The test-retest reliability
coefficient of PTBA ranged from .68 to .86 for all dimensions. The Cronbach Alpha
coefficient of the dimensions of PTBA was found to be.89 for extraversion, .87 for
agreeableness, .88 for conscientiousness, .73 for neuroticism, and .80 for openness to
experience.
The 25-item, Likert format, Wagnild and Young (1993) resilience scale was used for
data collection. It is self-reported summated rating scale, with responses ranging from
strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Scoring and interpretation was in the following
pattern: 25-100 very low resilience; 101-115 low resilience; 116- 130 moderately low
resilience; 131-145 moderately high resilience; 145-160 high resilience; 161- 175 very high
resilience, Wagnild and Young (1993) reported reliability co-efficient of .91 for the scale,
while for the present study an Alpha reliability co-efficient of .861 was established, both
indicating that the resilience scale is reliable.
Procedure
Before administering the two instruments, Informed consents for the students to
participate in the study were obtained from their parents and the school principals. The
adolescents were surveyed in their school halls by the researcher with the assistance of the
school principals. The researcher took time to brief the participants on the process of
answering the items in the questionnaires. The students were informed that the information
would remain confidential and to buttress this, they were told not to write their names. The
administration of the instruments lasted for approximately 30 minutes.
Data Analysis
Pearson Product Moment Correlation was conducted to analyse the data. All the
negatively worded items were reversed during analysis.

Results
The aim of this research was to find out the relationships between the personality traits
and psychological resilience. The statistically significant positive and negative correlations
among the variables and psychological resilience are presented in Table 1. Conscientiousness
significantly and positively correlated with psychological resilience (r=0.632, p<0.05);
agreeableness with psychological resilience (r=0.453, p<0.05); openness to experience with
psychological resilience (r=0.441, p<0.05); extraversion with psychological resilience
(r=0.273, p<0.05); while neuroticism, significantly and negatively correlated with
psychological resilience (r=-0.411, p<0.05).
These statistically significant positive correlations indicated that the healthier the
personality traits, the more resilient the adolescent. The negative associations between
neuroticism and psychological resilience however indicated that adolescents who have
unhealthy personality such as neuroticism may not be psychologically resilient. There
were also significant positive and negative associations among the variables thus:
Conscientiousness correlated with agreeableness (r=0.235, p<0.05); conscientiousness

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negatively correlated with neuroticism (r= -0.338, p<0.05); conscientiousness personality was
associated with openness to experience(r=0.452, p<0.05) but did not correlate with
extraversion; indicating that a learner who is organized, thorough and plans ahead is also
likely to get along with others, may not be anxious or experience depressed mood, is likely to
be intellectually curious but may not be talkative.
Additionally, agreeableness correlated with openness to experience(r=0.357, p<0.05)
and extraversion (r=0.366, p<0.05) but did not correlate with neuroticism, indicating that an
adolescent that is considerate may probably adjust to new ideas and be assertive but may not
be outgoing. Likewise, neuroticism did not correlate with openness and extraversion,
indicating that an adolescent who displays angry and anxious personality may not be
intellectually curious and even be popular; openness however correlated with extraversion
(r=0.501, p<0.05) meaning that an adolescent who is insightful may likely be assertive.

Table 1. Correlation Matrix of Psychological resilience, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness,

Neuroticism, Openness to Experience and Extraversion
Variables Psy. Con Agr Neu Op. Ext
Psychological -
Resilience
Conscientiousness 0.632** -
Agreeableness 0.453** 0.235** -
Neuroticism -0.411** -0.338** -0.003 -
Openness to 0.441** 0.452** 0.357** -0.014 -
Experience
Extraversion 0.273** 0.019 0.366** -0.004 0.501** -
Note:**Significant (p<0.01). Psy.(Psychological Resilience), Con(Conscientiousness), Agr
(Agreeableness), Neu (Neuroticism), Op.( Openness to Experience), Ext (Extraversion)

Discussion
This study aimed to investigate the relationships between the big five personality traits:
(conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion) and
psychological resilience among secondary school students in Egypt. It was found that significant
positive associations existed between the psychological traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness,
extraversion, openness to experience) and psychological resilience.
Nevertheless, one personality trait; neuroticism, was found to be negatively associated
with psychological resilience. This was not surprising, as those who are characterized by
conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience and extraversion are healthy people,
whereas neuroticism lends negative personality, which lacks resilience. Thus, one can say that the
healthier the personality, the more the resilience.
Persons who are characterized by extroversion trait in this study tend to exert more energy
coming from social context, excitement towards physical activities. This finding goes in the same
line with the various studies (Nakaya, Oshio & Kaneko, 2006; Narayanan, 2008) which affirm
that individuals who are extrovert tend to show resilience in an adversity primarily because of
the energy that they have that enabled them to have positive outlook to do something about
the conflict and also their motivation coming from the support group that they have.
Persons who are characterized by conscientiousness trait in this study tend to be
organized, acts in a structured style, has high self-control and goal-oriented . According to

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Fayombo (2010) conscientiousness is the greatest predictor among the other traits because it
is highly related in having good emotional intelligence.
Persons who are characterized by agreeableness trait in this study tend to develop
resilience because it primarily helps the individual in terms of allowing social engagement to
happen for the emotional regulation of oneself in time of adversity but its degree does not
have to be very high but not very low as well.
Persons who are characterized by openness to experience trait in this study tend to
accept new ideas and be able to live at the present. Supported by the study made Burke et al.,
(2006), this trait shows good relationship with resilience because it affects the planning of the
military officers and for suppression from challenging activities.
Neuroticism was negatively associated with psychological resilience .This finding
confirmed the earlier literature that neuroticism has an inherent negative denotation
(Fayombo,2010 ) which is associated with negative emotional states and feelings such as
anxiety, anger, guilt, and depressed mood (Matthews & Deary 1998).

Limitations and Further Study

Our sample included only boys .It is hard to draw conclusions about girls. This should
also be addressed in future studies.

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