Role of Personality Traits in Career Maturity Attitude among Adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: This study aims to determine the predictive strength of personality traits based on the five-factor theory on the career maturity’s attitudinal dimension among adolescents of Jammu city.

Method:The Sample consisted of 220 adolescents ranging in age from 16-20 years. Career maturity Inventory’s (Gupta, 1989) attitude scale and Big Five Inventory (BFI) (by John & Srivastava, 1999) were administered. Data were analyzed by using Pearson correlation and multiple regression.

Results:The personality trait variables jointly significantly predicted career maturity. In the given model, independent variables explained 12% variance in the dependent variable.Conscientiousness and openness to experience positively and significantly predicted career maturity’s attitude dimension in adolescents.  However, neuroticism personality trait had a negatively significant predictive capacity.Analysis of each independent variable’s contribution to the model was done, and it was found that the highest contribution came from conscientiousness (β=.20), followed by openness (β=.19), neuroticism (β=-.19), agreeableness (β=.11) and extraversion (β=.05).

Conclusions:Personality traits are significant factors influencing career maturity. It is recommended that parents, teachers and school administrators provide a healthy and congenial environment that would help students develop certain personality traits that would enhance their career maturity.