Personality Traits and Extracurricular Involvement for the Introvert PDF
Preview Personality Traits and Extracurricular Involvement for the Introvert
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Personality and the College Experience: How Extraversion-Introversion Measures Shape Student Involvement and Satisfaction Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gk9k5jv Author Toma, Shannon Paige Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Personality and the College Experience: How Extraversion-Introversion Measures Shape Student Involvement and Satisfaction A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Shannon Paige Toma 2015 © Copyright by Shannon Paige Toma 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Personality and the College Experience: How Extraversion-Introversion Measures Shape Student Involvement and Satisfaction by Shannon Paige Toma Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Patricia M. McDonough, Chair The current work examines the role of individual, personality-linked characteristics in student involvement and associated outcomes. Personality characteristics of interest, tied to the extraversion-introversion trait domain, include reflectivity, responsiveness, sociability, reward sensitivity, and sensory-processing sensitivity. Four questions guided the inquiry: (1) How are introverted and extraverted students involved in college? (2) What aspects of students' extraversion-introversion are associated with their student involvement, and in what ways are they associated? (3) How do extraverts and introverts achieve congruence between their personalities and their involvement? And (4) How are involvement and congruence tied to college outcomes for extraverted and introverted students? To address the above questions, a ii select population of UCLA undergraduate students completed personality inventories. From these, a sub-sample of introverts and extraverts then participated in one-on-one interviews. Personality-linked differences surfaced in the ways students divided their time and energy across academic pursuits and non-academic extracurricular pursuits. Academic involvement of students in the extraverted group exhibited a preference for higher levels of outward activity and interaction. Stronger responsiveness continued to characterize involvement of the extravert outside of academics, as did low sensory-processing sensitivity and unique social preferences in line with reward sensitivity. Among the introverted group, involvement in and out of academics evidenced stronger preferences for reflectivity; outside of class, high sensory processing sensitivity and unique social preferences also surfaced. Students generally achieved person-environment congruence in college less through personal and more through environmental shifts. A high amount of environmental diversity at the study site helps to explain this finding. Still, personal change did occur. It was the introverted students who tended to speak of substantial challenges associated with personal shifts deemed necessary to achieve congruence. Only limited evidence supported the prediction, in line with the fourth research question, that students' satisfaction with college and progress toward the degree would be positively associated with their perceptions of congruence between their own personalities and their environments, which reflected their involvement choices. The overall conclusion arrived at is that, like socioeconomic status and ethnic or cultural background, personality is an important variable to consider when examining student involvement in college. iii The dissertation of Shannon Paige Toma is approved. Christina A. Christie Jane E. Pizzolato Calvin G. Normore Patricia M. McDonough, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv For my father v CONTENTS Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................................... viii Vita .............................................................................................................................................................. xi 1. Problem Statement .................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Review of Literature ............................................................................................................................... 10 Student Involvement Theory ................................................................................................................... 10 Student Involvement Research................................................................................................................ 12 Personality Trait Theory: The Extraversion-Introversion Dimension .................................................... 17 Personality Trait Research: Characteristics and Influences of Extraversion and Introversion ............... 19 Characteristics of Extraversion and Introversion ................................................................................ 20 Influences Underlying the Extraversion-Introversion Trait ................................................................ 28 Applying the Extraversion-Introversion Construct to Student Involvement Theory .............................. 32 3. Person-Environment Congruence as Integrating Framework ................................................................. 36 Person-Environment Congruence Theory and Research ........................................................................ 36 A New Understanding of Person-Environment Congruence .................................................................. 44 4. Research Design ..................................................................................................................................... 47 Study Site ................................................................................................................................................ 48 Sample Recruitment ................................................................................................................................ 50 Data Collection and Analysis .................................................................................................................. 53 Validity and Reliability ........................................................................................................................... 60 Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 61 5. Findings .................................................................................................................................................. 63 Participant Demographics ....................................................................................................................... 63 Academic and Extracurricular Involvement ........................................................................................... 68 Global Assessments of Involvement ................................................................................................... 70 Personality Traits and Involvement ........................................................................................................ 91 Personality Traits and Academic Involvement for the Introvert: The Role of Reflectivity ................ 91 Personality Traits and Academic Involvement for the Extravert: The Roles of Responsiveness and Sociability ........................................................................................................................................... 98 Personality Traits and Extracurricular Involvement for the Extravert: The Roles of Responsiveness, (Low) Sensory-Processing Sensitivity, and Sociability .................................................................... 107 Personality Traits and Extracurricular Involvement for the Introvert: The Roles of Reflectivity, Sensitivity to External Stimuli, and Sociability ................................................................................ 123 vi Person-Environment Congruence ......................................................................................................... 142 General Findings ............................................................................................................................... 143 Extraverts Achieving Congruence Through Environmental Shifts ................................................... 145 Extraverts Achieving Congruence Through Personal Shifts............................................................. 146 Introverts Seeking Congruence Through Environmental and Personal Shifts .................................. 148 Student Satisfaction .............................................................................................................................. 154 Person-Environment Incongruence and Moderate Satisfaction Among Introverts........................... 155 Person-Environment Incongruence and High Satisfaction Among Extraverts ................................. 156 Changes in Satisfaction Over Time .................................................................................................. 157 Positive Attributions ......................................................................................................................... 158 Negative Attributions ........................................................................................................................ 161 6. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................... 168 Summary and Discussion of Findings .................................................................................................. 168 Limitations ............................................................................................................................................ 174 Implications for Theory ........................................................................................................................ 178 Implications for Research ..................................................................................................................... 183 Implications for Practice ....................................................................................................................... 189 Appendix A: Table of Characteristics Associated with Extraversion and Introversion ........................... 198 Appendix B: Interview Protocol ............................................................................................................... 199 Appendix C: Table of Theories and Protocol Items Informing Research Questions ................................ 205 Appendix D: Demographics Tables Comparing UCLA, Survey, and Interview Samples ....................... 206 Appendix E: Tables of Interview Participants’ Background and Involvement by Personality ................ 210 Appendix F: Table of Trait-Related Involvement Preferences and Interests of Interview Sample .......... 212 References ................................................................................................................................................. 213 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express tremendous gratitude to the students who participated in this project. Without you I would not have a study. Because you took the time to share your experiences, I was able to have data. I'm further indebted to you for the personal privilege of hearing your stories. You inspire me and give me hope for the future. To my committee members, Pat McDonough, Calvin Normore, Tina Christie, and Jane Pizzolato, I am honored to have your guidance and mentorship throughout this process. Pat, you have the rare talent of strengthening your students’ projects while opening space for their personal expression. Our interactions have transformed my work and me into better versions of our past selves. Calvin, thank you for the incredible generosity with which you have shared your time, your wit and thought-provoking insights. Although I often left our visits with more questions than answers, one thing I could always be sure of was that a day when I met with you would be a good day. Tina, I am deeply grateful for your aid with survey development and for your offering feedback that I needed to hear. Regardless of your schedule, you made time to talk and took care to uplift me with encouragement. Thank you, Jane, for the thoughtfully written comments on my drafts. Thank you also for the refreshing enthusiasm of your contributions and the personal anecdotes that brought relevance to my work. And to Marc Levis-Fitzgerald, my honorary committee member and the greatest mentor professionally and personally, I am forever indebted. You have always been behind me, always seen the good in me and the value of my interests. You made it impossible for me to give up. I further owe much gratitude to Susan Cain, whose book on introversion led me to develop an old term paper into a dissertation. Her words reminded me of the value in quietude, and the research mentioned in her book guided my initial literature search. viii
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