Becoming as Open-Minded and Organized as My Classmates? Peer Effects on Self-Reported Personality Trait Development in the Classroom.

Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 2985194R Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1467-6494 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00223506 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Pers Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 1998- : Malden, Ma. : Blackwell Publishers
Original Publication: Durham, N. C. : Duke University Press, c1946-

Students*/psychology ; Personality*/physiology ; Adolescent Development*/physiology ; Personality Development* ; Peer Group*; Humans ; Female ; Male ; Adolescent ; Schools ; Longitudinal Studies ; Germany ; Self Report

Introduction: How does a student's personality development relate to the personality of their classmates? The school class builds a pertinent comparison group during adolescence that has been identified as a critical factor in students' development of abilities and self-perceptions. This study empirically tests the impact of classroom personality composition on changes in adolescents' Big Five personality traits. We hypothesized positive associations between class-level openness and conscientiousness and the individual development of these traits given their role in academic performance.
Method: To test these hypotheses and explore additional composition effects, we employed three approaches of multilevel structural equation modeling on two large longitudinal samples of German adolescents (N1 = 5470; N2 = 788).
Results: Our analyses yielded two principal findings: First, individual personality levels remained highly stable across different time periods. Second, contrary to our hypotheses, baseline class-level openness and conscientiousness were not positively linked to individual personality development. Instead, there were some indications that higher class-level openness was negatively linked to individual openness to experiences at the second measurement point.
Conclusions: We discuss the absence of systematic composition effects at the classroom level and consider methodological challenges in investigating these effects.
(© 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Personality published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

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Claussen-Simon-Stiftung

Keywords: adolescence; classroom peers; composition effect; multilevel structural equation modeling; personality development

Date Created: 20250110 Date Completed: 20251107 Latest Revision: 20251109

20260130

PMC12592586

10.1111/jopy.13009

39790032