Personality Factors According to the Five Factors Model in Accomplished Multilingual Foreign Language Learners

Personality Factors According to the Five Factors Model in Accomplished Multilingual Foreign Language Learners

Biedron, Adriana

For several decades the issue of personality effects on second language acquisition has been high on the agenda of many second language acquisition researchers (cf. Dewaele, 2009). Nevertheless, personality and other non-intellectual characteristics are considered to be weakly correlated with cognitive abilities and, as a result, they are not likely to explain variance in the outcomes of learning a foreign language (cf. Robinson & Ellis, 2008). On the other hand, some researchers being aware of the potential of personality factors in the development of foreign language aptitude call for research on this neglected field (cf. Dörnyei, 2009, 2010; Hu & Reiterer, 2009; Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson, 2003; Moyer, 2007). The purpose of the study reported here was to analyze personality factors defined according to the “Five Factor Model” (McCrae & Costa, 2003) in accomplished multilinguals. The factors included: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. An instrument used in the study was The Revised NEO-FFI Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) - a Polish adaptation by Zawadzki et al. (1998). The results of 44 accomplished multilinguals were compared to the results of 37 mainstream first-year English philology students. The analysis revealed that the factor of Openness to experience was significantly higher in the accomplished multilinguals than in the mainstream L2 learners. The other factors, that is Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion and Conscientiousness did not reveal statistically significant differences between the samples. Openness is a factor that is relatively stable and the most genetically determined of all the Five Factors. It includes a cognitive aspect, which means that people who score high on general cognitive ability tend to display openness to new experiences and intellectual curiosity and flexibility (Corno et al., 2002). A suggestion that Openness to experience is a good predictor of the outcomes of learning a foreign language is discussed.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012-05

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