Relationships Between Five-Factor Personality Theory and Values on Adolescents

Abstract

Values are a set of principles that guide human life. Their importance can vary from person to person. Schwartz's concept of value is defined as guiding principles in the lives of people or other social formations. These include freedom, equality, and environmental protection. Schwartz created 10 basic value groups that are thought to have universal characteristics. The aforementioned values are divided into the following groups: self-direction, universality, benevolence, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, and tradition. According to Schwartz, spiritual values in individuals are associated with the dimensions of universality, benevolence, self-direction, and self-transcendence. At the same time, it seems that spirituality overlaps with the values of tradition and conformity, which are closely related to religiosity. In contrast, personality refers to a set of unique, consistent, and enduring characteristics in individuals, encompassing their emotions, thoughts, and behaviours. McCrae and Costa posit that personality traits are grouped under five dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Some personality theories posit that spirituality is a part of personality. In this respect, personality and spirituality are closely related. The principal objective of this research is to ascertain whether the personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience are predictive of values pertaining to security, power, benevolence, stimulation, traditionalism, hedonism, universalism, self-direction, achievement, and conformity. To this end, a multiple regression model incorporating these variables was constructed and subjected to testing in the study. The study group consisted of 308 high school students studying in Niğde in the 2021-2022 academic year. The study group comprised 173 women (56.2%) and 135 men (43.8%). The ages of the study group ranged between 14 and 18 years (mean age = 16.39; standard deviation = 0.87). The results of the regression analysis indicated that personality dimensions predicted the values. It was found that different personality dimensions predicted different values in a positive or negative manner.