The role of personality traits in predicting students’ social skills, peer relationships, and behavioral-emotional engagement

Introduction: The purpose of the present study was to predict appropriate social skills, peer relationships, and behavioral-emotional engagement in terms of personality traits among middle-school students.Method: 354 middle school students which were selected using multi-stage random cluster sampling method, completed the Goldberg Personality Questionnaire, two subscales of Matson's social skills Questionnaire and Wellborn behavioral–emotional engagement Questionnaire in their regular classrooms. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis.Results: The findings showed that only the personality trait of agreeableness was a positive significant predictor of appropriate social skills. Emotional constancy, conscientiousness, extraversion dimensions were able to predict relationship with peers in a positive and significant manner. Moreover, conscientiousness and agreement dimensions were positive and significant predictors of students’ behavioral engagement in academic tasks. Meanwhile, these personality components together with emotional constancy predicted emotional engagement in a positive and significant manner.Conclusion: As results indicated, student’s personality can be considered as an influential factor in prediction of their social skills, peer relationship, behavioral-emotional engagement in academic tasks.