Fundamentals of Mental Health

Fundamentals of Mental Health

Designing a casual model for academic adjustment based on personality traits with the mediating role of attribution styles

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Zahra Tabatabai 1
Soltan Ali Kazemi 2
Azarmidokht Rezaei 3
Maryam Kouroshnia 3
1 Ph.D. student in educational psychology, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht Branch, Marvdasht, Iran
2 Associate professor, Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht Branch, Marvdasht, Iran
3 Assistant professor, Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht Branch, Marvdasht, Iran
10.22038/jfmh.2020.17801
Abstract
Introduction: Academic adjustment is a specific area of ​​the general concept of adjustment that deals with the issue of an individual’s adjustment to the course and field of study, educational environment and its requirements. Therefore, the research sought to design a causal model for academic adjustment based on personality traits with the mediating role of attributional styles.
Materials and Methods: The research method was descriptive-correlational and of structural equation modeling in particular and the statistical population included all undergraduate students of Islamic Azad University of Marvdasht city, Iran in the academic year 2017-2019. The statistical sample consisted of 600 students who were selected by multi-stage cluster random sampling and answered the questionnaires including Academic Adjustment Scale by Anderson et al., personality traits by McCrae and Costa, and attribution styles by Patterson and Seligman. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling, correlation coefficient, SPSS, and AMOS software.
Results: The results indicated that neuroticism and openness to experience predict academic adjustment in a negative and significant way and extroversion and conscientiousness in a positive and significant way. Neuroticism predicts positive attributions in a negative and meaningful way and agreeableness and openness to experience and conscientiousness in a positive and meaningful way. Neuroticism predicts negative attributions in a positive and significant way and extroversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness in a negative and meaningful way. Positive attributional styles predict academic adjustment in a positive way and negative attributional styles in a negative and significant way. Finally, the results showed that neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness can indirectly and significantly predict academic adjustment through attributional styles.
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that attributional styles have a significant mediating role in the relationship between personality traits and academic adjustment.
Keywords
Academic adjustment
Attribution styles
Personality traits
  1. Hu S, Liu H, Zhang S, Wang G. Proactive personality and cross-cultural adjustment: Roles of social media usage and cultural intelligence. Int J Intercult Relat 2020; 74: 42-57.
  2. McCredie MN, Kurtz JE. Prospective prediction of academic performance in college using self- and informant-rated personality traits. J Res Pers 2020; 85: 186-94.
  3. Mengal AS. [Advanced educational psychology]. Kazemi SA. (translator). 2nd ed. Tehran: Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht Branch; 2009. (Persian)
  4. Pettus KR. The relationship of parental monitoring to community college student adjustment and achievement: differences by gender, ethnicity, parent education level, and student residence. Ph.D. Dissertation. Carolina: Carolina University, 2016: 134-8.
  5. Stoll G, Einarsdóttir S, Song QC, Modish P, Rounds J. The roles of personality traits and vocational interests in explaining what people want out of life. J Res Pers 2020; 86: ?.
  6. Bittner A, Junge-Hoffmeister J, Treichel T, Coenen A, Weidner K. Maladaptive personality styles in a clinical sample of women with postpartum depression. J Affect Disord 2020; 263: 318-25.
  7. Cao C, Meng Q. Exploring personality traits as predictors of English achievement and global competence among Chinese university students: English learning motivation as the moderator. Learn Individ Differ 2020; 77: 413-25.
  8. Benzi IMA, Preti E, Di Pierro R, Clarkin JF, Madeddu F. Maladaptive personality traits and psychological distress in adolescence: The moderating role of personality functioning. Pers Individ Dif 2019; 140: 33-40.
  9. Kouroshnia M, Latifian M. The relationship between the model of the five major personality factors and perfectionism. Psychol Stud 2011; 7(4): 21-35.
  10. Bühler JL, Finkenauer G, Grob A. A dyadic personality perspective on the Michelangelo phenomenon: How personality traits relate to people's ideal selves and their personal growth in romantic relationships. J Res Pers 2020; 86: 103943.
  11. Perret P, Ayad M, Dauvier B, Congard A. Self- and parent-rated measures of personality are related to different dimensions of school adjustment. Learn Individ Differ 2019; 70: 182-9.
  12. Cummings DJ, Loxton NJ, Poropat AE. The relevance/significance of stimuli appraisals for personality traits in an academic context. Learn Individ Differ 2019; 69: 225-31.
  13. Yazıcı S, Güven S. Development and validation of a citizenship attributional style questionnaire. Soc Sci J 2017; 54(4): 403-10.
  14. Ding X, Fu R, Ooi LL, Coplan RJ, Deng X. Relations between different rejection sensitivity and adjustment components in Chinese children. J Appl Dev Psychol 2020; 67: 101-19.
  15. Homan P, Marianne CR, Tobias B, Harold WK, Schiller D. The aberrant link between empathy and social attribution style in borderline personality disorder. J Psychiatr Res 2017; 94: 163-71.
  16. Alatorre AI, DePaola RV, Haeffel GJ. Academic achievement and depressive symptoms: are fixed mindsets distinct from negative attributional style? Learn Individ Differ 2020; 77: 165-71.
  17. Seele H, Eberl P. Newcomers' reactions to unfulfilled leadership expectations: An attribution theory approach. European managing journal 2020; 38(5): 763-76.
  18. Reynolds N, Mrug S, Guion K. Spiritual coping and psychosocial adjustment of adolescents with chronic illness: the role of cognitive attributions, age, and disease group. J Adolesc Health 2013; 52(5): 559-65.
  19. Murray RM, Coffee P, Eklund RC. Adaptive thinking: can adaptive dispositional attributions protect against the harmful effects of maladaptive situational attributions? Psychol Sport Exerc 2020; 47: 237-51.
  20. Vettori G, Vezzani G, Bagozzi L, Pinto G. Cluster profiles of university students' conceptions of learning according to gender, educational level, and academic disciplines. Learn Motiv 2020; 70: 365-82.
  21. Anderson JR, Guanb Y, Koch Y. The academic adjustment scale: measuring the adjustment of a permanent resident or sojourner students. Int J Intercult Relat 2016; 54: 68-76.
  22. Costa PT, McCrae RR. Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. 2nd ed. New York: SAGE; 1992.
  23. Peterson C, Seligman MEP. Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence. Psychol Rev 1984; 91(3): 347-74.
  24. Burmett AJ, Sabato TM, Ott Walter K, Kerr DL, Wagner L, Smith A. The influence of attribution style on substance use and risky sexual behavior among college students. Coll Stud J 2013; 47(1): 122-34.
  25. Mahesh AM, Al-Zoubi ZH, Batayeneh OT. The relationship between attribution styles and personality traits, gender and academic specialization among the hashemite university students. International journal of business and social science 2013; 4(9): 25-31.
  26. Azimi K, Tanha Z, Rahmani S. [Documentary style and high-risk behaviors: The mediating role of coping strategies in stressful situations]. Quarterly journal of new psychological researches 2013; 8: 114-31. (Persian)
  27. Islami Shahre Babaki H. [Investigating the relationship between explaining and depression in unipolar and bipolar depressed patients and comparing it with ordinary people]. MS. Dissertation. Tehran: Tehran Psychiatric Institute, 2017. (Persian)
  28. Foroudi P, Marvi R, Kizgin H. The role of individual personality, cultural acculturation, and perceived value on towards firm's social media and acculturation orientation. Int J Inf Manage 2020; 52: 102075
  29. Aghili M, Nasiri ES. [The relationship between learning strategies and document styles with a conscience]. Quarterly journal of educational sciences and psychology 2014; 3: 109-25. (Persian)
  30. Hosseini SM, Atashpour SH, Sharifi GH. [The relationship between documentary style and tenacity with the motivation of progress in individual and group athletes]. Proceeding of the First National Conference of Sports Science and Physical Education in Iran]. The Association for the Development and Promotion of Basic Sciences and Techniques, 2015. (Persian)

 

 

Fundamentals of Mental Health
Volume 22, Issue 6
November and December 2021
Pages 381-390