Neighbourhood deprivation and the Big Five personality traits: associations with adolescent problem behaviour and educational attainment

Abstract

We studied the relation between cumulative exposure to neighbourhood deprivation and adolescents’ Big Five personality traits, and the moderating role of personality in the relation between neighbourhood deprivation and the development of problem behaviour and educational attainment. We studied 5365 British adolescents from ages 10 to 16, with neighbourhood information from birth onwards. Extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience moderated the relation between deprivation and problem behaviour. For educational attainment, only extraversion was a moderator. This means that higher values on personality traits were related to weaker relations between neighbourhood deprivation and problem behaviour and educational attainment. The results showed the importance of taking into account adolescents’ personality when assessing developmental outcomes in relation to neighbourhood deprivation.