This thesis concerns the relationship between personality traits and intellectual
competence. It contains five chapters and ten independent but related empirical studies.
Chapter one presents a review of the salient literature in the area. It is divided
into three sub-sections: personality and psychometric intelligence, personality and
academic performance (AP), and personality and subjectively-assessed intelligence
(SAI).
Chapter two (studies 1 to 4) examines the relationship between the Big Five
personality traits with several psychometric intelligence tests, SAL and gender. Results
indicated that personality traits (notably Neuroticism and Agreeableness) are significantly
related to SAI, but not to psychometric intelligence. Since SAI is also significantly
related to psychometric intelligence, it is suggested that SAI may mediate the relationship
between personality and psychometric intelligence.
Chapter three (studies5 to 8) examines the relationship between psychometric
intelligence and personality (the Big Five and the Gigantic Three) with AP. Results
indicate that personality traits (notably Conscientiousness and Psychoticism) are
significant predictors of AP, accounting for unique variance in AP even when
psychometric intelligence and academic behaviour are considered as predictors.
Chapter four (studies 9& 10) looks at the relationship between personality and
psychometric intelligence with a measure of art judgement as well as several indicators of
previous art experience. Results indicate that art judgement is related to both personality
and intelligence, and may therefore be considered a mixed construct.
Chapter five presents a brief summary of the results and conclusions
