The Effect of Personality on Academic Performance : Evidence from Two University Majors

Our study focuses on the effect of personality type and personality preferences measured by the Myers-Briggs typology, on higher education students' choice of profession and on their academic performance. We statistically analyzed a sample from two slightly similar bachelor majors studied at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, to reveal both the general and major-specific effects of personality. We have found that the most frequent types in both majors were ENFJ and ESFJ; however, differences were revealed in the relative frequencies in the ESTJ, ISTJ and ENFJ types. We identified significant differences between the majors in the average preferences along the introversion-extraversion scale and in the sensing-intuition dichotomies (the latter was significant only for female students). We also found differences in the explanatory power of personality for the two majors and also in the types and preferences which contribute positively or negatively to academic success