Big five personality and resiliency: A canonical commonality analysis with unattached Jamaican youth

• In Event: 3-005 - R-E-S-P-E-C-T Individual Differences: A Methods Approach for Examining Culture and Gender

Integrative Statement

Unattached youth have been a growing concern in the Caribbean over the last decade, most notably in Jamaica (e.g., Fox, 2003). Within the context of adolescents (ages 17-24), unattached youth refers to adolescents and emerging adults unemployed, and not enrolled in any education or training (Lindo & McArdle, 2009). In Jamaica, there are more than 140,000 unattached youth between the ages of 17-24 years (22.5% of youth 17-24; Central Intelligence Agency, 2018).
Masten and Coatsworth (1998) defined resilience as achieving desirable or positive outcomes in spite of significant challenges to adaptation or development. Youth living in low-income communities are more likely to witness violence and be considered at-risk (Buckner et al 2003), but youth in developing countries frequently face more prolonged challenges. Unlike youth in America, youth in developing countries do not have access to protective factors to help buffer against negative experiences.
The Big Five have been positively linked to resiliency. Specifically, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, and Emotional Stability were positively related to dealing with stressful events (Riolli, Savicki, & Cepani, 2002), and Agreeableness was shown to positively predict resiliency (Davey, Eaker, & Walters, 2003). However, to our knowledge, no study has examined the underlying relationships between the two sets of variables.
This study looks at the relationship between two sets of variables: the Big Five and resiliency in a sample of unattached Jamaican youth (n = 450, mean age = 22.06, SD = 1.77, 65% Male) through canonical communality analysis. Specifically, we expect that Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, and Neuroticism and Sense of Relatedness and emotional reactivity will account for most of the unique variance in the model.
Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire containing demographic information, the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) Big Five Personality Inventory, and the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adults (RSCA). Descriptive statistics can be seen in Table 1. The IPIP (Goldberg, 1999) contained 50-items, all positively scaled, ranging from 1 (very inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate). For this sample, alpha reliability ranged from .61 (O v penness to Experience) to .82 (Conscientiousness). RSCA is a 60-item measure containing three dimensions measured from 1 (Never) to 5 (Almost Always). Alpha ranged from .86 (sense of mastery) to .89 (emotional reactivity).
Results showed that the entire model was statistically significant, yielding a large effect size, Wilks’s λ = .731, F(15, 1220) = 9.780, p < .001. The canonical functions had Rc2s of .2, .057, and .028; thus, only Function 1 was retained, seen in Table 2. Sense of relatedness contributed the most unique variance. Conversely, sense of mastery explains almost no unique variance, and may not be useful to the model. Focusing on personality, Neuroticism provides the largest unique contribution to the total variance explained and Openness to Experience provides almost no unique contribution. However, most of this unique effect is due to Neuroticism’s value as a suppressor. Therefore, Conscientiousness is the best unique predictor. Additionally, the largest common variances are those common to Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.

Author

• Marcus A Fagan, University of North Texas
  Presenting Author