Personality and scholastic achievement in three ethnic groups.

Summary. Scores on the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory of some 2,000 white, Negro, and Mexican-American school children, ages 9 to 13, were examined in relation to measures of intelligence and home environment as predictors of scholastic achievement. The JEPI scales show quite low, but significant and systematic, correlations with achievement; Extraversion (E) correlates positively and Neuroticism (N) and the Lie (L) scale correlate negatively with achievement. The independent contributions separately of E, N, and L. to achievement variance over the variance accounted for by the ability and background measures are negligible, but the three JEPI scales combined in a multiple regression equation along with measures of intelligence and home background independently contribute a small share of the predicted part of the scholastic achievement variance. In this the three ethnic groups do not differ appreciably or systematically, nor do the school grades from 4 to 8 (ages 9 to 13), although there are significant and systematic age and ethnic group differences in mean scores on the JEPI scales.