Personality traits and their relationship to social anxiety : a quantitative study on university of Malta students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine possible relationships between social anxiety and personality traits; namely those found in Costa and McCrae's (1996) Five-Factor model. An additional relationship; that of social anxiety and age, was also examined. This was carried out by administering an 80-item questionnaire consisting of the NEO-FFI; a 60-item measure of personality traits, and the SIAS; a 20-item measure of social interaction anxiety. The sample consisted of undergraduates attending the University of Malta. The participants include 316 undergraduates, (mean age= 21.69); 109 males (34%) and 207 females (66%). Data was subject to Pearson correlation and multiple regression. Correlation results indicate that whilst there was no significant relationship between social anxiety and openness, a significant relationship was found with the rest of the variables. Conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and age were negatively associated with social anxiety, whilst neuroticism was positively associated with social anxiety. Multiple regression analysis indicates that personality traits and age account for 49% of the variance in social anxiety. The highest-ranking variable was extraversion, followed by age, neuroticism, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness. A comparison of the mean score of social anxiety, with foreign studies using the same measure, also indicated significantly higher levels of social anxiety within this study. Overall, these findings have important implications on the etiological aspects of social anxiety.