Assessing the Relative Predictive Strengths of the Big Five Personality Factors For Moral Judgement of Children

The study examined the predictive strengths of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness dimensions of the Big Five personality for moral judgement of children. The study selected three hundred thirty children with an equal number of males (M = 10.01, SD = 0.86) and females (M = 9.99, SD = 0.90) with age ranging from 7 years to 11 years. The Big Five Questionnaire-Children (Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 2003) and the Moral Judgement Test (Sinha, & Verma, 1971) were used to measure personality and moral judgement of children, respectively. It was observed that the female children exhibited significantly higher mean scores on conscientiousness dimension of personality and moral judgement as compared the male participants. Contrarily, the mean scores of extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability and openness dimensions of personality did not evince significant gender differences. Irrespective of gender, the scores on predictors and criterion measures of children again evinced significant positive correlations. The results of hierarchical regression analysis exhibited that gender, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness accounted for 3.70%, 11.50%, 11.80% and 16.40% variations in the scores of moral judgement, respectively. The study recorded an important contribution of Big Five personality in understanding the moral judgement of children. The findings carry theoretical and practical implications for researchers, parents, teachers and educational policymakers. The directions for future research have also been given.