Relationships between Academic Adaptation and Healthy and Subclinical Personality Traits

In this paper, the relationships between personality traits (Big Five Model and the D Factor Model) and dimensions of academic adaptation in a sample of 231 higher education students from Brazilian institutions were investigated. The Academic Adaptation to Higher Education Questionnaire, the Big Five Mini-Markers, and the D16 Scale were administered, and the software programs JASP, Mplus, and SPSS were used to conduct descriptive statistics analyses, linear regression analyses, confirmatory factor analysis, and network analysis. The results indicated stronger correlations between the Personal-Emotional dimension and the trait of Neuroticism, as well as between the Study dimension and the trait of Conscientiousness. The combination of the two personality models (Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Callousness, and Sadism traits) explained 31 % of the variance in academic adaptation. In the network analysis, the highest strength index revealed connections between the Study dimension and the traits of Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Sadism. The Study dimension also showed higher closeness and betweenness indices in its connections with Extraversion and Revenge. The findings highlight the need for further studies with larger and more representative samples, as well as with subgroups of students with prior diagnoses of mental disorders, to deepen the understanding of the associations between personality and academic adaptation, with particular attention to the role of the D Factor.