Intelligence, academic abilities, and personality

It has been proposed that personality (in the narrow sense) and intelligence are uncorrelated and essentially independent constructs (Eysenck, H. J., 1994, Personality and intelligence: psychometric and experimental approaches. In R. J. Sternberg and P. Ruzgis (Eds.), Personality and intelligence (pp. 3–31), New York: Cambridge University Press). The results of this study show that personality dimensions measured by the NEO Personality Inventory stay clearly apart from academic abilities and psychometrically measured intelligence. Correlation and joint factor analyses demonstrated that most of the valid variance in academic achievement and intelligence was not related to personality measures in the Estonian population forming a separate dimension of individual differences. The lack of correlation between academic abilities and personality, however, does not exclude that individuals with low or high intellectual abilities might use their intellectual resources differently for the expression of their individuality. It was found that low-intelligence persons use their intellectual abilities primarily for seeking excitement and elaborating fantasies; high-intelligence persons, in contrast, use their intellect for regulating and controlling their affective lives.