Do school-related experiences impact personality? Selection and socialization effects of impulse control.

Personality traits are well-known predictors of academic success across all levels of education. However, whether school provides an environment to cultivate and promote personality traits is largely unknown. Theories about personality development give reasons to assume that enduring experiences at school could lead to prolonged personality changes. We therefore studied the dynamic interplay of impulse control—an important predictor for educational and life outcomes—and perceptions of school-related experiences both in terms of selection and socialization effects. We used a large, representative, longitudinal dataset of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth following students from ages 10 to 21 across 6 assessment waves to examine mutual associations of impulse control and school-related experiences across middle and high school years. Sample sizes for the analyses ranged from 8,204 to 8,421 (51% male). Mutual associations between perceived school-related experiences and impulse control were analyzed using random intercept cross-lagged panel models. Results supported the appearance of selection and, to a lesser extent, socialization effects for impulse control and some school-related experiences. The results point to the importance of school-related experiences not limited to academic matters.