Linking Personality With Interpersonal Perception in the Classroom: Distinct Associations With the Social and Academic Sides of Popularity

We investigated associations between the Big Five personality traits and interpersonal perception in the classroom. Extending earlier studies, we differentiate interpersonal perception by domain (social vs. academic) and the interpersonal roles of targets (popularity) and perceivers (preference). In a round-robin design, 358 students rated all classmates in the social (spending free time together) and academic domains (doing academic tasks together). Results from a Bayesian social relations model highlighted the roles of agreeableness and extraversion for interpersonal perception. Neuroticism was linked to rating classmates favorably in the social and academic domains and conscientiousness to being rated favorably in the academic domain. Investigating interpersonal perception by domain and interpersonal role provided univocal results on the distinctive links between personality and interpersonal perception.