Teachers’ Big Five personality traits, emotion regulation patterns, and moods: mediation and prototype analyses

ABSTRACT

Research knowledge about the role of teachers’ personality in shaping their mood is still limited. The present study explores the associations between teachers’ five broad personality traits (known as the ‘Big Five’), emotion regulation (suppression and reappraisal), and mood. Data collected from a sample of 113 Israeli teachers were analysed using structural equation modelling analysis and cluster analysis. Path model analysis indicated that suppression mediates the relations between teachers’ conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism on one hand, and their negative mood on the other, and that reappraisal mediates the relations between teachers’ conscientiousness and neuroticism on one hand, and their positive mood on the other. Cluster analysis revealed associations between three personality types of teachers with their emotion regulation and mood. The study clarifies the role that teachers’ personality traits play in determining their affective life.

KEYWORDS:

• Big Five
• emotion regulation
• mood
• personality
• teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The strength of the correlations between teachers’ personality traits and moods in our sample resembled those previously reported in Mediterranean populations between teachers’ personality traits and affective outcomes (i.e. burnout, satisfaction, strain). For example, Kokkinos’s (2007) study regarding teachers in Cyprus reported significant correlations ranging in absolute value between .16 to .50 (Mabsolute value= 28), and Benoliel and Somech (2010), in a study of Israeli teachers, reported significant correlations, ranging in absolute value between .17 to .51 (Mabsolute value= 30.3).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Izhak Berkovich

Izhak Berkovich PhD, is a faculty member in the Department of Education and Psychology at the Open University of Israel. His research interests include educational leadership, ethics and social justice in school management, emotions in schools, politics and policy making in education, and educational reforms.

Ori Eyal

Ori Eyal PhD, is Chair of the Graduate Division of Policy, Administration, and Leadership in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change (APCLC). His research focusses on the emergence of unsolicited innovation in education, school entrepreneurship, educational champions, educational policy, cross sector alliances in the field of education, educational leadership, and of late, the role emotions play in schools.