When personal becomes relational Investigating the role of personality traits in affective student-teacher relationships

The affective quality of dyadic student–teacher relationships (i.e., the emotional bond between teachers and individual students) has been found to be an important context for students’ academic and social development. This dissertation addresses the limited attention given to personality traits in this field by investigating the role of personality traits in the affective quality of dyadic student–teacher relationships. This overarching aim was pursued through both a systematic review of existing research and original empirical studies. These included the development of a new measurement tool, further exploration of the personality–relationship link, and testing a mediation model in which affective student–teacher relationships serve as an underlying mechanism linking personality traits to school engagement. Findings suggest that higher levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, and lower levels of neuroticism, are associated with more positive student–teacher relationships. Importantly, not only students’ but also teachers’ personality traits matter. Beyond individual traits, personality match between students and teachers may also play a role in relationship quality and warrants further investigation. Finally, students who score high on agreeableness and low on neuroticism are likely to report more positive relationship quality (i.e., higher closeness and lower conflict), which, in turn, may promote their emotional engagement. Taken together, this dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of how personality traits shape relational and academic outcomes in schools and suggests that attention to personality traits may be a promising avenue for understanding different aspects of students’ school experiences.