The Impact of College Students’ Personality Traits on Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy: The Moderating Role of Meritocracy

To explore the relationship between personality traits and college students’ career decision-making self-efficacy, as well as the moderating role of meritocracy in this relationship, this study administered the Meritocracy Identity Scale, Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Chinese version of the Ten-Item Big Five Inventory to 520 college students. The results showed that: (1) Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness exhibited significantly positive correlations with career decision-making self-efficacy. (2) Meritocracy played a moderating role in the effect of agreeableness on career decision-making self-efficacy. These findings suggest that individual specificity of personality traits should be respected, and appropriately enhancing college students’ meritocracy level could further improve their career decision-making self-efficacy.