Psychology › Personality & intelligence › The Big Five personality traits
Conscientiousness as a life-outcome predictor
· Finding or experiment
Well replicatedStrong, repeated evidence.
Being organized, dependable and self-disciplined, a Big Five trait that predicts health, work and life outcomes unusually well.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
Conscientiousness is the Big Five trait for being organized, dependable, self-disciplined and goal-directed. High scorers plan ahead, finish tasks and resist impulses. Across occupations it is the Big Five trait most consistently linked to job performance, and a 2007 review led by Brent Roberts found it predicted longevity, divorce and career success about as well as IQ or family socioeconomic status. On average it rises from the late teens through middle age.
Why it matters
It is one of the best-supported personality predictors of good life outcomes, and because it tends to grow with age and responsibility, habits and structure may help build it.
Think of it like
Like a dependable property manager: rarely flashy, but steady upkeep compounds over decades.
The evidence
Status: well replicated. Large meta-analyses (Barrick and Mount, 1991, on jobs; Roberts, 2007, on life outcomes) and Lewis Terman's study of California children from 1921, in which conscientious children lived longer.
Open questions
Whether deliberate efforts can raise conscientiousness lastingly, and how much of its benefit comes through health habits, steady jobs and stable relationships.
Connections (3)
▸Conscientiousness as a life-outcome predictor is one of The Big Five personality traitsWell replicated
The connection
Conscientiousness, being organized, dependable, disciplined and goal-directed, is the 'C' in the Big Five. Of the five, it best predicts job performance across occupations, and conscientious children tend to live longer, partly through healthier habits.
Who showed it and when
Identified in Big Five research from the 1960s to 1990s; Murray Barrick and Michael Mount's 1991 job meta-analysis; the Terman study of Californians born around 1910.
The evidence
It emerges in factor analyses across languages and cultures, and its links to job performance and health hold up in meta-analyses.
Open questions
Whether 'grit,' a popular newer idea, is anything more than conscientiousness under another name; a 2017 meta-analysis found the two overlap heavily.
▸Conscientiousness as a life-outcome predictor overlaps with Self-control and willpowerWell replicated
The connection
Self-control sits at the core of conscientiousness. The Big Five trait includes self-discipline and deliberation, and self-control questionnaires correlate strongly with it. Both predict similar outcomes: health, savings, job performance and staying out of trouble. Researchers often treat self-control as the in-the-moment ability and conscientiousness as the broad, lasting tendency built partly on it.
Who showed it and when
Big Five research from the 1980s–90s; June Tangney and colleagues' 2004 Self-Control Scale; Brent Roberts and colleagues' reviews of conscientiousness, 2014.
The evidence
Questionnaire studies show high correlations between the two, and long-term studies find they predict similar life outcomes.
Open questions
Whether they are one trait under two names, a recurring problem psychologists call the 'jangle fallacy', or genuinely distinct levels of one system.
▸Grit largely repackages Conscientiousness as a life-outcome predictorMixed evidence
The connection
Duckworth's own 2007 data showed grit correlated strongly with conscientiousness. A 2017 meta-analysis pooling about 67,000 people found a corrected correlation of about .84, close to what two measures of the same trait show, and grit added little prediction once conscientiousness was counted. Duckworth describes grit as related but focused on stamina toward one long-term goal.
Who showed it and when
Duckworth and colleagues, University of Pennsylvania, 2007; Marcus Credé, Michael Tynan and Peter Harms's meta-analysis in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2017.
How solid is it?
The 2017 meta-analysis covered 88 independent samples; later studies have found similarly heavy overlap.
Open questions
Whether grit's 'passion' component, sticking with one interest for years, captures anything conscientiousness misses; evidence so far suggests little.