Using intrinsic traits as a predictor of college major

In research, a common categorization of college students is by what major they classify with. Although there are many differences that exist among each program’s students, many common traits can be noted as well that unite this demographic. There are many underlying motives for which major a student chooses, but one frequently discussed is the aforementioned naturally occurring traits. In recent years multiple examples of published research have examined these intrinsic callings to a major, but this area remains limited (Skatova & Ferguson, 2014; Vedel, 2016). The current study’s interest is to specifically examine students majoring in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) and observe if the combination of high emotional understanding, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness can be correlated with students choosing the CHSS. To test this theory, data collected via a cross-sectional survey design in conjunction with the Cognition and Leadership Development Lab at Montclair State University was used to investigate the traits of undergraduate CHSS majors (N = 66) and non-SS majors (N = 42). Within these surveys, students completed a variety of questionnaires in return of class credit. Two of these included the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU; MacCann & Roberts, 2008) to measure for emotional understanding and the Big Five Inventory (BFI; Benet-Martinez & John, 1998) to record degrees of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. By utilizing the undergraduate scores on these two measures as well as demographic data to identify majors, an analysis using multiple regression will be conducted to test the relation.