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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 10, No. 9
Publication Date: September 25, 2023
DOI:10.14738/assrj.109.15470.
Ho, M. H. (2023). Relationship Between Triarchic Psychopathy Personality Traits and Academic Motivation: A Study of Accounting
Students in China. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(9). 129-145.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Relationship Between Triarchic Psychopathy Personality Traits
and Academic Motivation: A Study of Accounting Students in China
Ho, Miu Hing
College of Global Tenants,
Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhuhai
ABSTRACT
With the growth of China’s economy, the accountancy profession in China played a
vital role in serving the industry and in regulating the capital market. To be
successful in becoming a professional accountant, accounting majors must have
both the required skills and professional knowledge and the appropriate
personality for that profession. Therefore, it is crucial to find out whether the
personality of students studying accounting degrees in China will affect their
academic motivations in studying accounting. The purpose of this paper is to
investigate the relationship between triarchic psychopathy personality traits and
the academic motivation of students studying accounting in China. A self- administered questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from students
who were studying accounting in universities across China. A total of 125 responses
were collected for descriptive statistics, and correlation and regression analysis
using SPSS 25. The findings of the study suggested that undergraduate students
studying accounting degrees were mainly motivated by their concerns about their
future career prospects, contribution to the community, and self-exploration.
Concerning their personality trait, the highest mean value among the three traits
was boldness, which means, to a certain extent, they could remain emotionally
stable even if they are working under pressure. Nevertheless, the results of the
correlation and regression analysis suggest the relationship between triarchic
psychopathy personality traits and academic motivation of students studying
accounting in China is not significant. The results, however, could not be
generalized to all accounting students in China since the valid samples collected
were only 125 and non-probability sampling technique was adopted in this study.
The accounting professional bodies may benefit from the findings of this study in
their member recruitment strategies, as well as the accounting education providers
in assessing the candidates who are suitable for study accounting and in curriculum
development of accounting courses.
Keywords: triarchic psychopathy personality, big-five personality, academic motivation,
intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, accounting students
INTRODUCTION
With the open-up and growth of China’s economy, the accountancy profession in China played
a vital role in serving the industry and in regulating the capital market by promoting
transparency, accountability, and investor confidence; as well as contributing to the overall
stability of the financial system. To enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the
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accountancy profession, professional integrity and ethical are the core values of this profession
(Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants [CICPA], 2018). Many professional
accountants possess the personality of extrovert, sensing, thinking, and judging (Newman,
2011). It is because they need to communicate with others, to have critical thinking and
judgements on the fair presentation of the financial statements. To be trustworthy to the users
of financial statements, besides integrity and ethical, the required competence and professional
knowledge in response to the ever-changing economic and business environment are also
particularly important in the accounting profession. Carnegie and Napier (2010)’s research
findings align with this idea and, suggested that, on top of integrity, traditional accountant
should have characteristics of honesty, trustworthy and meticulousness while modern
stereotype accountant concerns more on competence and opportunism. To ensure its members
possess and maintain the required standard of competences and ethical conduct, CICPA set up
the system of supervision and monitoring qualification and continuous development of
members, practicing quality of audit firms and audit report of listed companies, together with
disciplinary and appeal mechanisms. (CICPA, 2018).
Students who want to pursue an accounting career tend to be sensing, thinking, and judging
individual who prefers to be efficient in making decisions based on logical reasoning and
information collected (Briggs et al., 2007; Andon et al., 2010). The personality type of STJ is
essential to the professional accountant since individuals who work in the accounting field must
be accountable, dependable, and diligent in their work and the competencies of professional
skepticism and professional judgement are based on logic, data, and facts.
In choosing accounting as their major, students might consider the career prospects and status
of the accounting profession (Byrne et al., 2012; Teixeira et al., 2015). To facilitate future
success in the career in accounting profession, students of accounting major must have the
capacity, passion, and motivation to study accounting and other knowledge that is relevant to
their future career development in the accounting field. Moreover, they need to consider
whether they possess the personality characteristics such as integrity, conscientiousness,
honesty, and trustworthy that are appropriate for taking up the position as a professional
accountant. To be successful in becoming a professional accountant, accounting majors must
have both the required skills and professional knowledge and the personality that is
appropriate for that profession. Therefore, it is crucial to find out whether the personality of
students studying accounting degrees in China will affect their academic motivations in
studying accounting.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Personality
Personality is the continuing pattern of built-in tendencies and behaviour of an individual’s
adjustment to life experiences, comprising major traits, interests, drives, values, identification,
self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns (American Psychological Association, n.d.).
Personality, which involves how an individual reacts to and interacts with the environment and
others, comprises moods, attitudes, and opinions and is a characteristic way of thinking, feeling,
and behaving (Holzman, 2023). Thus, personality refers to the individual differences of
thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, both inherent and acquired from the relation to the
environment and others.
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Ho, M. H. (2023). Relationship Between Triarchic Psychopathy Personality Traits and Academic Motivation: A Study of Accounting Students in
China. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 10(9). 129-145.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.109.15470
There are various personality theories pursued to explain how an individual behaves under
different circumstances. Jung’s Theory suggests individual differences in behaviour comes from
the differences in their preferences to use their perception for gathering information from the
world (comprises Sensing and Intuition) and Judgment for making decisions (comprising
Thinking and Feeling) to deal with the outside world (Daniels, 2014). Each of these four
functions of consciousness exists in two forms; that is, extraverted and introverted. Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is developed from Jung’s theory, is used to measure an
individual’s preference on each of the four aspects of personality: Extraversion (E) versus
Introversion (I), Sensing (S) versus Intuition (N), Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F), and Judging
(J) versus Perceiving (P). These four aspects of personality are combined to make up sixteen
distinct personality types (McCrae & Costa, 1989).
Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality Traits (also known as Big Five Personality traits) is a
testing framework that measures personality differences through five traits of Neuroticism,
Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. (Chmielewski & Morgan, 2013;
McCrae & John, 1992; Digman, 1990) and the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R)
was developed to measure each of the Big Five personality traits. Prior research results found
there are correlations between the MBTI and four of the Big Five personality traits. The
Extraversion-Introversion dimension (E-I) was correlated with Extraversion, the Sensing- Intuition dimension (S-N) with Openness, the Thinking-Feeling dimension (T-F) with
Agreeableness, and the Judging-Perceiving dimension (J-P) with Conscientiousness (Furnham,
1996; McCrae & Costa, 1989). Furnham (2022) examined the relationship between two
personality tests of MBTI and NEO-PI-R at the domain level, results suggested there were
correlation for Extraversion with E-I, and for Agreeableness with T-F were the same as prior
research done by Furnham (1996) and McCrae and Costa (1989). Nevertheless, results of the
research suggested there were differences with prior research done including the correlation
for Openness was J-P and for Conscientiousness was T-F.
Triarchic Psychopathy Model (TriP Model) of three interrelated personality traits of
disinhibition, boldness, and meanness, developed by Patrick and Drislane (2015) based on the
triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy domains (Patrick et al., 2009). Boldness denotes
fearlessness, venturesomeness, emotional resiliency, social dominance, and the ability to
remain calm under pressure. Meanness involves a lack of empathy and affiliation, excitement
seeking, and aggressive exploitation. Disinhibition signifies a propensity toward impulse
control problems such as irresponsibility, impulsiveness, hostility and mistrust, and emotion
regulation (Patrick et al., 2009; Sellbom & Phillips, 2013). The Triarchic Psychopathy Measure
(TriPM), which is a 58-item self-report scale designed to index the three psychopathy traits,
was developed from the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy domains (Patrick, 2018a;
Patrick, 2018b).
Miller et al. (2016) found the five-factor model (FFM) can account for the TriP Model’s
psychopathy domains. Poy et al. (2014) considered TriP Model is largely consistent with the
conceptualization of psychopathy in terms of FFM constructs and found that Meanness linked
to personalities of low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness; while Disinhibition
possessed the personalities of low Conscientiousness and low Agreeableness, together with
high Neuroticism and Extraversion. In addition, Boldness represented some features of
psychological adjustment and interpersonal psychopathy, and therefore, connected to low
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Neuroticism, high Extraversion, and high Openness, together with low Agreeableness. Hyatt et
al. (2018) considered that the TriP Model can be viewed as being nested within the FFM and
found that the TriP Model and FFM personality traits are closely related; in particular, there are
correlation between Boldness and Extraversion, Meanness and Agreeableness, and
Disinhibition and Conscientiousness. Hyatt et al. (2020) suggested that the three personality
traits of the TriP Model overlapped substantially with the FFM of personality. Particularly,
Boldness relates to low Neuroticism and high Extraversion; Meanness is perceptible by low
Agreeableness; and Disinhibition is characterized by low Conscientiousness. From this, one can
see that the psychopathy domain of Boldness is connected to FFM personality traits of
Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness and Agreeableness; Meanness is related to Agreeableness
and Conscientiousness; while Disinhibition is related to Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and
Extraversion.
Academic Motivation
Motivation is the process accountable for the initiation, intensity, and persistence of behavior
(Usher & Morris, 2012) and academic motivation is related to academic performance and
achievement. The sources of academic motivation of accounting major students cover both
intrinsic motivations derived from internal processes, and extrinsic motivations resulting from
external forces. The findings from various authors suggest the motivation of students who had
chosen to study accounting involved both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The intrinsic
motivations of students who choose accounting as their major involve seeking personal
development through broadening knowledge, skills, and horizons (Byrne et al., 2012), self- determined personal interests and pleasure in studying accounting and intellectual growth
(Hartutik et al., 2016; Samsuddin et al., 2015; Teixeira et al., 2015). As for extrinsic motivations,
students are mainly motivated by career-oriented reasons such as professional status and
contribution, professional aspirations, financial rewards and other achievements, and career
prospects (Arquero et al., 2009; Byrne et al., 2012; Hartutik et al., 2016; Samsuddin et al., 2015;
Teixeira et al., 2015). Law & Yuen (2012) suggested that the extrinsic motivation of parental
influence, which is the cultural norms rooted in Chinese societies, will influence students’ choice of
studying accounting degree.
The theories of academic motivation relating to both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of
accounting students include expectancy-value theory, self-determination theory, and
achievement goal theory. The perspective of self-determination theory, which focuses on
motivation as predictors of performance, relational, and well-being outcomes (Deci & Ryan,
2008), indicates that accounting students are intrinsically motivated by personal interest and
growth, and extrinsically motivated by professional aspirations, social and rewards. Based on
achievement goal theory, comprising learning goals to increase competence and performance
goals to gain favorable judgement (Elliott & Dweck, 1988); the accounting students’ academic
motivation should be derived from the intrinsic motivation of developing competences and
mastery of the subject matter; and the extrinsic motivation of outperform in the accounting
profession and acquiring role identity. According to the expectancy-value theory, which
concerns the expectancies for success and subjective task values (Ball et al., 2016), for
accounting majors, their intrinsic motivation could be the value of acquiring professional
accounting knowledge; and the extrinsic motivation could be their expectancy of future career
success and performance.