Personal traits, academic passion and engagement

This study explores the links between Big Five personality traits, academic passion—harmonious and obsessive—and academic engagement in Spanish university students. A sample of 518 undergraduates completed self-report measures of personality, academic passion, and engagement. Descriptive analyses, reliability tests, hierarchical regressions, and mediation models with bias‑corrected bootstrapping were conducted. Conscientiousness and neuroticism showed direct associations with engagement, while agreeableness displayed an indirect effect through harmonious passion. Harmonious passion emerged as the main mediator connecting personality traits to engagement, whereas obsessive passion showed weaker or negative associations. Overall, the results support the dualistic model of passion and emphasize the combined role of personality and autonomous motivation in shaping academic engagement. The findings offer guidance for designing interventions aimed at strengthening student well‑being and academic performance in higher education.