The relationship between personality and success in language production tasks in pre-medical education

Effective communication is a foundational competency for healthcare professionals, directly impacting clinical safety and interprofessional collaboration. This study investigated the impact of the Big Five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) on the communication skills of future medical practitioners. A cohort of 139 male pre-medical/health sciences students completed the 44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) alongside academic writing and oral presentation tasks. Spearman's rho correlation analyses revealed that openness to experience and extraversion were associated with success in both writing and speaking. Openness demonstrated significant positive correlations with writing (r = 0.292, p < 0.001) and oral skills (r = 0.310, p < 0.001), while extraversion also correlated significantly with both modalities. In contrast, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism did not significantly correlate with performance in these specific communicative tasks. Additionally, a strong positive correlation (r = 0.500, p < 0.001) was identified between writing and oral proficiency, which suggests that these competencies may share underlying cognitive processes. These results highlight the critical role of non-cognitive factors in medical education and indicate that identifying stable personality profiles can help educators provide targeted support for the diverse communicative needs of pre-medical students.