Influence of five-factor personality traits over the trend of mentorship (a study on psychological counsellors and consultant teachers)

Scientists have reached a consensus over the detection of personality traits and achieved the conclusion that the traits called neuroticism, extroversion, openness for improvement, accommodativeness and self-discipline, which we can name as five-factor personality traits or big-five, are common personality traits for humans. Difficulties in transferring individual or organizational knowledge, experience and types of practice to the new generation have increased the need to the information transfer for applicability. The concept of mentorship, which can be translated as "akıl hocalığı" to Turkish, has been conceptualised to fill in this gap and been put into practice in many fields recently. In this study, which aims at examining the influence of five-factor personality traits over the trend of mentorship, the universe consists of 3910 psychological counsellors and consultant teachers, who are among the top professionals having the capacity of mentorship in Turkey. 692 counsellors and consultants from 6 different cities were reached via convenience sampling method and the surveys were performed with face to face interviews. The analyses carried out afterwards show that there is relation between five-factor personality traits and sub-dimensions of the trend of mentorship. It has been seen that the sub-dimensions of self-discipline, extroversion and openness to improvement belonging to five-factor personality traits have influence over the sub-dimensions of carrier-developing support and psychological support belonging to mentorship, whereas neuroticism and accommodativeness have no influence. Key Words: Five-factor personality traits, Mentorship, Psychological Counsellor and Consultant Teacher.