Predicting Girl's Runaway from Home Using the Big Five Factor Model of Personality

The aim of this study was to predict girls’ runaway from home using the five factor model of personality. In a retrospective study, 37 runaway girls who were incarcerated and kept by relevant organizations, were selected using convenience sampling. Considering the mean age of the runaway girls, 37 single females residing in middle to low socioeconomic neigh-borhood in Shiraz, were selected as the control group. The Big Five Personality Inventory along with a number of questions for acquiring demographic information were administered to the parti-cipants. Hierarchical logistic regression indicated that only neuroticism could significantly predict the runaway of girls; and the level of neuroticism had a positive correlation with runaway. In addition the interaction between fathers’ jobs and conscientiousness in girls was significant (p<0.05); in other words, an increase in conscientiousness along with the high job status of father reduced the risk of runaway. However, the relationship of conscientiousness with a reduction in runaway was insignificant in lower job status. Big Five personality traits are not powerful predictors of girls’ running away. It seems that using more specific personality scales and attention to interaction between personality and environmental factors could improve the power of predicting girls’ runaway based on their personality characteristics. Moreover, personal factors appear to be more powerful predictors of girls’ runaway from their homes in higher socio-economic classes.