Personality Traits and the Propensity to Invest in the Nigerian Stock Exchange

This study examines the influence of personality traits on individual investment propensity in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), with specific focus on the Big Five personality dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism. Anchored within the behavioural finance paradigm and guided by the Personality–Behavioural Investment Propensity Theory, the study adopts a positivist philosophy and a quantitative cross-sectional design. Data were obtained from 471 retail investors across Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt using the validated Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) and a five-item investment propensity scale. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) implemented in AMOS 22 was employed to evaluate both the measurement and structural models. The measurement model demonstrated satisfactory reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, with model fit indices meeting recommended thresholds (χ²/df = 2.41; CFI = 0.938; TLI = 0.931; RMSEA = 0.056; SRMR = 0.047). Structural path analysis revealed that extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness exert significant positive effects on investment propensity, while neuroticism shows a significant negative influence. Openness to experience was found to exert no statistically meaningful effect. Collectively, the Big Five traits explained 38% of the variance in investment propensity, underscoring the central role of psychological characteristics in shaping retail investment behaviour in an emerging market context. The findings contribute to behavioural finance theory by reaffirming the relevance of stable personality dispositions in explaining deviations from rational investment behaviour and offer practical insights for investor education and capital market participation strategies.