Personality traits, migration intentions, and cultural distance

This paper investigates the relationship between Big Fivepersonality traits and individuals' intentions to migrate incountries that vary in their culture. Using data collectedfrom university students in Germany, we find that extraver-sion and openness are positively associated with migrationintentions, while agreeableness, conscientiousness, andemotional stability negatively relate to migration intentions.Openness positively and extraversion negatively relate tothe willingness to move to culturally distant countries aftercontrolling for geographic distance and economic differ-ences between countries. Extravert and conscientiousindividuals are less likely to prefer linguistically distantcountries contrary to agreeable individuals.