Well-being and personality: Facet-level analyses

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Abstract

Personality and well-being measures were administered to 554 individuals. Big Five and facets of Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) were compared in order to find out the best predictors of subjective well-being (SWB). Facets and other personality traits, such as optimism, self-esteem and social support, accounted for twice the variance in results as compared to the Big Five. Optimism and depression were the main predictors of happiness and life satisfaction, whereas vulnerability was the strongest predictor of positive affect, and self-esteem of negative affect.

Introduction

During recent decades, special interest has developed in the positive rather than the negative aspects of mental health (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). Subjective well-being (SWB) is a general area of research rather than a single construct that includes subjective positive elements in evaluating life (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). SWB comprises two components: one cognitive, regarding life satisfaction, or the global cognitive appraisal of one’s life as a whole (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), and the other affective, including positive and negative affect. Feelings such as fear, anger, or despair are considered as negative affect, whereas positive affect refers to feelings such as enthusiasm, hope, or joy; they are considered as two independent factors (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Other terms have been used for SWB, such as happiness, a more global construct, meaning an optimum state (Averill & More, 1993). In this study, happiness, life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect were selected as the main indicators of well-being, in accordance with previous studies (Diener, 1984). Research on SWB has often used these indicators synonymously. These constructs reflect different processes of well-being so this study analyzed which factors influenced each indicator.

Previous research has mainly focused on the link between SWB and personality. Costa and McCrae (1980) proposed that positive affect is most strongly correlated to Extraversion, whereas negative affect is most powerfully associated to Neuroticism. In a later study, these authors found that Openness to Experience is related to both positive and negative affect whereas Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are more strongly associated to life satisfaction and happiness (McCrae & Costa, 1991). In the meta-analyses by DeNeve and Cooper (1998) and by Steel, Schmidt, and Shultz (2008), Neuroticism was most closely related with happiness, life satisfaction and negative affect, and Extraversion with positive affect. In Spain, Chico (2006) also found that Neuroticism was a major predictor of SWB, explaining about 44% of variance. Thus, personality has different patterns of association with SWB depending on the SWB indicator used. Happiness and even life satisfaction might be closely related to personality due to their enduring character. On the other hand, if positive and negative affect are measured as a transient state, their relationship with SWB should be less pronounced (Steel et al., 2008).

Most studies on personality and SWB have used broad personality factors rather than specific factors. Facets have enough discriminant validity to predict different behaviors, independently of the general factor (Costa and McCrae, 1998, Paunonen and Ashton, 2001). Herringer (1998) found that only assertiveness and positive emotions, both facets of Extraversion, were predictors of life satisfaction. Schimmack, Oishi, Furr, and Funder (2004) found the facets depression and positive emotions, from Neuroticism and Extraversion, were the main predictors of life satisfaction. Stephan (2009) also suggested that openness to feelings and openness to ideas predicted older adults’ life satisfaction. Facet-level analysis accounts for a higher amount of variance than trait level analysis (Steel et al., 2008).

In addition, there are a large number of traits or other attitudinal measures not included into the Big Five which may influence SWB. DeNeve and Cooper (1998) in their meta-analytic review reported that self-esteem and optimism were not included because they can be used as synonyms for SWB. However, in our opinion, both can be conceptually differentiated from SWB, and each has shown less than 25% shared variance with SWB (Marrero & Carballeira, 2010).

Dispositional optimism is defined as a stable tendency to expect favorable future outcomes (Scheier & Carver, 1985) and is a significant predictor of physical and mental health (Marrero & Carballeira, 2010), partly determining coping strategies (Brissette et al., 2002, Segerstrom et al., 1998).

The contribution of self-esteem to SWB has been documented in several studies, being positively related to life satisfaction (Diener & Diener, 1995), or even a strong predictor of SWB (Schimmack & Diener, 2003). Individuals with feelings of self-worth based on personal attributes, and competencies or recognition in a social group, are more likely to be more satisfied with themselves and with their general life (Karatzias, Chouliara, Power, & Swanson, 2006).

Research suggests that social support, acting as a stress buffer, allows coping with stressful life events (Cohen & McKay, 1984), sharing fears, worries and uncertainties with others because it provides emotional expression and increases feelings of success and adjustment to stress (Sarason, Pierce, & Sarason, 1990). Some studies have analyzed the importance of social relationships in predicting SWB. Hotard, McFatter, McWhirter, and Stegall (1989) concluded that Extraversion and social relationships accounted for 33.6% of variance in SWB.

Although there is empirical evidence for the relationship between broad personality traits and SWB, the influence of the Big Five facets is not well known. We therefore investigated whether Big Five personality traits and facets, as well as optimism, self-esteem and social support, were differentially related with the four main indicators of SWB (happiness, life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect). Previous research examined the influence of facets of certain Big Five dimensions on the cognitive component or on the affective component of SWB, separately (Herringer, 1998, Schimmack et al., 2004). However, we believe it is necessary to analyze the contribution of the 30 Big Five facets on each indicator of SWB. The objectives of this study were, firstly, to determine whether the global indicators of SWB have a closer relationship with Big Five traits than the specific indicators. Given the findings of Steel et al. (2008), the second objective was to investigate whether Big Five facets explain the relationships between personality and SWB better than Big Five traits. Finally, a third objective was to determine whether other personality measures (optimism, self-esteem and social support) and Big Five facets differentially predict SWB indicators. Although these personality characteristics have shown associations with SWB (Diener and Diener, 1995, Marrero and Carballeira, 2010), their contribution to SWB together with the Big Five facets has not been examined.

Section snippets

Participants

The sample consisted of students at the University of La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain (54.2%) and individuals recruited from their families and social environment. A total of 554 adults participated (35.6% men, 64.4% women), aged 17–66 years (M = 27.70; SD = 10.04). The majority (69%) had a partner.

Measures

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al., 1985) was used as a cognitive measure of whole life satisfaction. A total of 5 items were answered using a 7-point scale, ranging from 1: not

Results

Correlational analysis showed that demographic variables and SWB measures were weakly related. Having a partner was related to happiness and life satisfaction. Positive affect correlated with employment, age, and gender; however, negative affect was unrelated to demographic characteristics (Table 1).

Neuroticism, Extraversion and Conscientiousness showed the highest correlations with SWB indicators, except that Extraversion did not correlate with negative affect. Agreeableness was weakly

Discussion

This study examines whether the facets of the Big Five Model and other personality characteristics not included in this model, such as optimism, self-esteem, and social support, are better predictors of SWB than Big Five broad dimensions.

Previous research has consistently shown the association of Neuroticism with negative affect and Extraversion with positive affect (Costa and McCrae, 1980, DeNeve and Cooper, 1998), also confirmed in the present study. In addition, we found that Neuroticism was

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