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Personality and Subjective Well-Being

Contents [hide] 1 Subjective Well-Being (SWB) 2 Personality and SWB 2.1 A Relationship between Personality and Subjective Well-being 2.2 What Influences Relationship More Between Extraversion and SWB 3 Gender Differences 4 Culture

Subjective well-being (SWB) [edit source]

Subjective well-being (SWB) is defined as how people experience the quality of their lives and how they evaluate their lives satisfactions, involving emotional reactions and cognitive judgments, and a relative of positive or negative emotional effect (Albuquerque et al., 2011).

A Relationship between personality and subjective well-being [edit source]

Personality strongly predicts people’s life satisfaction which is subjective well-being. Research has shown that each trait of Big Five factor has different degrees of happiness (Albuquerque et al., 2011). According to Costa and McCrae (2011), people who are more extraversion usually have higher levels of happiness and those who are more neuroticism have lower levels of happiness. These two traits are the strongest predictors of SWB among five factor, but also conscientiousness plays an important role in predicting SWB (Albuquerque et al., 2011). The other research found that openness and agreeableness were not correlated with SWB. However, agreeableness had negatively associated with negative affect (Tanksale, 2014).

What influences relationship more between extraversion and SWB [edit source]

Extraversion has a positive correlation with SWB but more significantly related to positive effect. the research had shown that particular social experience such as social contribution had strongly affected the relation between extraversion and life satisfaction (Smillie et al., 2015). Interestingly, social acceptance, social integration, and social coherence did not show the significant association between extraversion and positive affect (Smillie et al., 2015).

Gender differences [edit source]

In one study, researchers found that there was an effect of gender difference on subjective well-being. A significant positive correlation was shown between SWB and extraversion in both genders. Nevertheless, men who were extraversion seemed to have a higher level of SWB than women who were. (Li, Lan and Ju, 2015)

Culture [edit source]

In addition, one’s culture may also influence happiness and overall subjective well-being. The overall level of happiness fluctuates from culture to culture, as does preferred expression of happiness. Comparing various international surveys across countries reveals that different nations, and different ethnic groups within nations, exhibit differences in average life satisfaction. For example, one researcher found that between 1958 and 1987, Japanese life satisfaction fluctuated around 6 on a 10-point scale, while Denmark’s fluctuated around 8.[94] Comparing ethnic groups within the United States, another study found that European Americans reported being “significantly happier” with their lives than Asian Americans.[95] In terms of the influence of personality on SWB, Western countries such as US and Germany which were  individualistic cultures were different from Eastern countries such as Japan and China which were collectivistic cultures (Li, Lan, and Ju, 2015YUAN LI). Individualistic cultures were more extraversion and higher SWB than collectivistic cultures (Li, Lan, and Ju, 2015YUAN LI). Researchers have hypothesized a number of factors that could be responsible for these differences between countries, including national differences in overall income levels, self-serving biases and self-enhancement, and approach and avoidance orientations.[96] Taken together, these findings suggest that while extraversion-introversion does have a strong correlation with happiness, it does not stand alone as a sole predictor of subjective well-being, and that other factors must be accounted for when trying to determine the correlates of happiness.

References [edit source]

1.Albuquerque,I., Lima, M.P., Matos, M., & Figueiredo, C. (2011). Personality and Subjective Well-Being: What Hides Behind Global Analyses? Social Indicators Research,105(3), 447-460. doi: 10.1007/s11205-010-9780-7

2.Li,Y., Lan, J., & Ju, C. (2015). Self-Esteem, Gender, and the Relationship between Extraversion and Subjective Well-Being. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 43(8), 1243-1254. doi:10.2224/sbp.2015.43.8.1243

3.Smillie, L.D., Wilt, J., Kabbani, R., Garratt, C., & Revelle, W. (2015). Quality of social experience explains the relation between extraversion and positive affect. Emotion, 15(3), 339-349. doi:10.1037/emo0000047

4.Tanksale, D. (2014). Big Five personality traits: Are they really important for the subjective well-being of Indians? International Journal of Psychology, 50(1), 64-69. doi:10.1002/ijop.12060