Personality and Life Satisfaction:A Facet-Level Analysis

Ulrich SchimmackShigehiro OishiR. Michael FurrDavid C. Funder

Introduction

• Five global dimensions of individual differences (the Big Five):

Neuroticism, Openness to Experience,

Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.

(McCrae & Costa, 1997)

Subjective Well Being (SWB)

• High SWB implies happy life with many pleasant and few unpleasant experiences and high life satisfaction (Diener & Larsen, 1984; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999).

• SWB is moderately stable over time and it is influenced by personality traits. It has strong links with Extraversion and Neuroticism (Diener & Lucas, 1999).

Hierarchical Taxonomies of Personality

• The advantage of broad constructs such as N and E is that they predict a wide variety of behaviors with a relatively small set of personality dimensions .

• Personality questionnaires such as the NEO PI R (Costa & Mc Crae) describe personality in terms of the Big Five and in terms of six specific facets of each of the Big Five Dimensions, so are helpful in identifying these specific traits.

Subjective Well Being & the Big Five SWB researches distinguish 2 components:

Affective- hedonic balance of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Extraversion and Neuroticism are strong predictors of the affective component of SWB.

Cognitive- SWB assessed with life satisfaction judgments (e.g. ‘I am satisfied with my life’).

AIMS and HYPOTHESES

• The main aim of this study was to provide a more detailed examination of the personality traits that influence life satisfaction.

• It was predicted that facets of Extraversion and Neuroticism that are dispositions to experience pleasant or unpleasant emotions should be most closely related to life satisfaction.

Study 1• Participants: 136 students (100f and 36m).

• Procedure: Participants and informants completed NEO-PI-R and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al, 1985).

• Results:- E & N were strong predictors of Life Satisfaction

• - depression and positive emotions are necessary and sufficient to account for the relation between personality and life satisfaction.

Study 2

Study 2 replicated the key finding of Study 1 with an alternative measure of personality- IPIP (Goldberg, 1997).

• Study 2 found that depression and cheerfulness were the first two predictors of informant reports of life satisfaction.

Study 3• Study 3 extended the previous two studies by using

multiple personality measures, whereas life satisfaction was assessed only by self reports.

Results: The self rating and peer reports: Depression and positive emotions were the facets that correlated most highly with LS.

Parents reports showed the highest correlation between self-consciousness and assertiveness.

Study 4• The predictive validity of the depression and

positive emotions facets was compared to a popular brief measure of E and N- the 44 item Big Five Inventory (John et al, 1999).

• Extraversion and Neuroticism were more strongly correlated with life satisfaction than the other dimensions. Positive emotions and depression were more highly correlated with LS than E & N.

General Discussion

• 4 studies revealed that depression facet of N and positive emotion/cheerfulness facet of E are the most consistent predictors of LS.

• Depression and positive emotions are necessary and sufficient to maximize the prediction of LS.

Implications

• 16 NEO-PI-R or 20 IPIP items are sufficient to assess influence of personality on LS.

• SWB researchers should focus on the affective facets of E & N.

• The absence of gender differences in LS is consistent with the evidence regarding differences in the facets of N & E.

Limitations

• It is possible that other personality traits are more important predictors in other populations in different cultures.

• Different results could have emerged with another measure of LS than SWLS (Diener et al. 1985).

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