Unique Associations Between Big Five Personality Aspects and Multiple Dimensions of Well‐Being

Abstract

Objective: Personality traits are associated with well-being, but the precise correlates vary across well-being dimensions and within each Big Five domain. This study is the first to examine the unique associations between the Big Five aspects (rather than facets) and multiple well-being dimensions. Method: Two samples of U.S. participants (Total N = 706, M age = 36.17, 54% female) recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk completed measures of the Big Five aspects and subjective, psychological, and PERMA well-being. Results: One aspect within each domain was more strongly associated with well-being variables. Enthusiasm and Withdrawal were strongly associated with a broad range of well-being variables, but other aspects of personality also had idiosyncratic associations with distinct forms of positive functioning (e.g., Compassion with positive relationships, Industriousness with accomplishment, and Intellect with personal growth). Conclusions: An aspect-level analysis provides an optimal (i.e., parsimonious yet sufficiently comprehensive) framework for describing the relation between personality traits and multiple ways of thriving in life.

On the quality of adjustment to retirement: The longitudinal role of personality traits and generativity

“…In this article, we adopt the well-replicated Big Five model (McCrae & Costa, 1990)-which describes adult personality using the five dimensions Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience-to test the contribution of these traits in the prediction of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being levels after retirement. The links between personality traits and retirement adjustment quality are likely to replicate the results of research associating low Neuroticism and high Extraversion with higher levels of life satisfaction (DeNeve & Cooper, 1998;Steel, Schmidt, & Shultz, 2008) and psychological well-being (Anglim & Grant, 2016;Grant, Langan-Fox, & Anglim, 2009;Sun, Kaufman, & Smillie, 2016). Neuroticism and Extraversion are associated with enduring affective dispositions that account for the effect of these traits on life satisfaction and psychological well-being (McCrae & Costa, 1990), and they are therefore likely to affect retirement adjustment quality as well.…”

“…The links between personality traits and retirement adjustment quality are likely to replicate the results of research associating low neuroticism and high extraversion with higher levels of life satisfaction (DeNeve & Cooper, 1998; Steel, Schmidt, & Shultz, 2008), and psychological wellbeing (Anglim & Grant, 2016; Grant, Langan-Fox, & Anglim, 2009; Sun, Kaufman, & Smillie, 2016). Neuroticism and extraversion are associated with enduring affective dispositions that account for the effect of these traits on life satisfaction and psychological wellbeing (McCrae & Costa, 1990), and are likely therefore to affect retirement adjustment quality as well.…”

Predicting Psychological and Subjective Well-Being from Personality: A Meta-Analysis

“…Some research suggests that the Big Five may predict PWB more strongly than SWB (Anglim & Grant, 2016). Importantly, each of the six scales have particular Big Five traits that appear to correlate more prominently (Anglim & Grant, 2016;Grant et al, 2009;Meléndez et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2018), for instance, agreeableness and extraversion with positive relations, openness with personal growth, and conscientiousness with purpose in life. However, meta-analytic estimates are needed to provide a more definitive assessment of these unique cross-correlations.…”

“…Several researchers have also considered the role of narrow traits of the Big Five in predicting well-being. Some of this research has focused on life satisfaction (Schimmack et al, 2004;Steel et al, 2019), SWB (Marrero Quevedo & Carballeira Abella, 2011;Steel et al, 2008), or both SWB andPWB (Anglim &Grant, 2016;Marrero, Rey, & Hernández-Cabrera, 2016;Sun et al, 2018). Such research has often highlighted facets such as depression and positive emotions as important predictors, which in turn has highlighted how construct overlap may be relevant.…”

Mindfulness at Metropolitan Universities

“…The mindfulness and well-being efforts in the contexts we have discussed appear to interpret mindfulness and well-being quite broadly in developing programs in practice, though we do recognize that much of the academic literature on mindfulness and well-being points out the need to have clear definitions in using the terms mindfulness (Van Dam et al, 2017) and well-being (Sun, Kaufman, & Smillie, 2018), particularly when conducting research, so that one is clear on what exactly is being studied. Nevertheless, in the university settings we discussed, and likely in others as well, from a programmatic perspective, the issue of the clarity of definition appears to be less important than trying to help students, faculty, and staff manage the stress in their lives.…”