Does Personality Correlate With Subjective Well-Being?

Personality is a complex area of Psychology, which has been studied for many years, by many experts in the field. Each having their own ideas about how to understand, study and evaluate it. Here I will introduce personality briefly, looking at the theories behind it. Then explain the need for testing. As there are many test that are available to use, for the purpose of this essay I will look at The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and discuss the reliability and validity of some studies around these tests.

Lyubomirsky defines happiness as the “experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (184). She challenges the myths that people can find happiness by changing their circumstances and that people either are “born happy or unhappy” (186). Happiness is not something that can be found or something that not everyone can have. People make their own happiness, despite the difficulties they may face. Happiness comes by “choosing to change and manage your state of mind” (185). Lyubomirsky gives cases of people who are happy even though they suffer from losses and setbacks. These are the people whose circumstances should make them unhappy, but their intentional actions bring them joy. She also gives cases of people who have not suffered any major losses but are still unhappy because they may see events negatively and feel helpless before them. Lyubomirsky asserts that “changes in our circumstances, no matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being” (186). Even though a person’s circumstances may be positive, those circumstances do not make them happy. Lyubomirsky uses a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness, which takes the average of numerical answers to four questions. She argues that in order to become happier, “you need to determine your present personal happiness level, which will provide your first estimate of your happiness

Cobb-Clarke and Schurer carried out an investigation to determine whether they could answer three questions in regards to personality and stability. “Does the overall change in personality traits depend on age? Is adult personality change related to adverse life events? And, are changes in adult personality economically meaningful?” (Cobb-Clark and Schurer, 2011) In order to answer these questions Cobb-Clark and Schurer retrieved data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey by Summerfield in 2010 from 2005 and 2009 which represents a national panel study of over 7,600 Australian households. Respondents were asked how well 36 different adjectives

1a) In the research article “Personality Predictors of Successful Development: Toddler Temperament and Adolescent Personality Traits Predict Well-being and Career Stability in Middle Adulthood” by Marek Blatný, Katarína Millová, Martin Jelínek, Terezie Osecká. The problem that these researchers identified was the relationship between personality and psychological functioning and well-being, or the relations between personality and social functioning. The authors conducted this study mainly to determine whether ones’ personality affects his/her satisfaction with their quality of life in adulthood. They believe that personality traits play a major role in who/what you become in the future and they wanted to see if they could predict it. If yes, they wanted to know how early? – As early as childhood, adolescence or early adulthood.

According to the article “The Power of Personality” it is abundantly clear that specific personality traits predict important life outcomes, such as mortality,

From the perspective of positive psychology, there is a well-being formula invested by Martin Seligman to achieve a higher well-being. Martin Seligman (2010) defined as happiness: H (to maintain the length of happiness) = S (happy range breadth) + V (you can control the factors) + C (your living environment). Happy length: the distinction between "temporary" happy and "persistent" happy. Temporary happiness can be achieved by food, comedy, bunch of flowers. While the persistence of happiness is mainly affected by genetic, and this genetic trait can be changed. The breadth of happiness: psychologists think that we are born with a happy constant point, like a thermometer. If there is a happier thing, even if we are upset, it will be dedicated

Everybody has his or her own type of personality. We all act in a certain way that makes us who we are. It is believed that our parents, peers and, the environment we grow up in, shape us. Personality is describes as a combination of emotions, attitude, and behavioral patterns of an individual. There is a reason that we are the way we are and there are many theories that go along with that. Different theorist present their own definitions of the word personality based on their own theoretical positions. Which brings us to discussing Carl Jung’s theory of analytical psychology and Harry

The mean age of the participants was 19.3 which means our sample was very close to the average age of college students. The standard deviation between participants was .955, the minimum age was 18 years old and the maximum was 22 years old. 3 out of the 102 participants age were missing from the data. The question responses were used to find the standard deviation and mean for the Big Five personality trait score. The Big Five personality traits are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experiences. The response scales for these were from a 1 to 7, with a range of 6. The higher the response score the more the participant agreed with the statement and the lower the score less the participant

“One with a well-developed personality is of course a happy person. As the result of social, physical, financial, and spiritual well-being, happiness is assured.”

Even if we use the word “happiness” on daily basis, has anyone ever tried to define it? It’s harder than it seems. When do you feel happy? How is it when you feel happy? Is there any way to understand how much happiness to you experience? This is the main hypothesis of this paper – Can happiness or wellbeing be measured? And if it can be measured, how do we measure it? Happiness is feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation (Meriam Webster). Pleasure and enjoyment are very subjective and means different things to different people. This is where the term subjective wellbeing comes from. There are a lot of things that can be included when measuring wellbeing. Various studies have been conducted to assess wellbeing and how does it affect other factors. For example Earlstin(1995) and later on Ferrer-i-Carbonell(2005) have examined the relationship between income and happiness. Gruber(2004) studies the relationship cigarette taxation and happier smokers. Richard, Clark, Gerogellis and Diener(2004) analyze the effect of unemployment on wellbeing.

Analyses shows that personality changes throughout life as different personality traits are used and forgotten. The results are generalized and don’t always apply to people but typically the results are correct.

The study was conducted using the IPIP measure scales; (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, Agreeableness & Conscientiousness), (Goldberg, 1999) and the Big Five Factor Model which measure the personality factors of the Big Five (Costa & McCrae, 1992). The four goals of Psychology was taken into consideration using the 25-item translated questionnaire with a 5 point Likert scale.

Positive Psychology is a scientific study that focuses on the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive, through the belief that people want to lead meaning and fulfilling lives (UPenn, 2008). Positive Psychology focuses on cultivating what is best within yourself, and works to enhance your experiences of love, work and play (UPenn, 2008). Happiness and well-being are the desired result, and optimizing and strengthening these can be achieved with different approaches; approaches geared towards positive emotions of your past, your future, and your present (Seligman, 2002). Positive Psychology has three pillars: the study of the positive emotion, positive traits, and positive institutions. Positive Psychology is focused on strength and weakness, equally as concerned on building the best things in life as it is repairing the worst; and just as concerned as making the lives of normal people

Satisfaction with life is oftentimes highly correlated with happiness, but it is not by inherently the same as happiness. One may be satisfied with one’s life outcomes or satisfied with external factors, without being very happy. Once discovering a satisfaction with life rating, one may be able to determine if satisfaction with life is something one can control, and if it is, one may be able to maximize one’s life satisfaction. For instance, if one is typically not searching for a mate, and he or she scores low on this scale, one may be more willing in the future to seek a partner if he or she knows that statistically speaking, people with partners are more satisfied with his or her life.

2. To determine the extent to which components of life satisfaction combine with selected demographic variables to predict a person’s level of self-directed readiness.