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The Role Of Conscientiousness As Common Failure Situations Affecting Subjective Well Being : Personality And Life Outcomes

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The Role of Conscientiousness in Common Failure Situations Affecting Subjective Well-being Personality and Life Outcomes Tammy Ho University of Kent Word count: 2493 Abstract Recent research has examined the circumstances under which the usually positive Big Five trait of conscientiousness has led to higher levels of distress in individuals. Although these effects have been evident in severe forms of failure such as unemployment, this area of personality has yet to be sufficiently explored. The idea of whether the conscientiousness trait is also of hindrance in lower levels of failure is of interest. It is hypothesised that conscientious individuals will have a greater negative affect after a non-severe failure-task than …show more content…

Due to the positive associations made with conscientiousness, it may be considered as the hallmark of all personality traits, which is related to success in many important facets of life (Boyce, Wood & Brown, 2010, Roberts et al., 2014 & Ashton, 2013). It is unsurprising then that according to DeNeve & Cooper (1998), conscientiousness is considered the most important predictor of life satisfaction, as well as being influential in an individual’s subjective well being (SWB). The trait of conscientiousness facilitates individuals to act upon behaviors that are directed towards certain circumstances that lead to a positive SWB (McCrae & Costa, 1991). Thus, conscientiousness is identified as being a contributory characteristic, having an indirect influence on the well-being of an individual (McCrae & Costa, 1991; DeNeve & Cooper, 1998). Evident in a study with college students, Furr and Funder (1998) suggest that those with high conscientiousness may only experience short-term effects of life satisfaction. Additionally, correlations between conscientiousness and life satisfaction were found to be between 0.2 and 0.3 (Furr & Funder,

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