Does Personality Correlate With Subjective Well-Being?

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Most people agree that having an easy-going personality will contribute to the overall well-being of the individual. Certain personality traits have an effect on the individual well-being. Individuals showing improvements in those traits, over time, will often show comparable enhancement to their well-being. Subjective well-being refers to how an individual evaluates the quality of their life. In simple words, subjective well-being is how well an individual thinks and feels of how well their life is going. Subjective well-being includes the broad concepts of positive and negative emotions and moods. The positive experiences lead to high subjective well-being. Negative experiences lead to low subjective well-being. The one thing most people agree on is that personality is a predictor of the individual’s well being. The big five will be used in this paper as reference to personality traits. The big five consist of five different personality traits that were considered universal because of their stability among many individuals from many different cultures. The big five includes extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness. Extraversion refers to those individuals who are seen as social and lively. Neuroticism speaks of those who tend to be tense and moody. Conscientiousness alludes to the individuals who are considered to be careful and responsible. Agreeableness is referring to the friendly individuals who are easy to get along with. Finally, openness refers to the people who tend to be intellectually curious and open to try new things and experiences. Although prior study shows that the Big Five traits remain the same overtime, they had shown that they change as the person ages. Two articles in ... ... middle of paper ... ... ultimate goal that guides individual choices, particularly those traits that lead to positive affect, which then will increase the subjective well-being of an individual. Having a high well-being is an important concept within our lives because it allows us to see a purpose of our lives and it provides a means of evaluating our own lives. Works Cited Gonzalez Gutierrez, J. L., Jimenez, B. M., Hernandez, E. G., & Puente, C. P. (2005). Personality and subjective well-being: Big five correlates and demographic variables. Personality and Individual Differences,38(7), 1561-1569. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.015 Boyce, C., Wood, A., & Powdthavee, N. (2013). Is personality fixed? Personality changes as much as “Variable” economic factors and more strongly predicts changes to life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 111(1), 287-305. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0006-z

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