The happy personality revisited: Re-examining associations between Big Five personality traits and subjective well-being using meta-analytic structural equation modeling

Abstract

Objective/Background: Using meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM), we examined the link between Big Five personality traits and subjective well-being (SWB), operationalized as three separate components and as a latent factor indicated by life satisfaction (LS), positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA). PA and NA were assessed based on frequency of a broad range of affective experiences, rather than intensity of high arousal affective experiences, thus excluding studies using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Method: 35 samples were included, encompassing 22,135 participants from 14 countries, in which all eight variables were assessed. Results: Correlations among personality traits were moderate, on average, and the latent SWB factor had strong loadings from all three components. Personality traits together explained substantial variance in LS, PA, and NA, and in the latent SWB factor, with unique predictive effects on the latent factor from each personality trait except openness. Associations between personality traits and SWB components were fully accounted for by a latent SWB factor, with one exception: A specific association was found between neuroticism and unique variance in NA. Conclusions: The present findings provide new insights concerning the notion of a ‘happy personality’ in showing that Big Five personality traits have unique associations with an underlying sense of SWB.