Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Life satisfaction and personality
What is the relationship between personality and life satisfaction?
Overview
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Case study: Mark and John
Mark and John have been best friends and colleagues at their job for 15 years, both men are married, have two children, see their friends and family regularly, and exercise multiple times a week. When described by others, Mark and John are both friendly, agreeable men, although John is often the quieter of the two. Recently, however, Mark has never been happier with how his life is progressing, yet John feels dissatisfied and stuck in a never-ending cycle.
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Welcome to the complex world of life satisfaction! Where two individuals living seemingly identical lives can have vastly different levels of life satisfaction.
According to the American Psychological Association (2018)
life satisfaction is the extent to which a person finds life rich, meaningful, full, or of high quality. Life satisfaction is often measured subjectively through self-report questionnaires ranging in length from single-item to multiple-item measures (Jovanović & Lazić, 2018).This book chapter explores whether there is a relationship between an individual's personality, and whether this can predict or explain how satisfied they will be with their life. The chapter will also address the following key questions:
- What is life satisfaction?
- What factors influence life satisfaction?
- What are some prominent theories of personality?
- Is there a relationship between personality and life satisfaction?
Introduction to life satisfaction
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What is life satisfaction?
editLife satisfaction can having differing definitions, in positive psychology research it is often intertwined with the concepts of happiness and well-being (Figure 1) (Klement, 2022). For a deeper understanding, see the book chapter on positive psychology. A common definition of life satisfaction adopted in research is, the overall appreciation of one's life as a whole. (Sameer et al. 2023).
Add information around the development of the concept of life satisfaction
How can life satisfaction be measured?
editThe most widely used measure of life satisfaction is the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) which was primarily developed to assess the subjective well-being of adults in the USA, an individualistic culture (Areepattamannil & Bano, 2020). While the majority of research utilising the SWLS has focused on individualistic cultures demonstrating strong reliability, more recent research in India has demonstrated this scale can be appropriately applied to collectivist cultures too (Areepattamannil & Bano, 2020).
If we are able to reliably measure well-being indicators, such as life satisfaction, it can allow governments and intergovernmental organisations (i.e., World Health Organisation and the United Nations) to make more appropriate policy decisions that may enhance psychosocial well-being, health behaviours, and physical health outcomes, contributing to greater life satisfaction levels (Kim et al. 2021).
Contributors to life satisfaction
editThe following contributors to life satisfaction will be considered and discussed (order may change, each point will be expanded upon later) -
Age
editValues
editCulture - consider how and why life satisfaction changes across culture (Krys et al. 2023; Yin et al. 2021).
editLife events and experiences
editFamily
editCareer (consider income)
editHealth
editEducation
editPersonality (brief, will link to the next section)
editTheories of personality
editLike many psychological concepts personality does not have one standard definition, however, for this chapter we will adopt the following definition. An individual's personality is the ensuring set of traits and styles that they exhibit, which characteristics represent dispositions and the ways in which this person differs from the 'standard normal person' in their society (Bergner 2020).
The majority of research investigating the relationship between personality and life satisfaction has focused on the Big Five personality traits, specifically, the traits of extraversion and neuroticism (Müller, 2014; Schimmack, 2002)
Big-Five Personality Dimensions
editThe following questions will be expanded upon and linked to the next section
- What are the Big-Five personality dimensions?
- What is the history of this theory?
Relationship between personality and life satisfaction
edit- How can Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism explain and or predict life satisfaction
- How can scales that measure the Big Five helped to explain and or predict life satisfaction (i.e., NEO-PI-R)
Review Questions
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Test yourself!
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Conclusion
editWrap up chapter, conclude that personality can be used to predict life satisfaction especially the traits of extraversion and neuroticism among with other key points
See also
edit- Positive Psychology (Book Chapter, 2023)
- Big Five personality traits (Wikipedia)
References
editAreepattamannil, S., & Bano, S. (2020). Psychometric properties of the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS) among middle adolescents in a collectivist cultural setting. Psychological Studies, 65, 497-503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-020-00578-4
Bergner, R. M. (2020). What is personality? Two myths and a definition. New Ideas in Psychology, 57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2019.100759
Jovanović, V., & Lazić, M. (2020). Is longer always better? A comparison of the validity of single-item versus multiple-item measures of life satisfaction. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 15(3), 675–692. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9680-6
Kim, E. S., Delaney, S. W., Tay, L., Chen, Y., Diener, E., & Vanderweele, T. J. (2021). Life satisfaction and subsequent physical, behavioural, and psychosocial health in older adults. The Milbank Quarterly, 99(1), 209-239. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.12497
Klement, J. (2022). Life satisfaction and economic growth in the context of societal and ecological transformation processes [Dissertation, Schumpeter School of Business and Economics]. https://d-nb.info/1297789598/34
Krys, K., Haas, B. W., Igou, E. R., Kosiarczyk, A., Kocimska-Bortnowska, A., Kwiatkowska, A., Lun, V. M.-C., Maricchiolo, F., Park, J., Šolcová, I. P., Sirlopú, D., Uchida, Y., Vauclair, C.-M., Vignoles, V. L., Zelenski, J. M., Adamovic, M., Akotia, C. S., Albert, I., Appoh, L., . . . Bond, M. H. (2023). Introduction to a culturally sensitive measure of well-being: Combining life satisfaction and interdependent happiness across 49 different cultures. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 24(2), 607–627. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00588-1
Müller, M-L. (2014). The development of life satisfaction: Does personality matter? A five year longitudinal study [Master thesis, University of Twente]. https://essay.utwente.nl/64907/
Sameer, Y., Eid, Y., & Veenhoven, R. (2023). Perceived meaning of life and satisfaction with life: A research synthesis using an online finding archive. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.957235
Schimmack, U., Radhakrishnan, P., Oishi, S., & Dzokoto, V. A. (2002). Culture, personality, and subjective well-being: Integrating process models of life satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(4), 582-593. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.4.582
Yin, R., Lepinteur, A., Clark, A. E., & D’Ambrosio, C. (2021). Life satisfaction and the human development index across the world. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 54(2), 269-282. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221211044784
External Links
edit- Personality and life satisfaction across adulthood (American Psychological Association)
- How a sense of oneness can lead to greater life satisfaction (American Psychological Association)