Parents’ personality traits and children’s subjective well-being: A chain mediating model

Abstract

In order to investigate effects of two core personality traits (extroversion and neuroticism) of parents on their children’s subjective well-being, as well as to investigate mediating roles of parents’ subjective well-being and their children’s personality traits. This study recruited 301 families, including both parents and children, and questionnaires were used to obtain the data. The results indicated that: (1) parents’ high level of extroversion personality trait predicted their children’s increase in subjective well-being, while parents’ higher scores on neuroticism predicted their children’s reduced subjective well-being. (2) Both parents’ subjective well-being and their children’s personality traits (extroversion and neuroticism) played a mediating roles in the association between the parents’ personality traits and their influence on their children’s subjective well-being. (3) both fathers’ and mothers’ subjective well-being mediated the relationship between their extroversion/neuroticism personality traits and children’s subjective well-being, and children’s extroversion/neuroticism personality traits played a partial mediation role between their fathers’ and mothers’ extroversion/neuroticism personality traits and their subjective well-being. By discussing and outlining the path from parents’ personality traits to the effect they have on their children’s subjective well-being, this study deepened the understanding of the relationship between personality traits and psychological well-being.