Two models of personality and well-being among adolescents

Abstract

Personality is considered a major determinant of adolescents’ well-being; probably due to its relation to emotional reactivity, individual differences in intensity to responses to emotional events, and to the duration of emotional reactions. Personality, however, is a broad concept influenced by heritable traits, environment and learning characteristics. Nevertheless, most research on well-being has focused on traits models of personality. In the present study, personality was measured among 289 high school pupils from Sweden using the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and the NEO Personality Inventory – Revised (NEO-PI-R). Well-being was measured as Psychological Well-Being (PWB) and Subjective Well-Being (SWB: Life Satisfaction, LS; Positive Affect, PA; and Negative Affect, NA). Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: Big Five (NEO-PI-R, SWB, and PWB), TCI (TCI, SWB, and PWB), and a Mixed group (NEO-PI-R, TCI, SWB and PWB). The results show that Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Persistence, and Self-Directedness were strongly related to well-being. More importantly, in the Mixed group, Self-Directedness was strongly related to PWB, LS, and to the absence of NA while the positive relationships between Extraversion-PWB, Extraversion-PA, Neuroticism-NA and the negative relationship between Neuroticism-LS were absent. The inclusion of character as a determinant of well-being is discussed.