The effects of personality on job satisfaction and life satisfaction: A meta-analytic investigation accounting for bandwidth–fidelity and commensurability

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piers Steel ◽  
Joseph Schmidt ◽  
Frank Bosco ◽  
Krista Uggerslev

To what extent do employees’ personality traits shape their perceptions of job and life satisfaction? To answer this question, we conducted the largest meta-analysis on the topic to date, summarizing a total of 12,682 correlations among combinations of personality, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. We also sought to refine previous meta-analytic estimates by comparing the effects of personality facets to broad trait domains, while controlling for commensurability of personality measures. The results showed that the Big Five personality traits accounted for about 10% of the variance in job satisfaction, which in turn accounted for 13% of the variance in life satisfaction. Compared with the broad trait domains, personality facets typically accounted for twice as much variance in life satisfaction, with only a minor increase for job satisfaction, which contradicts the typical bandwidth–fidelity heuristic. The results also provided support for a trickle-down or top-down effect, where dispositions affect perceptions of life satisfaction, which then influenced the more specific subdomain of job satisfaction. The results have important implications for researchers and practitioners, suggesting that information is lost when personality facets are overlooked, and that educational and workplace interventions could enhance perceptions of satisfaction for those prone to lower levels of subjective well-being.

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110534
Author(s):  
Xiang-Ling Hou ◽  
Nicolas Becker ◽  
Tian-Qiang Hu ◽  
Marco Koch ◽  
Ju-Zhe Xi ◽  
...  

The present study conducted a meta-analysis to examine the relation between grit and subjective well-being (SWB). The association between grit (i.e., overall grit, perseverance of effort, and consistency of interest) and SWB (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, happiness, depression, life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and school satisfaction) were synthesized across 83 studies and 66,518 participants. The results based on a random-effects model showed a substantial correlation between overall grit and SWB (ρ = .46, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [.43, .48]), followed by perseverance of effort (ρ = .38, 95% CI = [.33, .43]) and consistency of interest (ρ = .23, 95% CI = [.17, .28]). The moderator analysis indicated that the correlations between overall grit/consistency of effort and SWB become weaker as age increased, and these links were stronger in affective well-being than in cognitive well-being. Moreover, grit explained unique variance in SWB even after controlling for conscientiousness. Implications and directions for further research are discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Chen

This study examined the role that achievement goals may play in predicting subjective well-being, particularly the extra contribution of achievement goals beyond that of personality traits. There were 371 university students from Nanjing, China (mean age = 20.67, SD = 1.30) who participated in the study and reported their achievement goals, the Big Five personality traits, and subjective well-being (including life satisfaction, positive, and negative affect). Results revealed that mastery-approach goals positively and significantly predicted life satisfaction; mastery-approach and performance-approach goals positively, whereas performance-avoidance goals negatively significantly predicted positive affect. When working with the Big Five personality traits, mastery-approach goals and performance-approach goals showed their added contributions to life satisfaction and positive affect, respectively. These results highlight the importance of considering achievement goals when explaining individual differences of subjective well-being as well as the importance of taking subjective well-being into account when understanding the nature of achievement goals.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1491-1503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassondra Batz-Barbarich ◽  
Louis Tay ◽  
Lauren Kuykendall ◽  
Ho Kwan Cheung

Despite global gender inequalities, findings on gender differences in subjective well-being have been inconsistent. We conducted a meta-analysis on gender differences in subjective well-being to account for the type of subjective-well-being measure, sampling variability, and levels of national gender inequality from which samples are gathered. Based on 281 effect sizes for life satisfaction ( N = 1,001,802) and 264 for job satisfaction ( N = 341,949), results showed no significant gender differences in both types of subjective well-being. Supplementary meta-analyses found significantly lower job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction, in women for studies that used both life-satisfaction and job-satisfaction measures, and studies that relied on measures that previously demonstrated measurement equivalence. Using the Gender Inequality Index, we found that greater national gender inequality significantly predicts greater gender differences in job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction. We discuss the implications of these findings and the use of subjective well-being as a measure of societal progress.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Prachi Sharma ◽  
Urmila Rani Srivastava

This study examined the role of emotion regulation and job satisfaction in predicting affective (positive and negative affect) and cognitive (life satisfaction) components of subjective well-being (SWB) in doctors. The predictors used were the dimensions of job satisfaction—intrinsic, extrinsic job satisfaction as well as the total score of job satisfaction and the following dimensions of intra-personal emotion regulation—cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. The participants included in the study were doctors from multi-specialty hospitals in Gurgaon district of Haryana. A total of 102 doctors were included in the study using convenience sampling. Correlational and step-wise multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the predictions. The results of the analysis confirmed the predictions as intrinsic job satisfaction and cognitive reappraisal significantly and positively predicted life satisfaction. The findings were discussed in the light of available research along with implications of the study and possible avenues for future research.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0252275
Author(s):  
Eleonora Topino ◽  
Annamaria Di Fabio ◽  
Letizia Palazzeschi ◽  
Alessio Gori

Job satisfaction has gained increasing interest in the world of work and a vast field of research has been stimulated regarding its antecedents. Among these, personality traits have received consistent and significant attention, with a particular emphasis on conscientiousness. To delve deeper and detail these aspects, in the present research, a moderation model was hypothesized, with the aim of investigating the effect of age on the association between conscientiousness (and its subdimensions scrupulousness and perseverance) and job satisfaction. The age-moderated interactions of the other Big Five personality traits were also explored. The study involved 202 Italian workers (92 men, 110 women) with a mean age of 44.82 years (SD = 10.56) who completed the Big Five Questionnaire and the Job Satisfaction Scale. The results showed a positive association between conscientiousness and job satisfaction. This was moderated by age to the extent that it was significant for younger and average-age workers and was less significant for older workers. Similar results were found for the subdomain of perseverance, while the relationship between scrupulousness and job satisfaction was not significant. Furthermore, no age-moderated interaction between the other Big Five personality traits and Job satisfaction were found. Such data supports interactive models that highlight the need to integrate personality traits with other factors in exploring the antecedents of job satisfaction. These findings provide additional elements to an understanding of the factors contributing to workers satisfaction, and could have important applicative implications in a framework for healthy organizations and the well-being movement.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeromy Anglim ◽  
Sharon Horwood ◽  
Luke Smillie ◽  
Rosario Marrero ◽  
Joshua K Wood

Post-print of manuscript published in Psychological Bulletin: This study reports the most comprehensive assessment to date of the relations that the domains and facets of Big Five and HEXACO personality have with self-reported subjective well- being (SWB: life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) and psychological well-being (PWB: positive relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, self-acceptance, and personal growth). It presents a meta-analysis (n = 334,567, k = 462) of the correlations of Big Five and HEXACO personality domains with the dimensions of SWB and PWB. It provides the first meta-analysis of personality and well-being to examine (a) HEXACO personality, (b) PWB dimensions, and (c) a broad range of established Big Five measures. It also provides the first robust synthesis of facet-level correlations and incremental prediction by facets over domains in relation to SWB and PWB using four large datasets comprising data from prominent, long-form hierarchical personality frameworks: NEO PI-R (n = 1,673), IPIP-NEO (n = 903), HEXACO PI- R (n = 465), and Big Five Aspect Scales (n = 706). Meta-analytic results highlighted the importance of Big Five neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness. The pattern of correlations between Big Five personality and SWB was similar across personality measures (e.g., BFI, NEO, IPIP, BFAS, Adjectives). In the HEXACO model, extraversion was the strongest well- being correlate. Facet-level analyses provided a richer description of the relationship between personality and well-being, and clarified differences between the two trait frameworks. Prediction by facets was typically around 20% better than domains, and this incremental prediction was larger for some well-being dimensions than others. See https://osf.io/42rsy/ for Data and R scripts for the meta-analysis and facet-level data analyses of the above paper.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenqing Liu ◽  
Jiayan Lin

Abstract A large number of empirical studies have found evidence that neuroticism is related to personality traits, but no one has integrated the relationship between neuroticism and mental health through meta-analysis. As a personality trait, neuroticism reflects the stable tendency of how individuals experience, feel, evaluate negative emotions and make corresponding behavioural responses. By means of meta-analysis, a preliminary dimension of neuroticism is constructed through an open questionnaire and literature review. On this basis, a preliminary neuroticism questionnaire for college students is compiled. The structural model of College Students' neuroticism questionnaire fits well, and has a high correlation with the neuroticism subscale of the simple version of Big Five Personality Questionnaire, which shows that it has a good structural validity. The positive orientation indicators of subjective well-being, life satisfaction and other mental health indicators were also selected. In addition, self-assessment indicators of physical health were selected. It was found that neuroticism was highly correlated with appeal indicators, indicating that the questionnaire of College Students' neuroticism had good validity.


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