Is personality fixed? Personality changes as much as "variable" economic factors and more strongly predicts changes to life satisfaction
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In this paper, a longitudinal analysis of 8625 individuals examined Big Five personality measures at two time points to determine whether an individual's personality changes and also the extent to which such changes in personality can predict changes in life satisfaction.Abstract:
Personality is the strongest and most consistent cross-sectional predictor of high subjective well-being. Less predictive economic factors, such as higher income or improved job status, are often the focus of applied subjective well-being research due to a perception that they can change whereas personality cannot. As such there has been limited investigation into personality change and how such changes might bring about higher well-being. In a longitudinal analysis of 8625 individuals we examine Big Five personality measures at two time points to determine whether an individual’s personality changes and also the extent to which such changes in personality can predict changes in life satisfaction. We find that personality changes at least as much as economic factors and relates much more strongly to changes in life satisfaction. Our results therefore suggest that personality can change and that such change is important and meaningful. Our findings may help inform policy debate over how best to help individuals and nations improve their well-being.read more
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Is Happiness Good for Your Personality? Concurrent and Prospective Relations of the Big Five with Subjective Well-Being
TL;DR: Findings challenge the common assumption that associations of personality traits with subjective well-being are entirely, or almost entirely, due to trait influences on well- being and support the alternative hypothesis that personality traits and well- Being aspects reciprocally influence each other over time.
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What predicts a successful life? a life-course model of well-being
TL;DR: The authors found that the most powerful childhood predictor of adult life-satisfaction is the child's emotional health, followed by a child's conduct, and the least powerful predictor is the children's intellectual development.
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Volunteering, subjective well-being and public policy.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the impact of volunteering on subjective well-being.
Journal ArticleDOI
Personality change following unemployment
TL;DR: It is shown that unemployed men and women experienced significant patterns of change in their mean levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, whereas reemployed individuals experienced limited change, indicating that unemployment has wider psychological implications than previously thought.
References
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