Open AccessDoes Positivity Mediate the Relation of Extraversion and Neuroticism with Subjective Happiness?
Author(s) -
Marco Lauriola,
Luca Iani
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0121991
Subject(s) - happiness , neuroticism , extraversion and introversion , psychology , big five personality traits , mediation , personality , subjective well being , social psychology , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , political science , law
Recent theories suggest an important role of neuroticism, extraversion, attitudes, and global positive orientations as predictors of subjective happiness. We examined whether positivity mediates the hypothesized relations in a community sample of 504 adults between the ages of 20 and 60 years old (females = 50%). A model with significant paths from neuroticism to subjective happiness, from extraversion and neuroticism to positivity, and from positivity to subjective happiness fitted the data (Satorra–Bentler scaled chi-square (38) = 105.91; Comparative Fit Index = .96; Non-Normed Fit Index = .95; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = .060; 90% confidence interval = .046, .073). The percentage of subjective happiness variance accounted for by personality traits was only about 48%, whereas adding positivity as a mediating factor increased the explained amount of subjective happiness to 78%. The mediation model was invariant by age and gender. The results show that the effect of extraversion on happiness was fully mediated by positivity, whereas the effect of neuroticism was only partially mediated. Implications for happiness studies are also discussed.