The present research tested whether the Big Five personality dimensions—extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience—moderate the effects of income on life satisfaction. The authors analyzed data from three large-sample, nationally representative, longitudinal studies: the British Household Panel Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Neuroticism consistently moderated the effects of both stable between-person income differences and within-person income fluctuations on life satisfaction. Specifically, income predicted satisfaction more strongly for highly neurotic individuals than for their emotionally stable peers. These findings illustrate that the effects of life circumstances on subjective well-being can vary considerably across individuals, depending on their basic personality traits.
BaumeisterR. F.BratslavskyE.FinkenauerC.VohsK. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370.
2.
BolgerN.SchillingE. A. (1991). Personality and the problems of everyday life: The role of neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. Journal of Personality, 59, 355–386.
3.
BrickmanP.CoatesD.Janoff-BulmanR. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 917–927.
4.
BuhmannB.RainwaterL.SchmausG.SmeedingT. (1988). Equivalence scales, well-being, inequality and poverty. Review of Income and Wealth, 34, 115–142.
5.
BuunkA. P.ZurriagaR.GonzalezP.TerolC.Lopez RoigS. (2006). Targets and dimensions of social comparison among people with spinal cord injury and other health problems. British Journal of Health Psychology, 11, 677–693.
6.
ClarkA. E.OswaldA. J. (1996). Satisfaction and comparison income. Journal of Public Economics, 61, 359–381.
7.
CohenP.CohenJ.AikenL. S.WestS. G. (1999). The problem of units and the circumstances for POMP. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 34, 315–346.
8.
CostaP. T.McCraeR. R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 668–678.
9.
CredéM.HarmsP.NiehorsterS.Gaye-ValentineA. (2012). An evaluation of the consequences of using short measures of the Big Five personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/a0027403
10.
DavidJ. P.GreenP. J.MartinR.SulsJ. (1997). Differential roles of neuroticism, extraversion, and event desirability for mood in daily life: An integrative model of top-down and bottom-up influences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 149–159.
DienerE.LucasR. E.ScollonC. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist, 61, 305–314.
13.
DienerE.SuhE. M.LucasR. E.SmithH. E. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 276–302.
14.
EasterlinR. A. (1974). Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In DavidP. A.RederM. W. (Eds.), Nations and households in economic growth: Essays in honor of Moses Abramovitz (pp. 89-125). New York, NY: Academic Press.
15.
EasterlinR. A.McVeyL. A.SwitekM.SawangfaO.ZweigJ. S. (2010). The happiness–income paradox revisited. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107, 22463–22468.
16.
GardnerJ.OswaldA. (2007). Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins. Journal of Health Economics, 26, 49–60.
17.
GoldbergD.WilliamsP. (1988). A user's guide to the GHQ. Windsor, England: NFER-Nelson.
18.
HeadeyB.WearingA. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 731–739.
19.
HowellR.HowellC. (2008). The relation of economic status to subjective well-being in developing countries: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 536–560.
20.
JohnO. P.SrivastavaS. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In PervinL. A.JohnO. P. (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 102–138). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
21.
LantzP. M.HouseJ. S.MeroR. P.WilliamsD. R. (2005). Stress, life events, and socioeconomic disparities in health: Results from the Americans’ changing lives study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46, 274–288.
22.
LarsenR. J.KetelaarT. J. (1991). Personality and susceptibility to positive and negative emotional states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 132–140.
23.
LucasR. E.
(2007). Long-term disability is associated with lasting changes in subjective well-being: Evidence from two nationally representative longitudinal studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 717–730.
24.
LucasR.ClarkA.GeorgellisY.DienerEd. (2004). Unemployment alters the set point for life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 15, 8–13.
25.
LuhmannM.EidM. (2009). Does it really feel the same? Changes in life satisfaction following repeated life events. Journal of Social and Personality Psychology, 97, 363–381.
26.
LuhmannM.HofmannW.EidM.LucasR. E. (2012). Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 592–615.
27.
LuhmannM.SchimmackU.EidM. (2011). Stability and variability in the relationship between subjective well-being and income. Journal of Research in Personality, 45, 186–197.
28.
MagnusK.DienerE.FujitaF.PavotW. (1993). Extraversion and neuroticism as predictors of objective life events: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1046–1053.
29.
MalkaA.ChatmanJ. A. (2003). Intrinsic and extrinsic orientations as moderators of the effect of annual income on subjective well-being: A longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 737–746.
30.
McAdamsD. P.PalsJ. L. (2006). A new big five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist, 61, 204–217.
31.
McCraeR. R.CostaP. T. (1991). Adding liebe und arbeit: The full Five-Factor Model and well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 227–232.
32.
McLeodJ. D.KesslerR. C. (1990). Socioeconomic status differences in vulnerability to undesirable life events. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 31, 162–172.
33.
MyersD. G.DienerE. (1995). Who is happy?Psychological Science, 6, 10–19.
34.
OlsonB.EvansD. L. (1999). The role of the Big Five personality dimensions in the direction and affective consequences of everyday social comparisons. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1498–1508.
35.
ParducciA. (1995). Happiness, pleasure, and judgment: The contextual theory and its applications. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
36.
SaucierG. (1994). Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg's unipolar Big-Five markers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 63, 506.
37.
SotoC. J.JohnO. P. (2009). Ten facet scales for the Big Five Inventory: Convergence with NEO PI-R facets, self-peer agreement, and discriminant validity. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 84–90.
38.
SteelP.SchmidtJ.ShultzJ. (2008). Refining the relationship between personality and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 138–161.
39.
SummerfieldM. (Ed.) (2010). HILDA user manual, Release 9. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne.
40.
TaylorM. F.BriceJ.BuckN.Prentice-LaneE. (Eds.) (2010). British Household Panel Survey user manual, Vol. A: Introduction, technical report and appendices. Colchester, England: University of Essex.
41.
Van BovenL.GilovichT. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1193–1202.
42.
Van der ZeeK. I.BuunkB. P.SandermanR. (1996). The relationship between social comparison processes and personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 551–565.
43.
Van der ZeeK. I.OldersmaF.BuunkB. P.BosD. (1998). Social comparison preferences among cancer patients as related to neuroticism and social comparison orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 801–810.
44.
WagnerG. G.FrickJ. R.SchuppJ. (2007). The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). Scope, evolution and enhancements. Schmollers Jahrbuch, 127, 139–169.
