The Big Five, Type A Personality, and Psychological Well-Being

The aim of this research was to investigate how the Big Five and Type A personality variables relate to psychological well-being. Additionally, the study examined the effect of age on psychological well-being. Various social media sites such as Facebook were used to recruit 286 Participants (209 males, 74 females) from the community population. The sample was broad with an age range 18-85. Participants completed a demographic measure as well as the Ryff’s Psychological Well-being scale, the International Personality Item Pool- Big Five Scale, the Framingham Type A Behavior Scale and a Social Desirability Scale. Pearson’s product correlations and a hierarchical multiple regression were performed to determine the ability of the personality variables and Type A personality scores to predict psychological well-being. The results indicated that the personality variables (the Big Five) predicted psychological well-being but that the addition of variance from the Type A personality variable added insignificantly to the prediction. Psychological well-being was negatively correlated with age. Further studies on personality and psychological wellbeing are needed, including the role of mindfulness in contributing along with personality variables to psychological well-being.</jats:p

The Big Five, Mindfulness, and Psychological Well-being

How do personality variables and mindfulness relate to psychological well-being? Research relates personality variables and psychological well-being and distress (as in depression, anxiety and stress); and mindfulness and psychological well-being - especially since mindfulness became a fashionable area to study from the 2000s.  However, few studies have linked personality (the Big Five), mindfulness and psychological well-being though they would appear to be related. We examined the relationships in our study which used a community sample of 286 participants who completed biographical details, Ryff’s Psychological Well-being scale, the International Personality Item Pool- Big Five Scale, an adaptation of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Short Form, and a Social Desirability Scale. Hierarchical multiple regression indicated that both mindfulness and personality predicted psychological well-being and that both together contributed significantly increased levels of variance to psychological well-being. This pilot study appears to be one of the first to show that mindfulness significantly adds to personality in predicting psychological well-being and supports attention to developing programs in mindfulness to help increase psychological well-being