Abstract
The current research aimed at examining the relationship between psychological indicators of well-being that occur in the general population with the six facets that are comprised to the Neuroticism domain. The results indicated that the facets that are more emotional such as depression, Anxiety, and vulnerability were stronger Well Being predictors than those facets that are not highly emotional. The study aimed at investigating the relationship between psychological indicators of well-being that occur in the general population with the six facets that are comprised to the Neuroticism domain. The predictors of PWB can be arranged from the strongest predictor as follows depression, Self-Consciousness, Vulnerability and Anxiety respectively. Both Anger and Impulsivity have no significant correlation with any of the psychological Well Being outcome.
Introduction
In the recent past, a remarkable progress has been witnessed in one of the personality psychology branches that are considered to be the oldest. This is in the study of traits or differences in an individual. There has been clarification on the conceptual trait status, and through the measurements of the traits the evidence of discriminant and convergent validity has been done across instruments as well as observers (Butcher, 1992). Longitudinal studies that have been done both through self-reporting and ratings have provided stability that is very impressive for a broader range of traits cutting across the adult lifespan. One of the most exiting is the agreement that is growing among the psychologists dealing with personality that a majority of differences in an individual can be understood through the use of five basic dimensions (McCrae & John, 1992). These dimensions include Extraversion (E) or Surgency, Neuroticism (N) against Emotional, Intellect and Conscientiousness (C), Openness to Experience (O) or Agreeableness (A) against Antagonism (Digman, 1990).
Through rating studies and self-reporting, the identification of these factors have been done through the use of standardized questionnaires and lay adjectives, children and adults, as well as several cultures that are different. The model is the advancement in the theoretical area of psychology and has significant implications in a number of applied areas such as clinical practice (Butcher, 1992). Through the assessment of the traits from each and every factor, the clinicians are able to get a comprehensive portrait of the personality of the client. The clinical researcher can then examine in a systematic manner the relations that exist between the personality and the treatment variables. There have also been some examinations that are focused in the utilization of the five-factor model in other fields such as in counseling and clinical psychology (Butcher, 1992).
There has been an argument by Ones and Viswesvaran (1996) that the use of broad bandwidth personality predictors rather than the narrow bandwidth ones in the selection of personnel when the criterion of interest is to show an overall job performance. The use of narrow bandwidth has been shown to be equally successful and, in fact, has advantages over the use of broad bandwidth. The employment of multiple one-dimensional predictors has advantages such as the empirical accuracy when used in the prediction of job performance and provides psychological significance in the explanation of work behavior (Paunonen, Rothstein, & Jackson, 1999).
The assessment of personality in the clinical settings has been a crucial and a difficult undertaking that requires collection and extensive integration of personal history, symptomatic information, and personality. There are various difficult decisions that face clinicians on the basis of where limited information is available (Costa & McCrae, 1992).
One of the most studied dimensions is the neuroticism which is a measure of emotional stability. Emotional stability is the relative tendency in response to the negative emotions such as loss, frustration, or threat as well as the proneness to negative affect experience. There are serious health consequences that have been related to high levels of N and have been classified as being publicly significant by some researchers. This is calls for a need to be screened to get a strategy to help in early detection of the condition (Lahey, 2009).
There are also various studies that have indicated how N is negatively related to a variety of mental as well as physical health outcomes. The broader dimension of N has been linked to the significant relation to the clinical scales of Anxiety, somatic complaints, disorders that are related to Anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, as well as paranoia (Costa & McCrae, 1992). The constituent of N called vulnerability has also been associated with frontolimbic serotonin 2A binding. This binding is one of the biomarkers for vulnerability (Frokjaer, et al., 2008). There are several other studies that have added to the serious and extensive results that surround N where correlation with several Axis 1 and Axis 2 mental disorders with raised comorbidity that runs from childhood to adulthood. There is also a strong negative link with physical health such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, disrupted immune functions, irritable bowel syndrome, and eczema. These conditions have resulted in the lowered quality of life induction and at the same time provided a suggestion to genetically inherited serotonergic transmission basis.
Neuroticism has both environmental and genetic causal influences. The environmental is divided into shared and non-shared environment. The shared environment is that which is common to family members making them be similar on a given trait. On the other hand, non-shared environment is that which is not experienced by all family members such as an accident that involves only one sibling and is responsible to the differences between the members (Lahey, 2009).
Much of the work that has been done on Well Being has focused on the Subjective Well Being (SWB). The SWB refers to the way people view the quality of their lives and may also entail the cognitive judgment as well as the emotional reactions. Happiness has been defined in psychology as a combination of satisfaction in life and the frequency at which positive and the negative affects are experienced (Diener, 1984). There are recent comprehensive views of Well Being dimension which is the Eudaimonia also known as the Psychological Well Being (PWB). The PWB focuses on the actualization of the human potential and well living, and is a process of providing fulfillment to the true nature of an individual (Deci & Ryan, 2006).
There is overlapping of the subjective well-being measurements when positive and negative affects are used. This reduces the relationship that exists between the six PWB outcomes and the broad dimension level N. However, using the narrow facets of N, there are only four PWB outcomes that overlap. The four outcomes exclude personal growth and autonomy.
This research project is thus aimed at examining the relationship between psychological indicators of well-being that occur in the general population with the six facets that are comprised to the Neuroticism domain. Some of the Psychological well-beings are the autonomy, positive relations, purpose in life, environmental mastery, self acceptance, and personal growth. There is a possibility of the lower order Neuroticism facets to show a consistent pattern for a number of psychological well-being outcomes while showing inconsistent patterns for psychological well-being.
Method
Participants
The study was made up of 206 participants who were undergraduate psychology students from a Melbourne based university. There were 152 female comprising 74% of all the participants and 54 males making 26% of the total participants. All the participants voluntarily took part in an internet survey, and their ages ranged from 18 to 49 years old. The total number of participants who belonged to the 18-19 age group were 110, 20-29 age group (N = 78, 38%), 30-39 (N = 14, 7%), and the 40-49 age group (N = 4, 2%).
Procedure
The procedure was started by informing the participants about the objectives of the experiment, and how the information they offered was to be treated with confidentiality. The participants were then taken into a survey that measured the positive and negative Affect, Neuroticism facets (Anxiety, Anger, Depression, Self-Consciousness, Impulsivity, and Vulnerability), and Psychological Well Being outcomes (Self-Acceptance, Purpose in Life, Positive Relations with Others, Personal Growth, Environmental Mastery, and Autonomy). The demographic information was also collected from the participants. Hierarchical regression and Pearson’s correlation tests were done with an aim of exploring the individual facets on all the six Psychological Well Being outcomes. The positive and negative affects were controlled in order to test which of the Neuroticism facets has the greatest contribution to the negative health outcomes.
Results
The obtained from the study were analyzed using the SPSS Statistical Software. Table 1 below shows the mean, standard deviation, and standard error for the various variables. The positive affect gave results that had greater mean than the mean of the negative affect. The anger, self-consciousness, vulnerability, and depression neuroticism facets had means that were close to one another while Anxiety and immoderation facets had higher mean than the other four facets. The mean of the six psychological well-beings were close together with the personal growth outcome having the highest mean and the self-acceptance had the lowest mean.
The Pearson’s correlations results were as shown in Table 2 below. The table also indicates the significance levels for each comparison. In general, all the correlations were significant and ranged from the moderate level to a strong relationship. The correlations were a mixture of both negative and negative.
The results of Hierarchical Regression analysis using the self acceptance outcome of Psychological Well Being were as shown in Table 3 below. The facets of neuroticism that had a significant effect are the Depression that had a beta value of -0.691 and a p value of less than 0.05, and Self-consciousness that had a beta value of -0.133 and the p value of less than 0.05.
The summary of the results for the regression statistics for variables that predict the Psychological Well Being outcome of Purpose in Life were presented in Table 4 below. The Neuroticism facets that had a significant affect on the purpose of life are Anxiety with a beta value of 0.288 (p<0.05), depression with a beta value of -0.0472 (p<0.05) and to a less extent vulnerability with a beta value of -0.152 (p<0.05). Depression was a strong negative predictor while Anxiety was a moderate positive predictor.
The results for the regression analysis for variables that predict the Psychological Well Being outcome of positive relations with others were as shown in Table 5 below. The variables that had a significant affect include Depression with a beta value of -0.358 (p<0.05), Self-consciousness with a beta value of -0.172 (p<0.05) and immoderation (Impulsivity) that had a beta value of 0.162 (p<0.05). Both depression and self-consciousness were negative predictors while immoderation was a positive predictor.
The results for the regression analysis for the variables that predict the Psychological Well Being outcome of Personal Growth were as shown in Table 6 below. The only variable that had significant affect to personal growth was Anxiety (β = 0.206, p<0 .05) and was a positive predictor.
The results for the regression analysis for the variables that predict the Psychological Well Being outcome of Environmental Mastery were presented in Table 7 below. Those variables that were significant affect on the Environmental Mastery include, Depression (β = 0-.295, p< .05), and Vulnerability (β = -0.251, p< .05). Depression and Vulnerability were both moderate negative predictors.
The results for the regression analysis for the variables that predict the Psychological Well Being outcome of Autonomy were as presented in Table 8 below. Those variables that were significant affect on the Autonomy include, Anxiety (β = 0.211, p< .05), Self-Consciousness (β = 0-.279, p< .05), and Vulnerability (β = -0.286, p< .05). Both Vulnerability and Self-consciousness were negative predictor while Anxiety was a positive predictor.
Discussion
Through this study, there is a prediction that the six Neuroticism facets have a relationship with the six Psychological Well Being outcomes. The results from the study indicated the presence of a differential relationship among Neuroticism facets and outcomes for Psychological Well Being. There was a significant impact by the Anxiety on Purpose in Life and Autonomy outcomes. Self-Consciousness had a significant impact on the Self-Acceptance, Environmental Mastery, Positive Relations with Others, and Autonomy outcomes. Environmental Mastery, Purpose in Life, and Autonomy outcomes were significantly impacted by the Vulnerability the Neuroticism facet. On the others hand, Depression significantly impacted the outcomes of Purpose in Life, Environmental Mastery, Self-Acceptance, and Positive Relations with Others.
The results indicated that the facets that are more emotional such as depression, Anxiety, and vulnerability were stronger Well Being predictors than those facets that are not highly emotional. This contradicts the results that were obtained in a previous study where facets that are less emotional are greater predictors of Well Being than those that are less emotional (Schmutte & Ryff, 1997). These findings are also suggestive of the fact that Eudaimonic perspective on PWB is the most accurate representation of PWB rather than SWB. Both Anger and Impulsivity were not significantly correlated with any of the psychological well-being outcomes. However, previous studies have linked the facets with serious conditions such as Impulsivity with Borderline Personality Disorder (Costa & McCrae, 1992).
In conclusion, the study aimed at investigating the relationship between psychological indicators of well-being that occur in the general population with the six facets that are comprised to the Neuroticism domain. The predictors of PWB can be arranged from the strongest predictor as follows depression, Self-Consciousness, Vulnerability and Anxiety respectively. Both Anger and Impulsivity have no significant correlation with any of the psychological Well Being outcome.
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