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Trait as default: extraversion, subjective well-being, and the distinction between neutral and positive events
Michael D Robinson1, Emily Crawford Solberg, Patrick T Vargas
1Psychology Department, North Dakota State University, Fargo 58105, USA. michael.d.robinson@ndsu.nodak.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|September 23, 2003
Summary
Extraversion predicts subjective well-being (SWB) differently based on individual evaluative abilities. Those slower to distinguish event types rely more on extraversion for SWB judgments.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Personality Psychology
Background:
- Trait self-knowledge may compensate for missing event-specific information.
- Prior research suggests a
- fill-in
- function for self-knowledge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if extraversion reliably predicts subjective well-being (SWB) judgments across different individuals.
- To examine how evaluative processing differences influence the extraversion-SWB relationship.
Main Methods:
- Four studies were conducted with a total of 260 participants.
- A choice reaction-time task assessed the ability to distinguish between neutral and positive events.
- The relationship between extraversion and SWB judgments was analyzed in relation to evaluative processing speed.
Main Results:
- The link between extraversion and SWB was weaker for individuals quick to differentiate event types.
- Conversely, the extraversion-SWB association was stronger for those slower in making these distinctions.
- Individual differences in evaluative encoding capacity moderate the predictive power of extraversion on SWB.
Conclusions:
- Extraversion scales may capture beliefs about SWB.
- These beliefs contribute differently to judgments based on an individual's ability to make evaluative distinctions during information encoding.
- The findings highlight the role of cognitive processing in the manifestation of personality-SWB links.