Good Personality and Subjective Well-Being: Presence of Meaning in Life and Perceived Social Support as Mediators

Xiaodan Xu; Yan Xu; Jinzhe Zhao; Panqin Ye; Mengke Yu; Yidie Lai; Juan Wang; Qunying Huang

doi:10.3390/ijerph192114028

Good Personality and Subjective Well-Being: Presence of Meaning in Life and Perceived Social Support as Mediators

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Oct 28;19(21):14028. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192114028.

Authors

Xiaodan Xu¹, Yan Xu¹, Jinzhe Zhao¹, Panqin Ye², Mengke Yu¹, Yidie Lai¹, Juan Wang³, Qunying Huang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
³ Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁴ Student Mental Health Education Center, Neijiang Normal University, Neijiang 641100, China.

Abstract

Background: Good personality is a positive moral personality in the context of Chinese Confucianism. Based on a social-cognitive model of normative well-being, we propose that good personality positively predicts subjective well-being, mediated by the perceived social support and presence of meaning in life in the context of Chinese culture.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, there were 665 Chinese adults (134 males and 531 females) who participated in the Good Personality Questionnaire, Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Presence of Meaning in Life Questionnaire, Positive and Negative Affect Scale, and Satisfaction with Life Scale.

Results: Good personality was positively associated with subjective well-being (SWB). Both the presence of meaning in life and perceived social support independently mediated the link between good personality and subjective well-being (SWB), and in Chinese adults, perceived social support has a greater mediating effect than the presence of meaning in life.

Conclusion: These findings illustrate that the presence of meaning in life and perceived social support mediate the relationship between good personality and subjective well-being in the context of Chinese culture, which supports the model of normative well-being and can provide more targeted intervention guidance for research on promoting well-being in the Chinese context.

Keywords: good personality; perceived social support; presence of meaning in life; subjective well-being.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Humans
Male
Personal Satisfaction*
Personality*
Social Support
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31671160), and the Major Project of National Social Science Foundation (19ZDA363).