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Processes Underlying Links to Subjective Well-being: Material Concerns, Autonomy, and Personality

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Abstract

This study explored the mediating processes underlying the associations between autonomy and subjective well-being (SWB), and those between personality and affective well-being. Using the World Values Survey dataset from Singapore, the results showed that autonomy and financial satisfaction were the strongest predictors of life satisfaction and happiness, whereas personality traits were the strongest predictors of positive feelings. Both personality and material concerns predicted negative feelings to some extent. Mediation analyses showed that the associations between autonomy and SWB, and those between personality and positive and negative emotions were mediated by material concerns. Thus, this study illustrates the process models of different SWB facets (life satisfaction, happiness, positive and negative emotions) and highlights that dispositional factors (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and autonomy) can exert both direct and indirect effects (via material factors) on SWB.

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Notes

  1. Material concerns can be represented by indicators such as financial satisfaction and satisfaction with standard of living. Fulfilling/meeting one’s material concerns is associated with higher life satisfaction (e.g., Delhey 2010; Diener et al. 2010). In contrast, materialism reflects the prioritization of the pursuit and acquisition of wealth and material goods. It is inversely associated with SWB (Diener and Oishi 2000; Kashdan and Breen 2007). Hence, materialism should not be equated with material concerns.

  2. Additional hierarchical linear regression analyses were also conducted, for which the order was reversed, i.e., indicators of material concerns were added in the first step, values were added in the second, and personality variables were added in the last step. This ordering however, is less ideal than the original main analyses, because bottom-up factors (e.g., material indicators) can be influenced by dispositional factors like personality. The main analyses (by examining personality factors first and bottom-up factors in the last step) can address whether material indicators (by themselves) still explain any additional variance after accounting for personality. However, in these supplementary analyses, the variance explained by material indicators (in the first step) can be due to objective material circumstances, as well as personality influences on the evaluation of the financial situation, which suggests that the impact of the material factors may be overinflated. Overall, both the main and supplementary analyses yielded similar patterns of results—material concerns and values explained most of the variance in life satisfaction and happiness, whereas personality accounted for most of the variance in positive emotions.

  3. All three indicators of material concerns were included in the preliminary mediation analyses that separately examined extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. However, as the other two indicators of material concerns (financial satisfaction or satisfaction with standard of living) were not significant predictors of positive feelings, the final analysis that examined only the mediating effect of income status was reported. Also, agreeableness and neuroticism were not significantly associated with income status, thus only the final analysis for extraversion was reported.

  4. All three indicators of material concerns were included in the preliminary mediation analyses that separately examined extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. The analyses for extraversion and conscientiousness found no significant mediating effects of material concerns. As neuroticism and agreeableness were not significantly associated with income status, their final analyses included only the other two material concerns indicators.

  5. Mediation analysis was not conducted for positive feelings because autonomy was not a significant predictor of positive feelings.

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  1. School of Arts and Social Sciences, SIM University, 461 Clementi Road, Singapore, 599490, Singapore

    Weiting Ng

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Ng, W. Processes Underlying Links to Subjective Well-being: Material Concerns, Autonomy, and Personality. J Happiness Stud 16, 1575–1591 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9580-x

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