Wellbeing and Extraversion

May 11, 2008

A prominent research topic in the psychological literature on wellbeing is the relation between extraversion and wellbeing. It is commonly assumed that a correlation between an extraversion measure and wellbeing measures reflects a causal influence of extraversion on wellbeing (Costa & McCrae, 1980; Diener & Lucas, 1999; Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2002). However, the empirical evidence is mostly correlational and causality has not been proven.

Main Finding

Extraversion measures are positively correlated with wellbeing measures. The magnitude of observed correlations tends to be in the small to moderate range. The causal processes that produce these correlations have not been conclusively demonstrated. Studies with multiple methods for the measurement of extraversion and various measures of wellbeing is lacking.

History

1980 -Costa and McCrae (1980) reported correlations of extraversion with several wellbeing measures, including measures of life-satisfaction, positive affect, and (reversed) negative affect.
[the study has several strength, large community sample, longitudinal evidence. A major weakness was the use of self-report measures to assess extraversion and wellbeing. Another weakness was that the study reported simple correlations, but did not control for the correlation of extraversion with other personality traits such as neuroticism]

1991 - Headey and Wearing (1989) reported the results of a multi-wave longitudinal study. The main finding was that extraversion in 1981 was a predictor of life-satisfaction judgments in the same year up to the year 1987. The observed correlations ranged from .1 to .2, and did not tend to decrease over time. This pattern suggests that extraversion is related to the stable aspect of wellbeing that does not change over time [The main strength of this study was the use of a multi-wave panel, and a national representative sample. The main weakness of the study was the exclusive reliance on self-ratings, and the focus on life-satisfaction.]

1991 - McCrae and Costa (1991) included informant ratings of personality by participants' spouses as predictors of wellbeing. The surprising finding was that spouses' ratings of extraversion were not significant predictors of wellbeing. [The main strength of this study was the inclusion of informant ratings of extraversion. The main limitation of this study was the failure to control for correlations among personality measures. The failure to demonstrate a significant correlation across methods has been ignored in the literature]

1998 - DeNeve and Cooper (1998) published the first meta-analysis of the correlation between extraversion and wellbeing measures. The meta-analysis reported a surprisingly weak observed correlation between extraversion measures and overall wellbeing measures (r = .17). Extraversion was more strongly related to "happiness" measures (r = .27), then positive affect measures (r = .20), life-satisfaction judgments (r = .17), and the least related to negative affect (r = -.07). [The main limitation of the meta-analysis is the exclusive reliance on studies that relied on self-ratings to assess extraversion and wellbeing. The relatively weak relation between extraversion and negative affect, suggests that extraversion contributes mainly to the positive part of affective well-being. Thus, the effect size for positive affect alone overstates the impact on wellbeing because positive affect is only a partial indicator of wellbeing.

2004 - Heller, Watson, and Hies (2004) conducted a more recent meta-analysis that focused exclusively on life-satisfaction as a wellbeing measure. The authors controlled for random measurement error, and estimated the unique relation between extraversion and life-satisfaction, controlling for four other personality traits (neuroticism, openness agreeableness, conscientiousness). The main finding was a positive correlation between extraversion and life-satisfaction judgments, observed r = .28, corrected r = 34. The corrected unique relation controlling for other personality traits was .23. Extraversion was also related to job satisfaction (observed r = .19), marital satisfaction (observed r = .14), and social satisfaction (observed r = .25). [A main strength of this study was the inclusion of domain satisfaction as wellbeing indicators. The main limitation of this meta-analysis is that all studies used self-ratings of extraversion and wellbeing. Another limitation of this study is that the correlations among personality measures were not estimated on the basis of the same studies that examined the relation between extraversion and wellbeing.]

2004 - Schimmack, Oishi, Furr, & Funder (2004) used self-ratings and informant ratings of extraversion and life-satisfaction. The study also examined the relation of specific aspects of extraversion with life-satisfaction. The main findings were that several specific aspects of extraversion (warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, cheerfulness) were significantly correlated with life-satisfaction judgments within the same rater and across raters. In addition, cheerfulness tended to be the strongest predictor of life-satisfaction. [The main strength of this study was the use of multiple raters, and the replication of findings across data sets from different laboratories. The main limitation of this study was the exclusive reliance on college students, and the relatively small sample sizes.]

2007 - Rammstedt (2007) reported the results of a large national representative German sample (N = 21,105) respondents. The study reported a surprisingly small correlation between extraversion and life-satisfaction judgments, r = .12. The relation disappeared after controlling for several other variables [The main strength of this study was the use of a large national representative sample. The main limitation was the reliance on self-ratings. Moreover, observed correlations were attenuated by a very short three-item measure of extraversion, and a single-item measure of life-satisfaction].

Do you know additional studies that are important and should be included on this website? Do you have additional comments about these studies or my comments?
Please email me (uli.schimmack at utoronto.ca).