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This is the key to a happy life

Researchers analyzed data collected from 2008 to 2019 to determine how the relationship between personality traits and life satisfaction changes over time.

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By Alice Clifford via SWNS

The key to a happy life is emotional stability, a new study reveals.

This trait was the most strongly linked with career, social and overall life satisfaction regardless of age, work or social situation.

Despite constant changes in social roles, responsibilities and age during a lifetime, people with strong emotional stability remained satisfied.

Those who were conscientious had greater work satisfaction and those who were energetic, sociable and agreeable were more satisfied socially.

People who saw increases in these traits across time also reported a rise in their life, social and work satisfaction.

Satisfaction with work was the most affected by differences in age.

As participants in the study aged, the relationship between career satisfaction and emotional stability grew moderately stronger.

Co-author Dr. Manon van Scheppingen, an assistant professor at Tilburg University, said: “Our findings show that – despite differences in life challenges and social roles – personality traits are relevant for our satisfaction with life, work and social contacts across young, middle and older adulthood.

“The personality traits remained equally relevant across the adult lifespan, or became even more interconnected in some cases for work satisfaction.”

Co-author Dr. Gabriel Olaru, an assistant professor at Tilburg University, added: “Emotional stability likely shows a strong link with global and domain-specific satisfaction because this trait colors people’s general view of the world.”

To determine how the relationship between personality traits and life satisfaction changes over time, researchers analyzed data collected from 2008 to 2019.

They took the data from a nationally representative survey of households in the Netherlands.

Over 11 years, just over 9,000 Dutch participants ranging from 16 to 95-years-old answered multiple questionnaires.

Their answers allowed researchers to assess their Big Five personality traits.

These are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, which refers to how energetic and sociable people are, agreeableness and emotional stability.

They were also asked about their satisfaction with their social connections and their life overall.

The 5,928 participants who were employed at the time also answered questions about their satisfaction with their work lives.

They found that most of the relationships between personality traits and satisfaction remained the same across their adult life.

While emotional stability was the trait most strongly linked with people’s satisfaction, other personal attributes did contribute.

And despite a weaker correlation between openness and life satisfaction overall, the researchers found that people who became more open had a greater life satisfaction across the 11 years.

via GIPHY

Dr. Van Scheppingen said: “A good example of how personality interacts with the environment can be found in the work context.

“One of our findings was that the link between emotional stability and work satisfaction increases across age.

“This might be explained by the fact that emotionally stable people are less scared to quit unsatisfactory jobs and more likely to apply for jobs that are more challenging and perhaps more fulfilling and enjoyable in the long run.”

Dr. Olaru said: “Many studies have shown that people with certain personality profiles are more satisfied with their life than others.

“Yet, it had not been extensively studied whether this holds true across the lifespan.

“For example, extraverted – that is sociable, talkative – people might be particularly happy in young adulthood when they typically are forming new social relationships.

“We thus wanted to examine if some personality traits are more or less relevant to life, social and work satisfaction in specific life phases.”

The researchers hope that future studies explore how the factors that change with age, such as income, employment status, marital status and health, affect the relationship between personality traits and overall satisfaction with life.

Dr. Van Scheppingen said “While we did not examine what caused these changes, [the research] shows that our personalities and our happiness are not set in stone.

“Perhaps we may even be able to influence how we change: If we try to become more organized, outgoing, friendly, this might increase life, social or work satisfaction as well.”

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