Various Effects of Personal Traits on the Components of Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

Background. Due to global changes and growing socio-cultural uncertainty, it is important to determine which personal traits allow a person to maintain a high level of subjective well-being in modern conditions of living. Objective. The article aims to determine the contribution of personal traits (perfectionism, coping strategies and tolerance for ambiguity) to the components of subjective well-being (life satisfaction and subjective happiness). Sample. The study involved 142 respondents (123 females, 19 males), students of Moscow universities (mean age = 19,32, SD = 0,644). Methods. Respondents were offered to complete 6 questionnaires: «Three-factor perfectionism questionnaire», «Proactive coping abbreviated questionnaire», «Diagnostic technique of stress coping» of D. Amirkhan, «Scales of tolerance and intolerance to ambiguity in modification of S. Badner’s questionnaire», «Subjective happiness scale» of S. Lyubomirsky, «The satisfaction with life scale » by E. Diener. Statistical processing of the data was performed using statistics system, IBM SPSS Statistics 23 macros PROCESS, using regression and moderator analyses. Results. Regression analysis revealed the positive contribution of proactive coping and the negative contribution of the perfectionism component "negative selectivity and fixation on one’s own imperfection" both to individual components of subjective well-being and to its integral indicator. The proactive coping strategy "seeking social support" contributes to the cognitive component of subjective well-being and its integral indicator, while not affecting the emotional component. Moderator model shows an increase in subjective well-being when using a proactive coping strategy, regardless of the level of the perfectionism component "negative selectivity and fixation on one’s own imperfection". Conclusion. Such personal traits as proactive coping strategies (proactive coping, seeking social support) and the perfectionism component of "negative selectivity..." contribute to the level of subjective well-being. Proactive coping also levels the connection between perfectionism and subjective well-being.