Associations among Well-being Components and Big Five Personality Domains: Nomothetic and Idiographic Perspectives

Well-being is a multi-faceted construct, comprised of conceptualy distinct affective experiences, cognitive evaluations, and social processes. The current research investigates the extent to which these conceptually distinct well-being components are related to one another between and within individuals, as well as whether and how individuals differ from one another in the interrelations among their well-being experiences. With a community sample that reflects the diversity of St. Louis (N=400), we will assess trait and state experiences of well-being (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction, sense of purpose, psychological richness, social connectedness, self-esteem) and Big Five personality domains (i.e., openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism). After an initial baseline questionnaire, participants will complete 9 experience sampling surveys per day for 14 consecutive days (126 observations per person). In Aim 1a, we will evaluate associations among well-being components at three levels: between- person associations among trait measures, between-person associations among aggregated state measures, and within-person associations among fluctuations in state measures. In Aim 1b, we will use group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME) to investigate how different well- being components covary within individuals concurrently and prospectively, and whether these pathways are consistent across people (i.e., nomothetic) or if they differ between people (i.e., idiographic). In Aim 2a and 2b, we will apply the same methods to understand how Big Five personality domains relate to each well-being component. Findings will help establish the interrelations among well-being components, the consistency of state-level associations across people, and the role the Big Five personality domains play in promoting well-being.