Personality Predictors of Health, Well-Being, Relationships, and Employment in Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study

Personality traits have been found to predict important life outcomes, including health, well-being, employment, and relationship success. However, evidence on longitudinal personality-outcome associations stems almost exclusively from Western countries. It is not yet known if, how, and to what extent personality traits predict life outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from the Africa Long Life Study, which sampled young adults from Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa (N = 2,770), we tested how personality traits are linked to seven important life outcomes. The Big Two personality traits, agency and communion, were assessed 2 to 3 years prior to the assessment of outcomes, including self-reported health, employment status, and anxiety. We used specification-curve analysis to examine the robustness of personality-outcome associations. Higher levels of agency and communion robustly predicted higher levels of self-rated health, and lower levels of anxiety and depression over 2 to 3 years. Furthermore, higher levels of communion predicted being employed 2 to 3 years later. However, personality-outcome associations were smaller than expected based on findings from Western countries (.02 ≤ |r| ≤ .11). Our findings provide novel insights into the cross-cultural replicability of personality-outcome associations, and we discuss the implications of our findings for personality research.