Research conducted under the subtheme “Personality and wellbeing” deals with personality as a science and wellbeing as an art, as there is a significant relation between the two. Positive Psychology has its own facets, some of which are intrinsic to health and behavior patterns. Subjective Well Being (SWB) was evaluated and correlated with personality factors, and a positive relationship was noted to exist between extraversion and SWB, whereas there is a negative relationship between neuroticism and SWB. With respect to mental health and well-being, well-being variables such as gratitude are positively correlated with extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness, and negatively correlated with neuroticism. Research findings have also revealed that people who are optimistic, extraverted, and avoid undue worrying tend to be happier than those who are pessimistic, introverted, and prone to worry.
Research in this domain focuses on how personality may affect the subjective wellbeing. To verify this, a number of studies are conducted at the Psychology Department, such as a study on mental health and self-efficacy. The results of the study revealed that there are differences between male and female university students in both mental health and self-efficacy. In addition, there is a positive correlation between mental health and self-efficacy which means that mental health is an indicator of the effect of wellbeing on personality.
A study entitled “Hardiness a its Relation with Distress Tolerance and the Basic Personality Dimensions in a Sample of Lebanese Adolescents” that was conducted by the Psychology Department found that males have higher mean scores than females in both hardiness and distress tolerance; females have higher mean scores than males in the dimensions of neuroticism and lying, whereas males have higher mean scores than females in psychoticism, while there were no differences between males and females in extraversion. There were correlations among males between both hardiness and distress tolerance and the dimensions of extraversion, neuroticism and lying; while there was no correlation between distress tolerance and neuroticism, and between psychoticism and extraversion, and between neuroticism and lying. Among the females, there was a correlation between both hardiness and distress tolerance on the one hand, and extraversion and lying on the other hand, and between distress tolerance and the dimensions of psychoticism, extraversion and lying, as well as a correlation between psychoticism and neuroticism; while there was no significant correlation between both hardiness and distress tolerance and neuroticism, no correlation between psychoticism and lying, and between extraversion and neuroticism, and between neuroticism and lying. The factorial analysis disclosed three factors among males: two bipolar factors labeled "hardiness and distress tolerance vs. neuroticism", "psychoticism vs. lying", and "extraversion and hardiness"; while two bipolar factors were extracted among females, which were labeled: "hardiness and distress tolerance vs. neuroticism", and "psychoticism vs. lying”. The results of the study have been interpreted in the light of the theoretical framework and the previous studies relevant to the current study.
Future research projects may deal with the personality dimensions and some variables of positive psychology and the big five factors and their relation with subjective well-being.
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