Intelligence and Personality as Predictors of Well-Being

The perception of psychological well-being can be considered as the cognitive component of life satisfaction as it involves assessments of how people are leading their lives (Diener & Suh, 2001). Personality is a set of psychological qualities or dispositions that may affect individual behavior (Zimbardo, Weber, & Johnson, 2000). Those people who report greater well-being believe that they have superior reasoning and specific personality traits have been shown to be predictors of a range of psychological problems. The current study was planned to analyze the relationship between well being, intelligence and personality. The sample consists of 104 undergraduates. Raven Standard Progressive Matrices, Well being inventory (Sell & Nagpal 1992) and NEO- Personality Inventory (Costa, McCrae 1991) were used to measure the Big Five personality traits and intelligence to examine their relationships to psychological well-being. In addition, the predictive capacity of intelligence and personality traits were analyzed. The data were analyzed by using Pearson’s Product Moment correlation and stepwise regression analysis Results showed that (i) neuroticism, a factor of personality, and intelligence were strongly related to psychological well-being and (ii) ) Stepwise regression analysis revealed that intelligence and the Big Five personality factor of neuroticism were strong predictors of well-being. These results confirm the prognostic significance for intelligence and neuroticism on psychological well-being.