Subjective Well-Being and Its Relationship With Personality Traits, Irrational Beliefs, and Social Support: A Model Test

Background: Considering the change in the life situation during the student period, attention to their health, especially the subjective well-being of students, is of particular importance. Social support is very important in this era and the aim of this study is to examine a model between subjective well-being and personality traits and irrational beliefs with the mediation of social support. Methods: The statistical population included all the students of Hacettepe University in Turkey, and 296 people were selected as a sample using a multi-stage random method. To measure subjective well-being, social support, personality traits and irrational beliefs, Subjective Well-Being Scale (Tuzgöl Dost, 2005a); Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS) (Yıldırım, 2004); Adjective-Based Personality Test (Bacanlı, İlhan, Aslan, 2009) and the Irrational Beliefs Scale Short Form (Türküm, 2003) scales were used, respectively, which were psychologically conducted in Turkey for Turkish samples and had good validity and reliability. Results: The model test through structural equations showed that there is a significant relationship between neuroticism and conscientiousness both directly and indirectly through social support and subjective well-being. In this model, the indirect relationship of agreeableness with subjective well-being through social support was significant, but extroversion, interpersonal communication, and relational self-perception could not show a significant relationship through the mediation of social support on subjective well-being. Conclusion: Neuroticism and conscientiousness are both directly and indirectly related to subjective well-being through social support. The indirect relationship of agreeableness with subjective well-being was confirmed through social support, but extroversion and interpersonal communication and self-view showed a direct relationship with well-being and the mediation of social support was not confirmed in their case.