The relationships between personality and well-being during societal change

This study investigates the relationships between the Big Five personality dimensions and well-being outcomes during the societal transition in Romania. The California Psychological Inventory, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, and well-being measures were administered to 290 Romanian engineers. The Big Five personality dimensions were derived by means of factor analysis with the personality questionnaires. The results confirmed that job satisfaction was negatively related to neuroticism and was positively related to conscientiousness, and that depression and somatic complaints were negatively related to extraversion and were positively related to neuroticism. Unexpectedly, job satisfaction was positively related to openness to experience, and depression and somatic complaints were negatively related to openness to experience and were positively related to agreeableness. We concluded that most of the relationships between personality and well-being outcomes found in Western countries were confirmed in an East-European country and that differences in the relationships can be explained by cultural–societal factors.