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

Abstract

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.