Adolescent subjective well-being and personality traits in a non-WEIRD sample: evidence using the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2)

The Big Five personality traits have been consistently shown to predict subjective well-being (SWB) among undergraduate students and adults. However, their role in adolescent SWB, as well as their unique contributions over sociodemographic variables, remains understudied. Furthermore, most studies on the relationship between personality traits and SWB have been conducted in Western countries, limiting the generalizability of the findings across cultures. The present research used a sample of Serbian adolescents (N = 452; M_age = 17.14, 63.3% female) to investigate the contributions of the Big Five personality traits to predicting adolescent life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. The results revealed that negative emotionality was a robust predictor of all three indicators of SWB, while the effects of the other Big Five traits varied across SWB components. Conscientiousness emerged as a strong predictor of life satisfaction, whereas extraversion and agreeableness had strong contributions to predicting positive affect. Self-rated family’s financial situation was the only sociodemographic variable associated with SWB, showing the strongest relationship with life satisfaction.