The Big Five personality domains as predictors of social wellbeing in Iranian university students

This study investigated the relationship between the Big Five personality domains and the dimensions of social wellbeing among Iranian students. Participants were 236 university students at the University of Tehran. Bivariate correlations showed a modest overlap between personality factors and dimensions of social wellbeing. Among the Big Five personality domains, neuroticism was negatively related to social acceptance, social contribution, and social coherence. Conscientiousness was positively related to social contribution. Openness was positively related to social contribution and social coherence. Agreeableness was related to social acceptance and social contribution. No significant correlation was observed between extraversion and dimensions of social wellbeing. Results of regression analysis and canonical correlation analysis mainly converged with those of bivariate correlation analysis in showing that there was a modest relationship between the predictors and social wellbeing dimensions. Results of canonical correlation analysis indicated that the full model explained about 28% of the variance shared between the personality factors and social wellbeing variables. Results also revealed that male students scored significantly higher than female students on social wellbeing. However, gender did not moderate the relation between the Big Five personality domains and social wellbeing. Implications of the results are discussed with reference to prior studies on the relation among personality traits, gender, and hedonic and eudaimonic components of wellbeing in Iran and other countries.