Personality and happiness among academicians in Malaysia

This research study attempted to perceive the relationship between personality and happiness among academicians in Malaysia through the investigation of their state of subjective well-being. There were 317 lecturers has been selected from one research university in Malaysia by way of stratified random sampling. The survey method has been applied to analyze the extent of happiness among academicians in terms of affective and cognitive state over the course of life. The result has shown that the academicians are in medium level of overall happiness which had served as the essential key components for upgrading the level of happiness. The results also revealed that happiness has been influenced by various type of personality traits such as extraversion (r = 0.79), agreeableness (r = 0.65) and conscientiousness (r = 0.72), openness (r = 0.34) effects positively on happiness, while neuroticism (r = 0.61) effects negatively on happiness. Therefore, the University top management should promote and increase subjective well-being among academicians to be competitive, as well as to be in the excellence and outstanding among research universities around the world. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.