In this study 170 Swedish University students participated and evaluated themselves on Subjective well-being with affect balance measured both in frequency and in intensity, and on the five-factor personality factors. The results clearly indicate that intense positive emotions and intense negative emotions correlate positively, and that women experience emotions more intensely than men. Further, measuring affect balance in frequency leads to gender differences in happiness while intensity affect balance does not. Neuroticism (inverted) and extraversion are both strong predictors of happiness, but when using frequent affect-balance, neuroticism evidently stands out as the better of the two. Extraversion and to some extent neuroticism are intensifying people’s emotions. The findings suggest future research to distinguish between intense and frequent affects when calculating Subjective well-being.

<p>In this study 170 Swedish University students participated and evaluated themselves on Subjective well-being with affect balance measured both in frequency and in intensity, and on the five-factor personality factors. The results clearly indicate that intense positive emotions and intense negative emotions correlate positively, and that women experience emotions more intensely than men. Further, measuring affect balance in frequency leads to gender differences in happiness while intensity affect balance does not. Neuroticism (inverted) and extraversion are both strong predictors of happiness, but when using frequent affect-balance, neuroticism evidently stands out as the better of the two. Extraversion and to some extent neuroticism are intensifying people’s emotions. The findings suggest future research to distinguish between intense and frequent affects when calculating Subjective well-being.</p>

Despite the relatively consistent finding that Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and low Neuroticism are associated with the practice of health-promoting behaviors, the reasons for these linkages are not well understood. This prospective study addressed this gap by taking a self-regulation resource perspective on why these traits relate to health-promoting behaviors by examining the role of higher positive relative to negative state affect. Students completed baseline (N = 330), and two week follow-up (N = 195) surveys. Bootstrapping analyses of the indirect effects of each of the three traits on Time 2 health behaviors were significant in the expected directions, with Kappa squares ranging from .11 to .13. In the full longitudinal analyses controlling for Time 1 health behaviors, the indirect effects of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness through affect balance on Time 2 health behaviors were positive and significant, whereas the indirect effects through Neuroticism were negative and significant after accounting for the Time 1 practice of health behaviors. These findings provide a process-oriented understanding of how Big Five traits are linked to health-promoting behaviors and extend previous research supporting a self-regulation resource perspective on personality and health behaviors.