The Impacts of Traits and the Impacts of Interactions between Traits and Goals on Hedonic and Eudaemonic Wellbeing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of traits on hedonic and eudaemonic wellbeing. It also explored how the interactions between traits and goals would influence people’s hedonic and eudaemonic wellbeing. A total of 259 undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota completed online measures including Personal Project Analysis, the Big Five Aspect Scale, Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Affiliation Scale, Purpose in Life Scale, and Self Liking Self Competence Scale. Multiple regression analyses were performed to explore whether traits, and the interactions between traits and goals, could have any influence on different aspects of wellbeing. It showed that both Big Five and Ten Aspects were significantly correlated with most aspects of hedonic and eudaemonic wellbeing, while only a few interactions between traits and goals were found to significantly predict wellbeing. One theoretical implication was that the traits themselves may play a more important role in determining people’s hedonic and eudaemonic wellbeing than the interactions between traits and goals. Future studies should examine whether different ways of interactions between traits and goals (i.e. trait-goal compensation or complement) would have different influence on people’s wellbeing. Keywords: traits, goals, hedonic wellbeing, eudaemonic wellbeing