Happiness is a personal(ity) thing: the genetics of personality and well-being in a representative sample.
Subjective well-being is known to be related to personality traits. However, to date, nobody has examined whether personality and subjective well-being share a common genetic structure. We used a representative sample of 973 twin pairs to test the hypothesis that heritable differences in subjective well-being are entirely accounted for by the genetic architecture of the Five-Factor Model's personality domains. Results supported this model. Subjective well-being was accounted for by unique genetic influences from Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness, and by a common genetic factor that influenced all five personality domains in the directions of low Neuroticism and high Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. These findings indicate that subjective well-being is linked to personality by common genes and that personality may form an "affective reserve" relevant to set-point maintenance and changes in set point over time.
Weiss
Alexander
A
Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. alex.weiss@ed.ac.uk
Bates
Timothy C
TC
Luciano
Michelle
M
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010551:Personality / Q000235:genetics*; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010641:Phenotype; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014427:Twins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology