A Study of Psychological Well-being in Relation to Big Five Personality of Working and Non-working Women

Abstract

Women in India still face difficulties doing multiple roles, encountering domestic and sexual violence, malnutrition etc. Their physical and mental health is at stake. Therefore, the present study aimed at understanding the psychological well-being of working and non-working women and exploring its relationship with Big Five Personality traits. A sum of 376 respondents participated in the present study. Their mean age was 32.52 years. The minimum and maximum age of the respondents was 19 years and 71 years, respectively. A schedule was prepared for the data collection. The psychological well-being scale developed by Carol Ryff (1995) was used. It is 42 items scale measures six dimensions of psychological well-being: environmental mastery, autonomy, personal growth, positive relationships with other people, having a purpose in life, and self-acceptance. The Big Five Personality Scale developed by John and Srivastava (1999) were used. The Big Five Personality Scale comprises 44 items that measure five aspects of a person’s personality. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was computed between scores obtained on the Big Five Personality scale and the Psychological Well-being score to test the hypothesis. Results showed that the openness to experience dimension was positively and significantly correlated only with the environmental mastery dimension of psychological well-being. The obtained correlations on the remaining dimensions of psychological well-being were found insignificant. The correlation between conscientiousness and dimensions of psychological well-being was also found to be significant. The correlation between extraversion and positive relations with others was found to be significant. However, no significant relationship was obtained on other dimensions of psychological well-being. Thus, a mixed relationship was found between personality and psychological well-being. Linear multiple regression was computed to measure the predicting effect of Big Five Personality on psychological well-being. The model summary states a value of R= .120, with multiple correlations. This value states that dimensions of Big Five Personality have only 12% predicting effect, which is very low. Again, coefficient values of all dimensions of Big Five Personality are also insignificant.