Happiness is a personal (ity) thing: The genetics of personality and well-being in a representative sample

A Weiss, TC Bates, M Luciano - Psychological science, 2008 - journals.sagepub.com
Psychological science, 2008journals.sagepub.com
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 …
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, Agree-ableness, 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.
Sage Journals