ECPP 2016
Abstract Book
References: Watkins, P. C. (2011). Gratitude and well-being. In C. Martin-Kumm & C. Tarquinio (Eds), Traité dePsychologie Positive: Théories et implications pratiques (pp. 519-537). Bruxelles, France: De Boeck Publishers.Watkins, P. C. (2014). Gratitude and the Good Life: Toward a Psychology of Appreciation. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.Watkins, P. C., Uhder*, J., & Pichinevskiy*, S. (2015). Grateful recounting enhances subjective well-being: The importance of gratefulprocessing. Journal of Positive Psychology, 2, 91-98.Watkins, P. C., Woodward*, K., Stone*, T., & Kolts, R. (2003). Gratitude and happiness: Development of a measure of gratitude, andrelationships with subjective well-being. Social Behaviour and Personality, 31, 431-452.
P06C - Does the role of temperament for well-being decrease with age? A. Bojanowska (1)A.M. Zalewska (1)University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty in Poznan,Kutrzeby 10, 61-719 Poznan, Poland Aim: It has been known for quite a while, that genetically determined factors, such as personality or temperament traits determine asignificant proportion of well-being variance (Kandler & Bleidorn, 2015). Still, some issues remain unclear:1) What is the relationship between specific personality or temperament dimensions and specific components of the subjective well-being(positive affect, negative affect, satisfaction with life)?2) What is the developmental dynamic of these relationships - does the role of personal traits for the experience of well-being change aspeople age?Method: We analyzed how two temperamental dimensions impacted well-being among teenagers and adults. Over 700 participants aged13-45 reported their Subjective Well-Being, Stimulation Processing Capacity and Stimulation Supply. We conceptualized Subjective wellbeingas the positive affect, negative affect and satisfaction with life (Diener et al., 1985; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). StimulationProcessing Capacity indicated how effective a person is in dealing with everyday stimuli (e.g. how enduring they are), while StimulationSupply indicated how much stimulation they get (e.g. how active they tend to be) (Strelau & Zawadzki, 1995).Results: People with higher Stimulation Processing Capacity enjoyed higher wellbeing (increased positive affect and satisfaction,decreased negative affect), while higher Stimulation Supply was linked to higher PA and satisfaction. This suggests, that the ability toprocess a lot of stimulation promotes wellbeing and shields from negative emotions. The tendency to supply a lot of stimulation, throughengagement in numerous and varied activities promotes well-being, but it does not shield from negative emotions.However, half of these effects decreased with age. The effect of Stimulation Processing Capacity on positive affect and satisfaction wassmaller in the older group, similarly to the effects of Stimulation Supply on satisfaction. This shows, that the ability to process stimulationpromotes well-being up to a certain point in life and that somewhere in adulthood environmental influences start to take over. On theother hand, this effect was not observed for the negative affectivity. This suggests, that the 'positive' experience may be more flexible andpeople learn to compensate for their less favorable trait configurations, while the 'negative' well-being experience is more fixed and staysdependent on genetically determined traits. In other words, people with less favorable trait configurations may, with age, learn toactivate positive experiences. Temperament impacts negative emotionality in a stable way, implying that learning to decrease negativereactions is difficult. This supports claims of positive psychotherapy, that interventions aimed at increasing strengths surpass those aimedat limiting the impact of the deficits for well-being. Keywords • Development, Subjective well-being, temperament References: Diener, E., Larsen, R.J., Levine, S., Emmons, R.A. (1985). Intensity and frequency: Dimensionsunderlying positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1253-1265.Kandler, C., Bleidorn, W. (2015). Personality Differences and Development: Genetic andEnvironmental Contributions. In: J. D. Wright (Ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Social andBehavioral Sciences, Edition: 2nd, Publisher: Elsevier, pp.884-890. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.25011-3Strelau, J. & Zawadzki, B. (1995), The Formal Characteristics of Behaviour— Temperament Inventory(FCB—TI): Validity studies. European Journal of Personality, 9: 207–229.doi: 10.1002/per.2410090304.Watson, D., Clark, L. A., &Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures ofpositive and Negative Affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,54, 1063-1070. doi: 10.1177/1073191108328890.
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