The effects of personality traits on life satisfaction: Mediation role of optimism

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between students' personality traits and life satisfaction and the mediating role of optimism in this relationship. For this purpose, a cross-sectional questionnaire is administered to 396 students between the ages of 18-46, studying in different departments of Çukurova University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. International personality item pool IPIP-20 (Donnellan et al., 2006), life orientation scale revised LOT-R (Scheier, Carver & Bridges, 1994) and satisfaction with life scale SWLS (Diener et al., 1985) are used for personality traits, dispositional optimism and life satisfaction. In our knowledge, the validity of the personality scale for Çukurova University students is verified for the first time. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded six personality, two optimism and one life satisfaction factors. After factors are identified, the mediation model is constructed using structural equation modeling. The indirect effects of personality factors are estimated using Stata and SPSS Process. In addition, gender difference is examined in the effects of personality factors on life satisfaction. The results showed that neuroticism, abstract thinking and conscientiousness are the strongest predictors of life satisfaction. While pessimism fully mediated the relationship between agreeableness, timidity and life satisfaction, optimism and pessimism partially mediated the effects of neuroticism, conscientiousness, abstract thought and timidity on life satisfaction. The most important implication of this study is that not being interested in abstract ideas and having difficulty in understanding abstract ideas significantly decreases life satisfaction. Keywords: Life satisfaction, personality traits, optimism, university.