1. Children’s Subjective Well- being: Personality and Demographic Correlates Dr Haridhan Goswami Researcher The Children’s Society Conference for the International Society for Child Indicators University of York 27 th to 29 th July 2011

2. Introduction Past attempts in explaining variations in subjective well-being (SWB) Demographic factors and SWB Personality and SWB Little evidence on the relation of demographic factors and personality with SWB among children

3. Objectives To explore how much variance the demographic factors account for the SWB of children and young people (CYP) To identify the amount of variance the personality factor explains for the SWB of the CYP To explore the relative strength of both personality and demographic factors in explaining variance in the SWB of the CYP

4. Methods Sampling and data collection Participants Data from just over 2400 young people (aged 10 to 15) are used for this component of study Data processing and analysis Data cleaning and analysis by SPSS Checking psychometric properties by factor analysis, Cronbach’s Alpha Univeriate analysis—mean or percentages Bivariate analysis—Point bi-serial, Pearson r Multivatiate analysis—Multiple linear regression

5. Methods (Cont…) Measures Demographic Age (Year groups 6, 8, and 10) Gender (Female, Male) Subjective well-being Personality International Personality Item Pool Big-Five Factor Markers (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness) 25 items (5 items for each category). Each item contained five response categories (‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’)

6. Methods (Cont…) Items used for measuring personality ExtraversionAgreeableness Make friends easilyAm interested in people Start conversationsCare about other people’s feelings Enjoy meeting new peopleThink of others first Don’t talk a lotKnow how to comfort others Stay in the backgroundLove to help others

7. Methods (Cont…) Items used for measuring personality ConsciousnessEmotional stability Pay attention to detailGet stressed out easily Get chores done right awayWorry about things Like to tidy upChange my mood a lot Do things according to a planGet irritated easily Make plans and stick to themOften feel depressed

8. Methods (Cont…) Items used for measuring personality Openness Am interested in new ideas Use a lot of different words Am quick to understand things Am full of ideas Love to think up new ways of doing things Reliability Cronbach’s alphas: 0.69 extraversion; 0.80 agreeableness; 0.72 conscientiousness; 0.78 emotional stability; 0.79 for openness.

9. Methods (Cont…)

14. Results Univariate analysis VariablesMean / %VariablesMean / % Year 627%Extraversion13.91 Year 845%Agreeableness14.90 Year 1028%Conscientiousness11.63 Female39%Emotional stability7.52 Life satisfaction14.34Openness14.33

15. Results (Cont…) Bivariate analysis VariablesRelation SWBVariablesRelation SWB Year 6.148 **Extraversion.355 *** Year 8.006Agreeableness.347 *** Year 10-.146 **Conscientiousness.380 *** Gender (Female).068 **Emotional stability.356 *** Openness.378 *** ** p <.01; *** p <.001

16. Results (Cont…) Multivariate analysis Independent variablesModel 1Model 2 Std. BetaSig.Std. BetaSig. Year 8 (Ref. Year 6)-.106.001-.095.001 Year 10 (Ref. Year 6)-.213.000-.147.000 Gender (Female).076.003.051.023 Extraversion.148.000 Agreeableness.106.001 Conscientiousness.173.000 Emotional stability.271.000 Openness.130.000 Adjusted R squared.032.313 F (p value)17.61 (.000)86.25 (.000) N1495

17. Discussion Demographic factors (age and gender) accounted for less than 4% of the variance in the SWB Both personality and demographic characteristics explain less than 32% variation, of which personality factors alone account for about 28% of the variation. Emotional stability appears to have the highest effect on young people’s well-being. Consciousness has the second highest effect. Age and extraversion appear to have jointly the third highest effect followed by Openness. Agreeableness has the lowest effect on SWB.

18. Conclusions Both demographic and personality characteristics are useful for explaining variations in young people’s subjective well-being. Although personality characteristics explain better, they did not rule out the effects of demographic factors. This suggests that in addition to these demographic and personality characteristics, there are other important factors in young people’s lives that determine their well-being. Future studies need to explore those factors to better understand the subjective well-being of children and young people.

19. Limitations & future directions 1.Other demographic factors such as disabilities, learning difficulties, ethnic background, religious affiliation, country of birth, family structure, family economic condition to include 2.Life events to include 3.To look at the impact of personality on various domains of well-being 4.Other aspects of an individual’s personality such as self- esteem, locus of control to include 5.To examine interaction effects of extraversion and emotional stability on SWB 6.To examine interaction effects of gender and personality on SWB