The pleasure of making a difference: Perceived social contribution explains the relation between extraverted behavior and positive affect.

Abstract

In all three studies, multiple-mediator models showed that social contribution, but not power, independently mediated the relations that trait and state extraversion had with positive affect. This suggests that perceptions of positive influence-more so than a general sense of power-help to explain why extraverts and extraverted moments are happier. We link these findings to emerging trends in the study of personality dynamics and the potential benefits of acting "out of character". Extraversion is one of five basic trait domains that describe the structure of personality (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008), and can be defined as the tendency to be talkative, assertive, and sociable at the high end of the continuum, and quiet, passive, and reserved at the opposite ("introverted") end. The tendency for extraverts to experience higher levels of positive affect (PA) is often described as one of the most robust findings in personality psychology (Lucas & Fujita, 2000;Smillie, DeYoung, & Hall, 2015;Steel, Schmidt, & Shultz, 2008), and holds across several cultures (Lucas, Diener, Grob, Suh, & Shao, 2000). This relation is strongest when PA is defined, in line with Watson and Tellegen's (1985) factor model of affect, as the combination of pleasant valence and high activation (e.g., lively, excited; see Smillie, DeYoung, & Hall, 2015). Therefore, extraverts tend to be "happier"-a term we use as short-hand-in the sense that they experience higher levels of PA.The extraversion-PA relation also holds at the state level: individuals feel happier in the moments in which they behave in a more talkative and sociable way. Several experimental studies have provided causal evidence that participants who are instructed to act extraverted (e.g., talkative, bold, assertive) report higher levels of PA than those instructed to act introverted (e.g., quiet, passive, reserved) during interactive activities in the lab (Gallagher, Fleeson, & Hoyle, 2011;McNiel & Fleeson, 2006;McNiel, Lowman, & Fleeson, 2010;Smillie, Wilt, Kabbani, Garratt, & Revelle, 2015;Zelenski et al., 2013;Zelenski, Santoro, & Whelan, 2012) (Keyes, 1998) explained 32% of the relation between trait extraversion and PA. Of the five subscales, social contribution (believing that one has something valuable to give, and does give, to society) was the strongest mediator, independently explaining 29% of the trait extraversion-PA relation. To bolster this correlational study with experimental evidence, Smillie, Wilt, and colleagues (Study 2) then investigated whether state measures of social well-being and social contribution mediated the relation between enacted extraversion and increased PA. As a state measure of social contribution, participants reported the percentage to which they "contributed to the discussion tasks", relative to the other two participants. Mirroring the trait-level findings, single-mediator models showed that social well-being and social contribution both helped to explain the effect of acting extraverted on PA. However, social contribution again emerged as ...

Unique Associations Between Big Five Personality Aspects and Multiple Dimensions of Well‐Being

“…We recruited two samples of U.S. residents via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk; see Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, ). Although one other paper has used the Sample 1 dataset (Sun, Stevenson, Kabbani, Richardson, & Smillie, ), the results here have not been reported elsewhere, aside from descriptive statistics for the Extraversion scale and subscales.…”

Maternal personality, social support, and changes in depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms during pregnancy and after delivery: A prospective-longitudinal study

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“…Because emotional stability describes the tendency to experience fewer negative emotions and to be more stress-resistant [64] emotionally stable women might be less susceptible to an escalation of psychopathological symptoms across the peripartum period. More extraverted individuals tend to more actively engage in social interactions and to experience more positive affect [65][66][67]. Therefore, higher extraversion might relate to higher social support and serve as a buffer against peripartum psychopathological symptoms.…”

What makes for a pleasant social experience in adolescence? The role of perceived social interaction behavior in associations between personality traits and momentary social satisfaction

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