An integrated model of social psychological and personality psychological perspectives on personality and wellbeing

Journal Pre-proofs Full Length Article An Integrated Model of Social Psychological and Personality Psychological Perspectives on Personality and Wellbeing Ulrich Schimmack, Hyunji Kim PII: DOI: Reference:

S0092-6566(19)30109-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103888 YJRPE 103888

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Journal of Research in Personality

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24 June 2019 12 October 2019 4 November 2019

Please cite this article as: Schimmack, U., Kim, H., An Integrated Model of Social Psychological and Personality Psychological Perspectives on Personality and Wellbeing, Journal of Research in Personality (2019), doi: https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103888

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Running head: POSITIVE ILLUSIONS

An Integrated Model of Social Psychological and Personality Psychological Perspectives on Personality and Wellbeing

Ulrich Schimmack University of Toronto, Mississauga

Hyunji Kim University of Toronto, Scarborough

Author Note We are grateful for the financial support of this work by the Canadian Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and to Shigehiro Oishi and Jason Payne for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to [email protected].

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Abstract This article uses multi-rater data from 458 triads (students, mother, father, total N = 1374) to examine the relationship of personality ratings with wellbeing ratings, using a multi-method approach to separate accurate perceptions (shared across raters) from biased perceptions of the self (rater-specific variance). The social-psychological perspective predicts effects of halo bias in self-ratings on wellbeing, whereas the personality-psychological perspective predicts effects of personality traits on wellbeing. Results are more consistent with the personality perspective in that neuroticism (negative), extraversion, agreeableness, and to a lesser extent conscientiousness predicted wellbeing, whereas positive illusions about the self were only weakly and not significantly related to wellbeing. These results cast doubt on the hypothesis that selfenhancement is beneficial for wellbeing.

Keywords: Positive Illusions, Halo, Evaluative Bias, Personality, Big Five, Wellbeing, MultiMethod, Accuracy, Bias, Self-Enhancement

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An Integrated Model of Personality and Wellbeing A fundamental question in philosophical theories of happiness or wellbeing is the contribution of positive illusions to wellbeing (Sumner, 1996). Hedonistic theories of wellbeing are agnostic about the sources of pleasure. As long as individuals have high levels of pleasure and low levels of displeasure, they are considered to have high wellbeing. Thus, individuals with positive illusions about themselves can have higher wellbeing. An alternative view is that high levels of pleasure and low levels of displeasure are only meaningful indicators of wellbeing if they reflect accurate appraisals of individuals’ actual lives. Accordingly, positive illusions might lead people to report or even feel happier, but they would not have higher wellbeing because their feelings are not based on an accurate perception of their actual lives. In contrast to the controversies in philosophy, many psychologists have endorsed the hedonistic assumption that more pleasure is better, even if it is based on illusions. Thousands of articles cite Taylor and Brown’s (1988) influential articles that proposed positive illusions are not only conducive to wellbeing, but actually characteristic of optimal functioning, while the absence of positive illusions is a symptom of mental illness. In this article, we review the existing evidence and conduct a new test of the positive illusion hypothesis that addresses conceptual and methodological problems of prior studies. In addition, we contrast Taylor and Brown’s social cognitive perspective on self-ratings of personality with the personality psychological perspective that has emerged over the past three decades. This model assumes that the contribution of pleasure and displeasure to wellbeing is not rooted in positive illusions. Rather, biological differences in traits such as neuroticism and extraversion produce different levels of positive and negative affect independent of appraisals of the environment. These internal causes of moods are called affective traits (Watson & Tellegen,

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1985; Schimmack, Diener, & Oishi, 2002). Positive moods can influence wellbeing without distorting perceptions of reality and do not depend on distortions of reality. Personality dispositions like neuroticism produce individual differences in moods that can contribute to individual differences in wellbeing without distorted perceptions of reality. The Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality and Wellbeing The Prevalence of Positive Illusions about the Self The social-cognitive model of wellbeing assumes that individuals have “a pervasive tendency to see the self as better than others” (Taylor & Brown, 1988, p. 195) based on the finding that in direct comparative ratings most people rate themselves as better than the average, which is logically impossible. Although this better-than-average effect in self-ratings is wellestablished, it may not reveal positive illusions about the self. Instead, it is possible that individuals underestimate the prevalence of positive traits and overestimate the prevalence of negative traits in the comparison group (Chambers & Windschitl, 2004; Chambers, Windschitl, & Suls, 2003; Windschitl, Conybeare, & Krizan, 2008). This would be consistent with the finding that individuals tend to neglect base rates in probability judgments (Nisbett & Ross, 1980), and that they tend to be prone to anchor effects in social judgments (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Accordingly, people may use the self as an anchor and fail to adjust for the high prevalence of positive traits in others. Thus, the better-than-average effect may exemplify a systematic judgment bias, but not necessarily a positive illusion about the self. This model of judgment bias explains why individuals do not rate themselves more favorable than others when they make separate ratings (Allik, Realo, Mõttus, Borkenau, Kuppens, & Hřebíčková., 2010; Church et al., 2014; Kim, Di Domenico, & Connelly, 2018). In addition, studies that compare self-ratings of personality with informant ratings show moderate convergent validity (Connelly

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& Ones, 2010). Thus, over the past 30 years it has become apparent that self-ratings of personality are not as illusory as Taylor and Brown assumed 30 years ago. Individual Differences in Positive Illusions about the Self Taylor and Brown (1988) also assumed that the tendency to see the self as better than others is a stable disposition that varies across individuals; in other words, the propensity to have positive illusions about the self is itself a personality trait. In support of this hypothesis, multimethod studies consistently show an evaluative factor in personality ratings that is stable over time (Anusic, Schimmack, Lockwood, & Pinkus, 2009; Biesanz & West, 2004; Campbell & Fiske, 1959; Church et al., 2014). This evaluative factor is sometimes called halo factor because it leads to illusory positive correlations among desirable traits such as personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, and mental states (Thorndike, 1920). A more frequently used term is self-enhancement (Dufner, Gebauer, & Sedikides, 2019). We prefer the term halo or positive illusions because it does not make any assumptions about the perception of others’ personality. That is, individuals with positive illusions about the self can also have positive illusions about others, and do not necessarily have to see themselves as better than others (Kim et al., 2012). It is a robust finding that halo variance in self-ratings of personality predicts self-ratings of wellbeing (see Dufner et al., 2019, for a recent meta-analysis). This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that positive illusions about the self are beneficial for wellbeing. However, an alternative interpretation of this finding is that self-ratings of personality and wellbeing share common method variance (Kim et al., 2012; Schimmack, Schupp, & Wagener, 2008). In a recent article, Humberg et al. (2019) point out that future research will need “to assess data that allows a quantification of shared method bias” (p. 854). Dufner et al.’s (2019) meta-analysis included studies with informant ratings of wellbeing to remove shared variance from the

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relationship between positive illusions and wellbeing. However, only few studies used a valid method of measuring positive illusions and a validated measure of wellbeing. The most rigorous studies showed that positive illusions have weak relationships with informant ratings of wellbeing (Church et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2012; Kurt & Paulhus, 2008). Thus, most of the variance in self-ratings of wellbeing that is shared with positive illusion measures is unique to self-ratings. There are two explanations for the relationship of positive illusions with the unique variance in self-ratings of wellbeing. One interpretation is that positive illusions have no relationship with wellbeing and that the correlation with self-ratings of wellbeing is an artifact due to shared method variance. The alternative explanation is that wellbeing has two components; a public component that is visible to observers and a private component that is unique to the self. The private component may consist of aspects of individuals’ lives that are kept secret from others. For example, adolescent children may keep their romantic relationships secret from their parents. Although secrets could produce unique valid variance in self-ratings, secrets are not necessarily illusory. Thus, the model needs to make an additional assumption that some secrets are illusory and that illusory secrets contribute to wellbeing. For example, individuals may keep their beliefs that they are better than others secret and these secret positive illusions enhance individuals’ wellbeing. However, this explanation does not work as well for hedonic measures of wellbeing because observers are still able to notice whether somebody is feeling good or bad, as indicated by self-informant agreement in judgments of hedonic wellbeing (Zou, Schimmack, & Gere, 2013). Thus, even if individuals keep positive illusions about themselves and their lives a secret, measures of these illusions should predict informant ratings

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of positive and negative affect. We therefore included hedonic indicators of wellbeing in our model. Illusions about what? Another limitation of most previous studies is the use of aggregated self-ratings to measure illusions. Aggregates combine many different sources of variance that can produce correlations between positive illusion measures and wellbeing (Anusic et al., 2009). A latent variable approach makes it possible to separate unique variance in illusions about specific traits (e.g., exaggerated conscientiousness) from illusions that are shared across traits. The shared variance across several specific illusions reflects a general tendency to rate oneself as better on any desirable attribute. This general disposition is called the halo factor (Anusic et al., 2009). Previous studies have modeled the relationship between the halo factor and wellbeing as a direct path (Kim et al., 2012). This approach is sensible under the assumption that the halo factor is a mere rating bias that biases any evaluative rating, including wellbeing ratings. However, Taylor and Brown assumed that individuals are motivated to exaggerate specific aspects of the self in order to feel good about themselves. The model also assumes that positive illusions are more prominent for important traits (Brown, 2012). Thus, the positive illusion model predicts that the relationship between the halo factor and wellbeing is mediated by illusions about specific personality traits; especially those that are highly desirable. To our knowledge, we report the first empirical test of this hypothesis. The Personality Psychological Perspective While social psychologist focused predominantly on biases, personality psychologists have focused on accuracy in personality and wellbeing judgments (Funder, 1995). These literatures have developed separately and led to conflicting views on the determinants of

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wellbeing. Social psychologists argued that wellbeing judgments are severely biased and cannot be trusted as measures of wellbeing (Schwarz & Strack, 1999). In contrast, personality psychologists have argued that wellbeing judgments are based on chronically accessible information that produces at least partially accurate judgments of wellbeing (Schimmack, Diener, & Oishi, 2002; Schimmack & Oishi, 2005). Consistent with the personality psychological perspective, wellbeing judgments show agreement between self-ratings and informant ratings (Schneider & Schimmack, 2009; Zou et al., 2013) and are much more stable than the heuristics-and-bias perspective suggests (Schimmack & Oishi, 2005). A meta-analysis also shows moderate agreement between selfratings and informant ratings of personality (Connely & Ones, 2010). Thus, there is strong empirical evidence that personality ratings and wellbeing ratings are more accurate than Taylor and Brown predicted. At the same time, personality ratings are systematically biased. A general evaluative bias produces systematic patterns of correlations among personality ratings (Anusic, Schimmack, Lockwood, & Pinkus, 2009; Biesanz & West, 2004). Thus, there is support for accuracy and bias in personality and wellbeing judgments.

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Personality Influences on Wellbeing. Following Costa and McCrae’s (1980) seminal study, dozens of studies have examined the relationship between personality and wellbeing. The most recent meta-analysis showed that self-ratings of wellbeing are predicted by self-ratings of neuroticism (negatively), extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Steel, Schmidt, & Schultz, 2008). Only a few studies have examined whether this relationship holds across raters (McCrae & Costa, 1991; Schimmack, Oishi, Funder, & Furr, 2004). These studies support the personality-psychological perspective that personality ratings and wellbeing ratings are partially valid and that correlations between personality ratings and wellbeing ratings are at least partially caused by personality effects on wellbeing. For extraversion and neuroticism, the results are typically explained by personality differences in affective dispositions (Costa & McCrae, 1980; Schimmack, Oishi et al., 2002). While neuroticism reflects a general disposition to have less stable and more negative moods, extraversion is related to higher levels of positive moods. Consistent with this model, some studies suggest that the influence of extraversion and neuroticism on wellbeing is mediated by individuals’ experiences of pleasure and displeasure (Schimmack, Oishi et al., 2002; Schimmack, Radhakrishnan, Oishi, Dzokoto, & Ahadi, 2002). However, tests of this mediation model are limited to self-report studies. This study is the first study that used self-ratings and informant-ratings to test the hypothesis that hedonic balance mediates the influence of neuroticism and extraversion on wellbeing. There has been less research on agreeableness and conscientiousness as predictors of wellbeing. McCrae and Costa (1991) suggested that conscientiousness predicts better wellbeing at work and agreeableness predicts better wellbeing in social relationships. However, direct tests

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of this prediction are lacking. It is also unclear whether effects of agreeableness and conscientiousness on wellbeing are fully mediated by affect or whether agreeableness and conscientiousness have unique relationships with life evaluations. To allow for direct effects on life evaluations, the model included direct and indirect paths from agreeableness and conscientiousness to wellbeing. An Integrative Model of Self-Perceptions and Wellbeing We propose a model of personality perception and wellbeing that integrates the social psychological perspective on biases and the personality psychological perspective on accuracy. The advantage of this model is that bias and accuracy are two sides of the same coin that are better studied simultaneously for two reasons. First, it is impossible to study bias without some accuracy criterion. Thus, any study of bias also requires a measure of accuracy. Second, bias effects and accuracy effects are not mutually exclusive. An integrative model makes it possible to quantify the contribution of accurate and biased self-perceptions to wellbeing. Thus, it avoids the problems of dichotomous thinking and the study of accuracy and bias in separate literatures.

INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE

The integrative model starts with the halo-alpha beta model of personality ratings (see Anusic et al., 2009), which is currently the only measurement model of personality that recognizes accuracy and biases in personality ratings. This model separates variance in selfratings of personality (Observed S-Indicators in Figure 1) into two components: accurate variance (T-factors in Figure 1) and bias variance (B-factors in Figure 1). To do so, the T-factors

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have self-ratings and the ratings by two informants as indicators. The informant indicators are omitted in the figure to avoid clutter (see Supplementary Materials for MPLUS syntax for the full model). The HAB model allows for higher-order correlations between the Big Five factors. The beta-factor produces correlations between extraversion and openness, while the alpha factor produces correlations among the remaining three personality traits. However, these higher-order factors are not theoretically important because their influence on wellbeing is assumed to be fully mediated by the Big Five traits. The measurement model of wellbeing is based on a structural equation model of wellbeing that was developed based on a subset of this data while data collection was still ongoing (Zou et al., 2013). Averaged domain satisfaction ratings and global life-satisfaction judgments are used as complementary indicators of self-rated wellbeing (S-WB). The shared variance among self-ratings and informant ratings (indicators are not shown in Figure 1) reflects public or true wellbeing (T-WB), whereas the unique variance in self-ratings reflects biased selfperceptions due to rating biases or private information about wellbeing (B-WB). Hedonic balance ratings are separated into a true factor and a bias factor that may reflect private knowledge about feelings. The model assumes that wellbeing judgments rely at least partially on hedonic experiences. This is modeled as a path from T-HB to T-WB. The model further assumes that the effects of extraversion and neuroticism on T-WB are fully mediated by T-HB (Schimmack et al., 2002). Effects for agreeableness and conscientiousness can be mediated by T-HB, but the model also allows for direct effects (T-A -> T-WB & T-C -> T-WB). The path for openness is included in the model, but it is expected to be close to zero and not significant (Steel et al., 2008).

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The basic model assumes that biases in perceptions of individual traits are influenced by individual differences in the strength of positive illusions (PI). The PI factor corresponds to the halo factor in Anusic et al.’s model. We use the term positive illusion rather than the term halo throughout the paper because the latter is commonly used for rater bias (Campbell & Fiske, 1959), while the term positive illusion assumes that some of the variance reflects biased selfperceptions. After fitting the basic model, we tested two additional models. Model M2 tested Taylor and Brown’s (1988) hypothesis that positive illusions have direct effects on true hedonic balance and wellbeing (M2 in Figure 1). A positive significant relationship would show that individuals who hold positive illusions about the self not only rate themselves as having higher wellbeing, but that they are also recognized by others as having higher wellbeing. A recent meta-analysis suggests that there should be at least a small effect on informant ratings of wellbeing (Dufner et al., 2019). A third model (M3) examined whether illusions about specific personality traits are related to higher wellbeing. For example, do individuals who enhance their agreeableness have higher wellbeing. To test this hypothesis, we added paths from the bias in self-ratings of specific traits to the wellbeing factors. To avoid model identification problems, we tested these indirect models separately for each Big Five trait (M3a–M3e). Method Participants Participants were 458 students at the University of Toronto and their biological parents (total N = 1,374). Of the 458 students, 321 reported being female and 133 reported being male.

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Students age ranged from 17 to 31 (Mean age = 19.5). On average, mothers were 48.5 years old and fathers were 51.9 years old. Procedure Students were required to be living with both of their biological parents. Students were compensated with either $25 or two course credits. Their parents each received $25 for participating in the study. The majority of families came to the laboratory with their parents to complete the study in separate testing rooms. When this was not possible, students and their parents completed the study in their homes. For families participating at home, each family member received an envelope, and they were asked to complete the questionnaire on their own privately, and place the completed questionnaire in the envelope, seal the envelope, and sign it across the flap to ensure anonymity. Measures Global life evaluations. Global life-evaluations are the most widely used measures of wellbeing (Diener, Lucas, Schimmack, & Helliwell, 2009). We used the first three items of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) to obtain global life evaluations (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). The first three items were chosen because they have better psychometric properties than the last two items (Oishi, 2006). Informants were instructed to fill out the scale from the target’s perspective. For example, students serving as informants of their father received the item “In most ways my father thinks that his life is close to his ideal.” One problem of global life evaluation ratings is that they typically do not provide a time frame. We instructed participants to focus on the past six months. Ratings were made on 7-point Likert scales. For the present article, we averaged the three items to keep the number of observed variables in the model to a minimum. The three-item

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scales have good reliability (see Zou et al., 2013). Thus, most of the unique rater variance is systematic bias variance. Averaged domain satisfaction. Domain satisfaction was assessed with single-item indicators for seven important life domains (I am satisfied with..; romantic life, work/academic life, health, recreational life, housing, finances, & friendships). The domains were chosen based on previous studies showing that these domains are rated as moderately to very important (Schimmack et al., 2002). Responses were made on 7-point Likert scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The informant version of the questionnaire changed the stem from “I am . . . ” to “My son/daughter/mother/father is . . . ” and “my” to “his/her.” As for global ratings, participants were asked to focus on the past six months. We averaged the satisfaction ratings of important life domains to obtain an alternative measure of life evaluations. Positive and negative affect Positive and negative affect were assessed using the Multidimensional Mood Questionnaire (Schimmack et al., 2002). The MMQ has three items for positive valence (pleasant, positive, good) and negative valence of (unpleasant, negative, bad) of mood and three items for each of four specific mood qualities (happy/cheerful, anxious/nervous, angry/irritated, and sad/depressed). To keep the measurement model simple, these scales were aggregated into a single hedonic balance score by averaging the positive items, averaging the negative items, and subtracting the negative average from the positive average (see Zou et al., 2013, for a model with separate factors for positive affect and negative affect). Personality

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Personality was measured with the Big Five Inventory-S (BFI-S), a 15-item questionnaire that uses three items for each Big Five dimension (Anusic et al., 2009; Gerlitz & Schupp, 2005; Kim et al., 2012). Reliabilities of the three-item scales ranged from .57 to .73 for Neuroticism, .59 to .75 for Extraversion, .51 to .68 for Openness, .52 to .73 for Agreeableness and .67 to .79 for Conscientiousness. These modest reliabilities are not a problem for the investigation of relationships at the level of latent factors because latent factors correct for unreliability. Thus, any relationships for true personality and the positive illusion factors are not attenuated by random measurement error in indicators. However, the test of the mediation model for illusions about specific traits (e.g., unique variance in self-ratings of agreeableness) is attenuated by random measurement error. Results The model was fitted separately for the three targets. All three models had acceptable model fit with Comparative Fit Indices above .95 and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation below .06 (Table 1).

INSERT TABLE 1 HERE The parameter estimates are presented in tables that make it easy to compare results across targets. Parameter estimates are reported with standard errors. Parameter estimates that are twice as large as the standard error are significant with alpha = .05. Significant results are interpreted within the broader context of the literature (replication) and with regard to consistency across targets. Although variation across targets may reflect meaningful moderator effects, the sample size of the current study was insufficient for rigorous tests of moderator effects.

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INSERT TABLE 2 HERE

Table 2 shows the results for the factor loadings of the self- and informant-ratings on the latent personality factors that are assumed to represent true personality differences. All indicators were allowed to load freely on their designated factor. These coefficients can be interpreted as quantitative measures of validity under the assumption that measurement error is independent across raters (Cote & Buckley, 1987; Schimmack, 2010). The results are consistent with previous studies and meta-analytic studies of convergent validity (Connelly & Ones, 2010; John & Robins, 1993). First, all coefficients show evidence for convergent validity. Second, extraversion shows higher validity than the other Big Five dimensions. Third, there is no systematic difference between self-ratings and informant ratings. A novel finding is that mothers’ ratings tend to have higher loadings for self-ratings and informant ratings. Thus, selfratings are not more valid or less valid than ratings by close others, but mothers may be better judges of family members. Finally, validity coefficients are moderate and there is ample room for systematic biases in self-ratings and informant ratings. Table 3 shows the correlations among Big Five traits that are predicted by the HAB model. The results are largely consistent with previous studies. While evidence for a beta-factor is robust, the alpha model is only partially supported. Contrary to the model predictions, students and fathers do not show negative correlations between neuroticism and conscientiousness. INSERT TABLE 3 HERE

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Table 4 shows the loadings on the positive illusion factors of self-ratings. The pattern of results is generally consistent with predictions, but there were a couple of exceptions. For students, openness did not load significantly on the positive illusions factor, and for mothers, the neuroticism loading was not significant. The magnitude of effect sizes shows variability across traits and raters. The highest loadings were observed in parents’ ratings of their openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Table 4 also shows the loadings of the wellbeing measures on the positive illusion factors. All of the loadings are positive and significant, indicating that evaluative biases in personality ratings are related to private wellbeing; that is, the unique variance in self-ratings of wellbeing. This finding replicates previous findings (Dufner et al., 2019).

INSERT TABLE 4 HERE Table 5 shows the effects of the Big Five factors on hedonic balance and wellbeing. Consistent with mono-method studies (Steel et al., 2008), neuroticism is the strongest predictor and openness is the weakest predictor of wellbeing. The other three traits fall in the middle and have a small to moderate effect on wellbeing.

INSERT TABLE 5 HERE

For students, agreeableness was not a significant predictor of wellbeing. and for mothers, conscientiousness was not a significant predictor. Whether these are reliable moderator effects remains to be examined in future studies. Regarding the direct effects of agreeableness on

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wellbeing, the pattern of correlations showed no consistent positive relationships and even one significant negative relationship for students. This finding suggests that the influence of agreeableness on wellbeing is mediated by affect. In contrast, conscientiousness showed a significant direct positive relationship with wellbeing for students and fathers. This suggests that conscientiousness predicts life evaluations above and beyond the amount of pleasure and displeasure individuals experience in their lives. Future studies could examine whether these relationships are explained by specific life domains (e.g., job satisfaction). Overall, the results confirm predictions of the personality perspective that relationships between self-ratings of personality and wellbeing partially reflect the influence of personality traits on wellbeing and that most of these relationships are mediated by affective experiences. Model 2: Positive Illusions and Wellbeing To test the hypothesis that positive illusions about the self are a positive predictor of public wellbeing, we added direct paths from the positive illusion factor to the hedonic balance factor and the wellbeing factor in Figure 1. The results confirm previous findings that positive illusions about the self are not systematically related to wellbeing when wellbeing is measured with the shared variance among self-ratings and informant ratings (Table 6). Most of the direct effect on hedonic balance, or the direct and indirect effects on wellbeing were not significant. The only significant relationship was a negative total effect on wellbeing for mothers. This finding goes against the prediction that positive illusions are beneficial. The positive total effect for students is small (r = .06), and the 95% confidence interval (-.03 to 24) excludes effect sizes larger than 24. Thus, the results only allow for small effects of positive illusions on public wellbeing. These results are consistent with meta-analytic results (Dufner et al., 2019).

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INSERT TABLE 6 HERE

Exploratory Test of Positive Illusion Model As noted in the introduction, one way to rescue the positive illusion model is to assume that unique variance in self-ratings of wellbeing is partially due to private aspects of wellbeing that are not shared with others. Consistent with this model, the positive illusion factor did predict variance in self-ratings of hedonic balance and wellbeing. However, the positive illusion model also assumes that important traits mediate the relationship between the positive illusion factor and the unique variance in self-rated wellbeing. The most likely trait to be a mediator is agreeableness because it has high loadings on the positive illusions factor and is generally considered the most evaluative Big Five trait (John & Robins, 1993). We tested this prediction, by adding a path from the specific bias variance in a Big Five factor to the rating biases in hedonic balance and wellbeing. To maximize the chance of finding such relationships, we tested models with a single Big Five dimension as a potential mediator.

INSERT TABLE 7 HERE The results provide no evidence that biased perceptions of specific personality traits mediate the relationship between the positive illusions factor and private wellbeing. The only consistent and significant relationship was observed for neuroticism and hedonic balance. This relationship is more likely to reflect shared rater biases in ratings of neuroticism and hedonic balance, which are highly related and conceptually overlapping constructs. It is difficult to distinguish ratings of a general disposition and ratings of actual emotional experiences, and biases in episodic memory may influence both ratings. More important, there is no evidence that

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positive illusions about desirable personality traits contribute to private wellbeing. Thus, it remains unexplained what personality characteristics individuals might be inflating to make themselves happier. Discussion The main contribution of this article was to examine wellbeing from an integrated personality and social psychological perspective. While personality psychologists focused on the contribution of actual traits, social psychologists focused on biases in self-perceptions of traits. Multi-method measurement models were used to separate valid trait variance from illusory perceptions of personality in self-ratings and ratings of other family members. The results show that actual personality traits are more important for wellbeing than positive biases in selfperceptions. In fact, the most important finding was that positive illusions about the self were unrelated to wellbeing impressions that are shared across informants. This finding challenges Taylor and Brown’s (1988) influential and highly controversial claim that positive illusions not only foster higher wellbeing, but are a sign of optimal and normal functioning. Subsequently, we discuss the implications of our findings for the future of wellbeing science and for individuals’ pursuit of wellbeing. Positive Illusions and Public Wellbeing The social psychological perspective on wellbeing is grounded in the basic assumption that human information processing is riddled with errors. Taylor and Brown (1988) quote Fiske and Taylor’s (1984) book about social cognitions to support this assumption. "Instead of a naïve scientist entering the environment in search of the truth, we find the rather unflattering picture of a charlatan trying to make the data come out in a manner most advantageous to his or her already-held theories" (p. 88). Thirty years later, it has become apparent that human information

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processing is more accurate than Fiske and Taylor (1984) assumed (Costa & McCrae, 1991; Funder, 1995; Jussim, 1991; Schimmack & Oishi, 2005). Thus, Taylor and Brown’s (1988) model of wellbeing is based on outdated evidence and needs to be revised. The vast majority of studies have relied on self-ratings of wellbeing to measure benefits of wellbeing. This is problematic because self-ratings of wellbeing can be inflated by the very same processes that inflate self-ratings of personality (Humberg et al., 2019). There have been only a handful of studies with valid illusion measures and informant ratings of wellbeing and these studies have found similar weak results (Dufner et al., 2019). The lack of evidence for benefits of positive illusions is not for a lack of trying. Taylor and colleagues (2003) claimed that effects of positive illusions are not limited to self-ratings. “We conducted a study with multiple measures of self-enhancement along with multiple measures and judges of mental health, comprehensively assessing their relationship. The results indicated that self-enhancement is positively associated with multiple indicators of mental health” (p. 165). Contrary to this claim, Table 5 shows correlations of various self-enhancement measures with peer-rated mental health ranging from r = -.13 to .09. None of these correlations were significant, in part due to the low statistical power of the study (N = 55). Thus, even Taylor and colleagues never provided positive evidence that positive illusions increase wellbeing in ways that can be measured with a method other than self-reports. The social cognitive model of wellbeing also faces other problems. One problem is causality. Even if there were a small correlation between positive illusions about the self and wellbeing, it is not clear that it is causal. It is equally plausible that happiness distorts self-perceptions. Thirty years of research have failed to address this problem (cf. Humberg et al., 2019). Another problem is that third variables produce a spurious correlation between illusions about the self and wellbeing. For example,

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relationship researchers have shown that illusions about a partner predict relationship satisfaction (see Weidmann, Ledermann, & Grob, 2016, for a review), and Kim et al. (2012) showed that individuals with positive illusions about the self also tend to have positive illusions about others. Thus, it is possible that positive illusions about others, not the self, are beneficial for social relationships and wellbeing. Future research needs to include measures of positive illusions about the self and others to examine this question. Given these problems, we question broad conclusions about the benefits of positive illusions for wellbeing (Dufner et al., 2019; Humberg et al., 2019). Positive Illusions and Private Wellbeing The present study replicated the finding that positive illusions predict unique variance in self-ratings of wellbeing. That is, individuals who claim to be more extraverted and more agreeable than others perceive them also claim to be happier than others perceive them to be (Dufner et al., 2019; Humberg et al., 2019; Taylor et al., 2003). As noted in the introduction, there are two possible explanation for this finding. One explanation is that positive illusions enhance wellbeing in a way that is not observable to others. The challenge for this model is to explain how positive illusions foster private wellbeing and to provide empirical evidence for this model. To explain why informants are unable to see the happiness of individuals with positive illusions, we have to assume that the illusion-based happiness is not visible to others. This requires a careful examination of the variance in self-ratings of wellbeing that is not shared with informants (Schneider & Schimmack, 2010). The private-wellbeing illusion model also faces an interesting contradiction in assumptions about the validity of personality and wellbeing judgments. To allow for effects of positive illusions on private wellbeing, the model assumes that people have illusions about their

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personality, while their self-ratings of wellbeing are highly accurate and trustworthy. In contrast, social psychologists have argued that wellbeing judgments are highly sensitive to context effects and provide little valid information about individuals’ wellbeing (Schwarz & Strack, 1999). In contrast, personality psychologists have pointed to self-informant agreement in wellbeing judgments as evidence for the validity of self-ratings of wellbeing. If informant ratings validate self-ratings, then we would expect predictors of wellbeing also to be related to self-ratings of wellbeing and to informant ratings of wellbeing. Our main contribution is to show that this is not the case for positive illusions, or at least, that the effect size is small. No single study can resolve deep philosophical questions, but our study suggests that hundreds of studies that relied on selfratings of wellbeing to demonstrate the benefits of positive illusions may have produced illusory evidence of these benefits. Positive Illusions as Halo Bias Evidence for halo biases in personality ratings is nearly 100 years old (Thorndike, 1920). Ironically, some of the strongest evidence for the pervasiveness of halo biases stems from social psychology (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Given the evidence that halo biases in ratings are pervasive, halo bias provides a simple and parsimonious explanation for the finding that positive illusions are only related to the unique variance in self-ratings and not to informant ratings of wellbeing. One explanation for halo bias is that many trait concepts have a denotative and a connotative (evaluative) meaning (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). While denotative meaning and valid information produce agreement between raters, ratings are also biased by the connotative meaning of words and liking of a target. For example, lazy has a denotative meaning of not putting a lot of effort into tasks and a negative connotation. Ratings of laziness will be enhanced by dislike and attenuated by liking of an individual independent of the objective effort

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targets exert (Leising, D., Erbs, J., & Fritz, 2010). It seems plausible that halo bias also influences ratings of desirable attributes like happiness and having a good life. Thus, halo bias offers a plausible explanation for our results that is also consistent with heuristic and bias models in social psychology. Personality and Wellbeing The present study provided new evidence on the relationship between personality and wellbeing from a multi-rater perspective. Results confirmed that neuroticism is the strongest predictor of wellbeing and that the influence on wellbeing is mediated by hedonic balance. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that neuroticism is a broad disposition to experience more unpleasant mood states (Costa & McCrae, 1980; Schimmack et al., 2002; Watson & Tellegen, 1985). As experiencing unpleasant mood is undesirable it lowers wellbeing independent of actual life-circumstances. Twin studies suggest that individual differences in neuroticism are partially heritable and that the genetic variance in neuroticism accounts for a considerable portion of the shared variance between neuroticism and wellbeing (Nes et al., 2013). In comparison, the other personality traits explain relatively small amounts of variance in wellbeing. While, the effects of extraversion and agreeableness were also mediated by hedonic balance, the results for conscientiousness suggested a unique influence on life evaluations. Future research needs to go beyond demonstrating effects of the Big Five and wellbeing and start to investigate the causal processes that link personality to wellbeing. McCrae and Costa (1991) proposed that agreeableness is beneficial for more harmonious social relationships, while conscientiousness is beneficial for work, but there have been few attempts to test these predictions. One way to test potential mediators are integrated top-down bottom-up models with

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domain satisfaction as mediators (Brief, Butcher, George, & Link, 1993; Schimmack et al., 2002). It is important to use multi-method measurement models to separate top-down effects from halo bias (Schneider & Schimmack, 2010). It is also important to examine the relationship of personality and wellbeing with a more detailed assessment of personality traits. While the Big Five have the advantage of covering a broad range of personality traits with a few, largely orthogonal dimensions, the disadvantage is that they cannot represent all of the variation in personality. Some studies showed that the depression facet of neuroticism and the cheerfulness facet of extraversion explain additional variance in wellbeing (Allik, Mõttus, Realo, & Rozgonjuk, 2018; Schimmack, Oishi, Furr, & Funder, 2004). More research with narrow personality traits is needed to specify the precise personality traits that are related to wellbeing. Limitations and Future Directions The study has several limitations. The most problematic limitation is the use of shared variance among students and parents as a proxy for valid variance in personality traits and wellbeing. It is possible that some of the shared variance is due to shared biases, especially between parents (Zou et al., 2013). Future studies should include independent raters for the assessment of personality traits (Schimmack, 2010), although the use of independent raters can be problematic for the measurement of wellbeing because independent raters may see targets only in specific situations and may not have full access to all relevant information (e.g., colleagues may be good judges of job satisfaction, but not marital satisfaction). Future studies would also benefit from the inclusion of objective measures that are correlated with wellbeing such as income (Lucas & Schimmack, 2009), unemployment (Lucas, 2004; Schimmack et al., 2008), or frequency of sex (Muise, Schimmack, & Impett, 2016). Even

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though these objective indicators are only correlates of wellbeing, they can help to separate accurate and biased variance in global wellbeing ratings. Another limitation of this study is the use of short scales as indicators. A superior way to separate valid variance from halo bias is to model halo bias at the item level. However, the problem with this approach is that model complexity increases exponentially with the number of indicators and that single-item indicators require larger samples to produce stable parameter estimates. Thus, the study needs to be replicated with a larger sample and a single-item measurement model. Another limitation is that the sample in this study is only representative of the student population at the University of Toronto Mississauga, which has a unique, highly diverse, multicultural population. Future studies need to conduct multi-method studies of personality and wellbeing in other populations. Cross-cultural studies suggest that the relationship between personality and hedonic balance is fairly universal, while the relationship of personality and wellbeing is moderated by cultural factors (Schimmack, Radhakrishnan, Oishi, Ahadi, & Dzokoto, 2002), and there are also cultural differences in the extent of positive illusions across cultural groups (Kim et al., 2012). In conclusion, research on personality and wellbeing has established some solid and replicable findings that provided the theoretical foundation for this article. However, many questions about the nature of the relationship of personality and wellbeing remain to be answered. The main contribution of this article, is to present a model that integrates previous findings and tested the model with a multi-method measurement model. Future studies can build on this model, modify it, and refine it. Social psychologists can contribute to this endeavor by examining how social relationships contribute to wellbeing, and by moving away from a

POSITIVE ILLUSIONS paradigm that can only demonstrate biases to a paradigm that examines accuracy and biases in social judgments.

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Lucas, R. E., Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. (2004). Unemployment alters the set point for life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 15, 8-13. Lucas, R. E., & Schimmack, U. (2009). Income and wellbeing: How big is the gap between the rich and the poor? Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 75-78. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.09.004 McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1991). Adding Liebe und Arbeit: The full five-factor model and wellbeing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 227-232. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616729101700217 Muise, A., Schimmack, U., & Impett, E. A. (2016). Sexual frequency predicts greater wellbeing, but more is not always better. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 295-302. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550615616462 Nes, R. B., Czajkowski, N. O., Røysamb, E., Ørstavik, R. E., Tambs, K., & ReichbornKjennerud, T. (2013). Major depression and life satisfaction: A population-based twin study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 144(1-2), 51-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2012.05.060 Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 250-256. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.35.4.250 Oishi, S. (2006). The concept of life satisfaction across cultures: An IRT analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 411-423.

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Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The measurement of meaning. Oxford, England: Univer. Illinois Press. Schimmack, U. (2010). What multi-method data tell us about construct validity. European Journal of Personality, 24, 241-257. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.771 Schimmack, U., Diener E, & Oishi S. (2002). Life-satisfaction is a momentary judgment and a stable personality characteristic: the use of chronically accessible and stable sources. Journal of Personality, 70, 345-84. Schimmack, U., & Oishi, S. (2005). The influence of chronically and temporarily accessible information on life satisfaction judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 395-406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.395 Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., Furr, R.M., & Funder D.C. (2004). Personality and life satisfaction: A facet-level analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1062-1075. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167204264292 Schimmack, U., Radhakrishnan, P., Oishi, S., Dzokoto, V., & Ahadi, S. (2002). Culture, personality, and subjective wellbeing: Integrating process models of life satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 582-593. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.4.582 Schimmack, U., Schupp, J., & Wagner, G. G. (2008). The influence of environment and personality on the affective and cognitive component of subjective wellbeing. Social Indicators Research, 89, 41-60. doi:10.1007/s11205-007-9230-3 Schneider, L., & Schimmack, U. (2009). Self-informant agreement in wellbeing ratings: A metaanalysis. Social Indicators Research, 94, 363-376.

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Schneider L, Schimmack U. (2010). Examining sources of self-informant agreement in lifesatisfaction judgments. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 207-212. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2010.01.004 Schwarz, N., & Strack, F. (1999). Reports of subjective wellbeing: Judgmental processes and their methodological implications. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Wellbeing: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 61–84). New York, NY: RussellSage. Steel, P., Schmidt, J., & Shultz, J. (2008). Refining the relationship between personality and subjective wellbeing. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 138-161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.1.138 Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and wellbeing: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/00332909.103.2.193 Taylor, S. E., Lerner, J. S., Sherman, D. K., Sage, R. M., & McDowell, N. K. (2003). Portrait of the self-enhancer: Well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 165-176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/00223514.84.1.165 Thorndike, E. L A. (1920). Constant error in psychological ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 25-29. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124-1131. Watson, D., & Tellegen, A. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 219-235. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.98.2.219.

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Figure 1. Multi-method measurement model. S = self-ratings, B = bias variance, T = true variance (share variance between self- and informant reports), N = Neuroticism, E = Extraversion, O = Openness to Experience, A = Agreeableness, C = Conscientiousness. M2 = dashed lines test for the presence of direct effects of positive illusions on wellbeing indicators. M3 dashed lines represent indirect paths of positive illusions on self-ratings of wellbeing via biased perception of specific traits (the indirect paths were separately tested for each Big Five trait). Informant indicators are not shown in the model to avoid clutter.

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Table 1. Model Fit Indices Target STUDENT MOTHER FATHER

Chi2 378 422 422

df 213 213 213

CFI .956 .950 .953

RMSEA .041 .046 .046

SRMR .057 .052 .061

Table 2. Factor loadings and Standard Errors of scale scores on latent trait factors Neuroticism (st) Neuroticism (mo) Neuroticism (fa)

STUDENT .58 .04 .73 .05 .54 .05

MOTHER .57 .04 .75 .04 .68 .04

FATHER .55 .05 .77 .05 .56 .05

MEDIAN .57 .75 .56

Extraversion (st) Extraversion (mo) Extraversion (fa)

.69 .81 .69

.04 .03 .03

.70 .75 .68

.04 .04 .04

.78 .71 .68

.03 .04 .04

.70 .75 .68

Openness (st) Openness (mo) Openness (fa)

.60 .52 .45

.07 .06 .05

.67 .52 .41

.06 .06 .05

.52 .50 .47

.07 .07 .06

.60 .52 .45

Agreeableness (st) Agreeableness (mo) Agreeableness (fa)

.44 .63 .59

.05 .06 .05

.51 .45 .67

.06 .06 .06

.62 .65 .49

.05 .06 .05

.51 .63 .59

Conscientiousness (st) .50 Conscientiousness (mo) .53 Conscientiousness (fa) .53

.06 .06 .06

.50 .48 .52

.06 .06 .07

.51 .68 .39

.05 .06 .05

.50 .53 .52

Hedonic Balance (st) Hedonic Balance (mo) Hedonic Balance (fa)

.04 .05 .04

.54 .71 .61

.04 .04 .04

.64 .66 .57

.04 .05 .05

.54 .69 .57

.51 .69 .54

Wellbeing (st) .54 .05 .62 .04 .69 .04 .62 Wellbeing (mo) .80 .05 .89 .05 .70 .05 .80 Wellbeing (fa) .66 .05 .75 .05 .73 .04 .73 Note. Raters in rows: st = student. mo = mother. fa = father. Targets in Columns

BIC 29,383 30,352 30,976

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POSITIVE ILLUSIONS Table 3. Correlations among Big Five Traits Predicted by the Halo-Alpha-Beta Model STUDENT MOTHER FATHER MEDIAN E-O (T) .33 .07 .48 .06 .21 .07 .33 N-A (T) -.25 .07 -.32 .07 -.21 .08 -.25 N-C (T) .08 .08 -.20 .08 -.06 .08 -.06 A-C (T) .31 .08 .50 .07 .33 .07 .33 Note. E = Extraversion, O = Openness, N = Neuroticism, A = Agreeableness, C = Conscientiousness. Significant correlations are printed in bold. Table 4. Factor Loadings and Standard Errors of Bias Factors on the Positive Illusions Factor Neuroticism (B) Extraversion (B) Openness (B) Agreeableness (B) Conscientiousness (B)

STUDENT -.52 .07 .35 .07 .06 .08 .30 .07 .32 .06

MOTHER -.05 .10 .17 .08 .57 .06 .54 .06 .72 .06

FATHER -.28 .06 .23 .07 .61 .05 .67 .05 .70 .05

Hedonic Balance (B) .63 .07 .32 .06 .35 .05 Wellbeing (B) .61 .09 .27 .06 .31 .05 Note. B = Bias Factor (Unique variance in self-ratings)

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Table 5. Relationship of Personality Traits and Wellbeing STUDENT MOTHER

FATHER

MEDIAN

Hedonic Balance Neuroticism (T) Extraversion (T) Openness (T) Agreeableness (T) Conscientiousness (T)

-.52 .24 -.01 .31 .14

-.62 .21 .07 .35 .19

.05 .05 .06 .06 .06

-.59 .21 .04 .35 .14

Wellbeing Direct Hedonic Balance Agreeableness (T) Conscientiousness (T)

.81 .05 -.17 .07 .14 .06

.73 .05 -.05 .06 .24 .05

.79 -.05 .14

.06 .06 .07 .07 .07

-.59 .15 .04 .35 -.03

.05 .06 .07 .07 .08

.79 .05 -.01 .07 .03 .07

Wellbeing Total Neuroticism (T) -.43 .05 -.47 .05 -.45 .05 -.45 Extraversion (T) .20 .05 .12 .05 .16 .04 .16 Openness (T) -.01 .06 .03 .06 .05 .05 .03 Agreeableness (T) .08 .08 .27 .09 .20 .07 .20 Conscientiousness (T) .23 .08 .00 .09 .38 .06 .23 Note. T = Trait Factor (Shared variance across raters); significant coefficients are printed in bold.

Table 6. Influence of Positive Illusions on Hedonic Balance and Wellbeing STUDENT MOTHER Hedonic Balance .00 .08 -.13 .07 Wellbeing Direct .05 .07 -.08 .06 Wellbeing Indirect .00 .06 -.10 .06 Wellbeing Total .06 .09 -.18 .08 Note. Significant coefficients are printed in bold.

FATHER -.01 .06 -.08 .06 -.01 .04 -.09 .07

MEDIAN -.01 -.02 -.01 -.09

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Table 7. Relationship of Big Five Bias to Bias in Hedonic Balance and Wellbeing Ratings STUDENT MOTHER

FATHER

MEDIAN

Hedonic Balance (B) Neuroticism (B) Extraversion (B) Openness (B) Agreeableness (B) Conscientiousness (B)

-.17 .00 -.22 -.16 .14

.09 .08 .07 .12 .07

-.20 .10 -.04 .05 .11

.05 .04 .06 .06 .08

-.19 .03 .01 -.09 -.01

.05 .04 .06 .08 .07

-.19 .03 -.04 -.09 .11

Wellbeing (B) Neuroticism (B) Extraversion (B) Openness (B) Agreeableness (B) Conscientiousness (B)

.00 .12 -.16 -.11 .19

.12 .08 .08 .11 .05

-.04 .00 .05 .03 .07

.05 .04 .06 .06 .08

-.12 .08 .06 -.04 -.06

.05 .04 .06 .08 .08

-.04 .08 .06 -.04 .07

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Highlights Largest sample size for multi-method studies of self-enhancement Examined accuracy and bias in a single design. Multi-Method Evidence that personality influences well-being.

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