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Personality andpsychological well-being inlater lifeLeslie J. Francis a & Julia Bolger aa University of Wales , LampeterPublished online: 13 Nov 2012.

To cite this article: Leslie J. Francis & Julia Bolger (1997) Personality andpsychological well-being in later life, The Irish Journal of Psychology, 18:4,444-447, DOI: 10.1080/03033910.1997.1010558165

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The Irish Journal of Psychology, 1994,18, 4, 444-447

Personality and psychological well-being in later life

Leslie J. Francis & Julia Bolger University of Wales, Lampeter

A sample of fifty retired civil servants completed the Bradbum Balanced Affect Scale together with the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The findings demonstrate that psychological well-being is correlated positively with extraversion and negatively with neuroticism.

Bradburn (1969) proposed a two-dimensional model of psychological wen-being, distinguishing between positive affect and negative affect. Positive affect was assessed by five questions: feeling pleased about having accomplished something; feeling that things were going your way; feeling proud because someone complimented you on something you had done; feeling particularly excited or interested in something; feeling on top of the world. Negative affect was also assessed by five questions: feeling so restless that you could not sit long in a chair; feeling bored; feeling depressed or very unhappy; feeling very lonely or remote from other people; feeling upset because someone criticised you. In Bradbum's original studies these two dimensions of psychological wen-being were uncorrelated, leading him to the view that the best indicator of an indi vidu­al's overan feelings of wen-being would be provided by the difference between the two scores. This view gives rise to the notion of balanced affect. Thus Bradbum (1969, p 65) argued that:

we would expect that someone who was high on positive feelings and Iow on negative feelings would be likely to be 'very happy' , while someone who was Iow on positive feelings and high on negative feelings would be unlikely to be 'very happy.'

Although Bradbum's Balanced Affect Scale has been used in a number of studies conducted among the elderly (Koenig, Siegler & George, 1989; Kushman & Lane, 1980; Moriwaki, 1974), very little attention has been given to the relationship between this measure of psychological wenbeing and personality in later life, in spite of the pioneering study by George

Correspondence address: Revd.lrofessor LesIie J. Francis, Centre for Theology and Education, Trinity College, Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, SA31 3EP.

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Personality and psychological well.being in later life 445

(1978). George administered the Bradburn scale alongside Fonn C of the Cattell 16PF (Cattell, Eber & Tatsuoka, 1970) to a sample of 197 white males and 183 white females aged 50-76 years. Using multiple regression George found that, taken together, the sixteen personality factors accounted for nearly 12 % of the variance on the balanced affect scale. By way of comparison, seven social status variables (age, sex, education, occupa· tional prestige, health impainnent, marital status and employment status) accounted for less than 1 % of the variance on the balanced affect scale. More specifically, seven of the Cattell factors were significant predictors of the balanced affect scores. Individuals scoring as relatively more outgoing, conscientious, tendenninded, practical, group dependent, relaxed and high in arousal score more positively on the balanced affect score.

The value ofEysenck's dimensional model of personality (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985) for predicting individual differences in scores recorded on the Bradburn Balanced Affect Scale is indicated by a study conducted among sixth fonn students by Francis, Wilcox and Jones (1997). They found that balanced affect scores were correlated positively with extraver· sion and correlated negatively with neuroticism, but uncorrelated with psychoticism. The aim of the present study is to test these findings during later life.

MEl'HOD

A sample of fifty retired civil servants, between the ages of fifty-five and eighty-five, completed the Bradburn Balanced Affect Scale (Bradburn, 1969), together with the twentyfour item abbreviated fonn of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Francis, Brown & Philipchalk, 1992). This instrument proposes four six-item indices of extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism and a lie scale. Each item on both the Bradburn and Eysenck measures was dichotomously scored: yes and no. The ~ample comprised six males and forty-four females. The data were analysed by the SPSS statistical package using the correlation routine (SPSS Inc., 1988).

RESULTS

All four indices of the abbreviated Revised Eysenck Personality Question­naire functioned satisfactorily among this age group, generating the follow­ing alpha coefficients: extraversion, 0.84; neuroticism, 0.73; psychoticism, 0.49; lie scale, 0.58. The lower alpha achieved by the psychoticism scale is consistent with the broader problems associated with measuring this dimension of personality (Francis, Philipchalk & Brown, 1991). Because of the way in which the Balanced Affect Scale is constructed in tenns of a constant added to the arithmetic difference between modified fonns of the

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446 Francis & Bolger

negative affect and positive affect scales, it is not possible to assess the reliability of this scale in terms of the alpha coefficient. The two measures of positive affect and negative affect were uncorrelated (r = .0.05, NS).

Table one presents the correlation coefficients between the four Eysenck scales and the Bradburn measure of balanced affect.

Table t. Correlations between balanced affect and personality.

E N P L Balanced affect 0.29 -0.38 -0.03 0.06

0.05 0,01 NS NS

Lie scale -0.03 0.26 -0.04 NS NS NS

Psychoticism -0.12 -0.19 NS NS

Neuroticism ·0.35 0.05

DISCUSSION

Two main features of these data deserve comment. The first feature concerns the absence of a significant correlation between the scales of positive affect and negative affect. This finding supports Bradburn's original contention that these two factors are orthogonal. This is also consistent with the findings of Gaitz and Scott (1972), Moriwaki (1974), Andrews and McKennell (1980) and Francis, Wilcox and Jones (1996), although some other studies have reported a significant negative correlation between these two dimensions, including Cherlin and Reeder (1975) and Warr (1978).

The second feature concerns the pattern of correlations between the balanced affect scores and the Eysenck personality measures. According to these figures high scores of balanced affect are associated with extraversion and with stability, while low scores of balanced affect are associated with introversion and with neuroticism. At the same time there is no relationship between scores of balanced affect and psychoticism. These findings are consistent with Eysenck's (1983) view that 'happiness is a thing called stable extraversion' ,and with Bradburn' s (1969, P 65) own equation of high scores of balanced affect with general happiness.

Given the clear importance of Eysenck's dimensional model of personality in predicting individual differences in scores of balanced affect

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Personality and psychological wen-being in later life 447

in later life, future research which employs the Bradbum Balanced Affect Scale to assess the effectiveness of different treatments or environments in later life in terms of the psychological wellbeing of the elderly may be well advised to control for these personality variables.

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Bradbum, N. M. (1969). The structure 0/ psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine.

Cattell, R. B., Eber, H. W. & Tatsuoka, M. M. (1970). Handbook/or the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). Champaign: Institute for Person­ality and Ability Testing.

Cherlin, A. & Reeder, L. G. (1975). The dimensions of psychological well-being: A critical review. Sociological Methods and Research, 4, ]89-214.

Eysenck, H. J. (1983). I Do: Your guide to a happy marriage. London: Century. Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, M. W. (1985). Personality and individual differences:

A natural science approach. New York: Plenum Press. Francis, L. J., Brown, L. B. & Philipchalk, R. (1992). The development of an

abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQR·A): Its use among students in England, Canada, the USA and Australia. Personality and Individual Differences, 13,443-449.

Francis,L. J., Philipchalk, R. & Brown, L. B. (1991). The comparability of the short form EPQ-R with the EPQ among students in England, the USA, Canada and Australia. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 1129·1132.

Francis, L. J., Wilcox, C. & Jones, S. H. (1997). Is Bradburn's measure of psychological wellbeing fair to introverts: A study among sixth form stu· dents. (in press).

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SPSS Inc. (1988). SPSSx user's guide. New York: McGraw·Hill. Warr, P. (1978). A study of psychological well-being. British Journal 0/ Psychol.

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