The Big Five Personality Traits as predictors of life satisfaction in Egyptian college students

Abstract Several studies have indicated significant relations between the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction. However, most of these studies have been carried out on Western samples. The present study aimed to explore the Big Five predictors of life satisfaction in an under-studied sample of Egyptian college students (N = 1,418). They responded to a self-rating scale of life satisfaction and the Arabic Big Five Personality Inventory. Both scales have acceptable to good reliabilities and validities. Men obtained significantly higher mean total scores than did women for extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness, whereas women obtained higher mean total scores than did their male counterparts on neuroticism and agreeableness. In both sexes, all the Pearson correlations between the Big Five and life satisfaction were significant and positive except for neuroticism (negative). The strongest correlation with life satisfaction scores was for neuroticism (negative). Principal components analysis extracted two components in both genders which were labelled: “Positive traits”, and “Well-Being versus neuroticism”. Big Five traits accounted for approximately 22% of the variance in life satisfaction scores among men, and 17% in women. Predictors of life satisfaction were low neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness (men), low neuroticism and conscientiousness (women). It was concluded that personality traits are important for life satisfaction in the present sample of Egyptian college students. By and large, the relationships observed in Egyptian college students reflect the general pattern observed in other samples.