Extraversion and Introversion - Extraversion, Introversion, and Happiness

Extraversion, Introversion, and Happiness

Extraverts are found to have higher levels of happiness and positive affect than introverts. An influential review article concluded that personality, specifically extraversion and emotional stability, was the best predictor of subjective well-being. As examples, Argyle and Lu (1990) found that the trait of extraversion, as measured by Extraversion Scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), was positively and significantly correlated with happiness, as measured by the Oxford Happiness Inventory. Using the same happiness and extraversion scales, Hills and Argyle (2001) found that happiness was again significantly correlated with extraversion. Also, the study by Emmons and Diener (1986) showed that extraversion correlates positively and significantly with positive affect but not with negative affect. Similar results were found in a large longitudinal study by Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, and Fujita (1992), which assessed 14,407 participants from 100 areas of continental United States. Using the abbreviated General Well-Being Schedule, which tapped positive and negative affects, and Costa and McCrae's (1986) short version of the NE0's Extraversion scale, the authors reported that extraverts experienced greater well-being at two points in time, during which data were collected: first between 1971 and 1975, and later between 1981 and 1984. Furthermore, Larsen and Ketelaar (1991) showed that extraverts respond more to positive affect than to negative affect, since they exhibit more positive-affect reactivity to the positive-affect induction, yet they do not react more negatively to the negative-affect induction.