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Hedonic adaptation refers to the process by which individuals return to baseline levels of happiness following a change in life circumstances. Two nationally representative panel studies (Study 1: N = 39,987; Study 2: N = 27,406) were used to investigate the extent of adaptation that occurs following the onset of a long-term disability. In Study 1,679 participants who acquired a disability were followed for an average of 7.18 years before and 7.39 years after onset of the disability. In Study 2, 272 participants were followed for an average of 3.48 years before and 5.31 years after onset. Disability was associated with moderate to large drops in happiness (effect sizes ranged from 0.40 to 1.27 standard deviations), followed by little adaptation over time. Keywords: happiness, subjective well-being, disability, adaptation, set-point theory

The development and validation of the Mini-IPIP, a 20-item short form of the 50-item International Personality Item Pool-Five-Factor Model measure, across five studies is presented. The results show that the Mini-IPIP is a psychometrically and practically useful short measure of the Big Five factors of personality.

The present study examined college students' desires for their children's emotions across cultures. A total of 10,175 respondents from 48 countries on six continents participated. Across nations, people desired high levels of happiness and fearlessness for their children. The desire for anger suppression showed greater variability than desires for happiness and fearlessness. Greater desires for happiness were predicted by being female, by greater individual and national levels of positive affect, by greater beliefs about the appropriateness of positive affect, and by individualism. Greater desires for fearlessness were predicted for sons versus daughters, by being male, by greater individual levels of and beliefs about the appropriateness of positive affect, by lower national wealth, and by higher national levels of negative affect and greater beliefs about the appropriateness of worrying. Greater desires for anger suppression were predicted for sons versus daughters, by being male, by greater individual and national levels of negative affect, and by lower national wealth. Keywords: emotion; norms; individualism; children; gender; negative affect; positive affect

Six mood induction studies and a meta-analysis were conducted to test 2 models of the extraversion-pleasant affect relation. The affect-level model suggests that extraverts should be happier than introverts in both neutral and positive mood conditions. The reactivity model posits that extraverts react particularly strongly to pleasant stimuli and that they should be happier than introverts only in positive conditions. In all studies, extraverts failed to exhibit greater emotional reactivity when pleasantness items were analyzed. When activated positive affect items were analyzed, results were mixed. The meta-analysis confirmed that there is only a slight reactivity effect overall, and this effect emerges only in activated positive affect items. Furthermore, the meta-analysis showed that the correlation in neutral conditions is strong enough to support the affect-level model.

According to adaptation theory, individuals react to events but quickly adapt back to baseline levels of subjective well-being. To test this idea, the authors used data from a 15-year longitudinal study of over 24,000 individuals to examine the effects of marital transitions on life satisfaction. On average, individuals reacted to events and then adapted back toward baseline levels. However, there were substantial individual differences in this tendency. Individuals who initially reacted strongly were still far from baseline years later, and many people exhibited trajectories that were in the opposite direction to that predicted by adaptation theory. Thus, marital transitions can be associated with long-lasting changes in satisfaction, but these changes can be overlooked when only average trends are examined.

Abstract Subjective well-being (SWB), people's emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives, includes what lay people call happiness, peace, fulfillment, and life satisfaction. Personality dispositions such as extraversion, neuroticism, and [...]

Research examining the associations between major life events and personality trait development is mixed. Work that evaluates perceptions of life events and how those perceptions are themselves associated with personality traits may help clarify the existing literature. We used a large student sample (N = 1,509) and a demographically diverse sample from a Qualtrics panel (N = 552) to conduct exploratory analyses examining the associations between the big five personality traits and perceptions of life events. Results suggested that (a) associations between personality and beliefs about event-related personality change differ between students and more representative samples, (b) associations between personality and event perceptions are often nuanced, and (c) event perceptions are not merely proxies for personality traits. These studies highlight the importance of subjective event perceptions in the study of major life events and personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How soldiers adapt to and change in response to the deployment experience has received a great deal of attention. What predicts which soldiers are resilient and which soldiers decline in character strengths across the deployment transition? We examined this question in two analyses drawing from the same data source of soldiers deploying for the first time (Analysis 1: N = 179,026; Analysis 2: N = 85,285; Mage = 24.6–24.7 years old, SD = 4.87; 66.5–66.9% White). Specifically, we examined how individual (e.g. sociodemographic, military) and deployment (e.g. stressful experiences) characteristics predict character development across the deployment cycle. Character strengths were assessed once before and up to three times after soldiers' return from deployment. Reproducing previous work, we found evidence for two classes of change—a resilient class ("stable high") and a recovery class ("persistent low"). The strongest predictor of high, resilient character strength levels was better self-rated health at baseline. The findings are discussed in the context of the mechanisms that drive character development, evidence for post-traumatic growth, and practical implications for the U.S. Army. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 3 studies, the authors tested the predictors of income satisfaction, examining whether discrepancies between the things people have and the things they desire predict satisfaction. Study 1 manipulated the desirability of items that can be purchased with participants' income, and showed that their satisfaction with that income depended on the desirability of these items. Study 2 demonstrated that whether people's income enabled them to purchase the things they desired influenced their satisfaction with income. Study 3 found that the effect of comparisons with a person's past on income satisfaction is completely mediated by one's desires; and the effect of social comparison on income satisfaction is partially mediated by desires. Thus, desires play a pivotal role in determining people's satisfaction with income.

In two large international studies, the authors examined whether happy and unhappy individuals weighted life domains differently when constructing life satisfaction judgments. In both studies, regression equations predicting life satisfaction showed that there were significant interactions between happiness and a person's best domain and between happiness and a person's worst domain, even after controlling for participants' standing on all other domains. Happy participants weighted their best domains morn heavily than did unhappy individuals, whereas unhappy individuals weighted their worst domains more heavily than did happy individuals. Thus, happy and unhappy people used different information when constructing satisfaction judgments.