Personality and Subjective Well-Being: Towards Personalized Persuasive Interventions for Health and Well-Being

Subjective well-being (SWB) is an individual’s judgment about their overall well-being. Research has shown that activities that elevate people’s sense of SWB have a significant effect on their overall health. There are two dimensions of SWB: Affective and Cognitive dimensions. However, studies on SWB usually focus more on one dimension, ignoring the other dimension. Also, most existing studies on SWB focused on individuals from Western cultures. Research has shown that the influence of personality on the subjective well-being components is moderated by culture. Thus, to advance research in personalizing persuasive health interventions, this study focuses on Africans (n=732). Specifically, we investigate the relationship between the Big-Five personality traits and both dimensions of SWB using the constructs: Happiness, Satisfaction with Life, Social, Psychological and Emotional well-being. Our results reveal that to design PTs to promote SWB for people high in Agreeableness, designers should focus on designing to promote their feeling of Happiness and Social Well-being, while for Neuroticism, designers should focus on designing to promote Psychological well-being and Emotional well-being. Based on our findings, we offer guidelines for tailoring persuasive health interventions to promote individuals’ SWB based on their personality.