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 self-esteem can markedly influence
levels of SWB. Although personality can explain a significant amount of the variability in
SWB, life circumstances also influence long-term levels. Cultural variables explain
differences in mean levels of SWB and appear to be due to objective factors such as wealth …