Which of the following is not a trait that comprises core self-evaluations (CSEs)

Over the past several decades, there has been increasing interest in the construct of subjective well-being (SWB) in an attempt to understand how people evaluate their lives (Diener, 1984, Diener et al., 1999). SWB is a broad category of phenomena that includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global evaluations of life satisfaction. When people formulate judgments of SWB, the evaluations can be either cognitive, when a person gives conscious evaluative judgments about his life, or may consist of the frequency with which the person experiences positive and negative emotions (Diener & Lucas, 2000). Diener, Eunkook, and Oishi (1997) suggest a three component model for the SWB construct: (a) satisfaction, (b) pleasant affect, and (c) low levels of unpleasant affect. The first component (the cognitive aspect of SWB) has to do with how individuals make judgements about their satisfaction with various life domains – including job, marriage, parenting, friendship, as well as with their life as a whole. The other two components of the construct are better known as Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA), and are the most general dimensions that describe everyday affective experience. Briefly, PA reflects the extent to which a person feels excited, strong, active, and inspired. On the other hand, NA reflects the extent to which a person feels distressed, hostile, irritable, and nervous. These two factors represent affective state dimensions which are closely related to the corresponding affective trait dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).

In an attempt to identify the causal factors of the construct of SWB, researchers have adopted two different approaches: top-down and bottom-up (Diener, 1984). Supporting the bottom-up perspective, evidence indicates that situational variables such as income, employment, marital status, religion, health, as well as some demographic variables such as gender, age, and education, have an impact on SWB, although there are people who argue that this impact accounts less than 20% of the total variance in SWB (Campbell, Converse, & Rogers, 1976).

Evidence also supports the top-down approach. Researchers have identified a genetic source of SWB; findings from a longitudinal study suggest that approximately half of the variability in positive and negative affect is genetic (Tellegen et al., 1988). Within the same framework, personality seems to be an important predictor of SWB. A growing body of literature indicates that personality dimensions such as Extraversion and Neuroticism mainly, and Agreeableness and Conscientiousness to a lesser extent, account for variance in SWB (see DeNeve & Cooper, 1998; for a review). High self-esteem is also one of the strongest predictors of SWB (Campbell et al., 1976, Diener and Diener, 1995), while optimism is another personality related construct which has been found to correlate positively with SWB (Diener and Lucas, 2000, Salovey et al., 2000).

A research question which has garnered considerable attention lately is the role that SWB plays on physical and psychological health. According to many researchers, SWB is relevant to the health area not only because it is an integral component of mental health but also because satisfaction with one’s physical health is a component of SWB (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). In particular, research demonstrates that there are beneficial influences of SWB on recovery from a diverse set of health conditions, such as stroke (Ostir, Markides, Black, & Goodwin, 2000), coronary artery disease diagnosis (Valkamo, Hintikka, Niskanen, & Viinamaki, 2001), and AIDS (Moskowitz, 2003). Similarly, Maier and Smith (1999) have found that higher SWB was associated with lower mortality rates, a result which was supported by findings from other studies as well (Levy, Slade, Kunkel, & Kasl, 2002).

The aforementioned research findings indicate a connection between SWB and health functioning, although there are many issues that should be re-examined in order to determine the nature and the consequences of such a relationship (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). These findings revealed also that there is substantial variance in this relationship that remains unaccounted. For example, there is a trend to move from merely examining personality as a main effect to focusing on moderator effects that explain how specific personality traits and other constructs from the individual differences area influence this relationship. A growing body of literature documents the moderating role of such constructs within the SWB-health framework (Schlosser, 1990). In particular, Lachman and Weaver (1997) provided evidence regarding the moderating role of the sense of control on the relationship between well-being and health. Similarly, Slaski and Cartwright (2003) found that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between well-being and health. Donnell (2003) also found that hardiness is a moderator between stress and well-being, and Siddique and D’Arcy (1984) examined the moderator effects of locus of control (LOC) on the stress–well-being relationship.

A relatively new construct within the personality domain which can serve as a potential moderator of the relationship between SWB and health functioning is the concept of the core self-evaluations (CSE). CSE is a broad personality construct indicated by four specific traits: (a) self-esteem (i.e., the basic appraisal that a person’s makes of his worth), (b) generalized self-efficacy (i.e., a person’s global estimate of his ability to mobilize the motivation and abilities needed to achieve important outcomes), (c) locus of control (i.e., the degree to which an individual believes that he/she [rather than the environment or fate] controls events in his/her life), and (d) neuroticism, which defines the lack of emotional stability of an individual and his tendency to dwell on the negative (Judge, Van Vianen, & De Pater, 2004). According to Judge et al. (2004), “Individuals with positive core self-evaluations appraise themselves in a consistently positive manner across situations; such individuals see themselves as capable, worthy, and in control of their lives” (pp. 328–329).

CSE has been examined mostly within the organizational context (Judge et al., 1998, Judge et al., 2004). Recently, however, attempts have been made to expand the exploratory potential and the implications of the CSE in other areas of human behaviour research. For example, Best, Stapleton, and Downey (2005) explored the role of CSE on burnout, a form of poor, work-related health. Their results demonstrated that CSE has a negative effect on burnout, suggesting the importance of CSE on health functioning. Additionally, Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, and Welbourne (1999) found that CSE is related with both forms of affectivity, while Judge et al. (1998) reported a significant positive correlation between CSE and life satisfaction. Piccolo, Judge, Takahashi, Watanabe, and Locke (2005), further reported a positive correlation between CSE and happiness.

Taken together, the above evidence suggests that CSE is a construct which appears to be related to both SWB and to health. In order to substantiate this argument, we investigated whether CSE is correlated with the aforementioned variables. In particular, we hypothesized that CSE will positively correlate with PA and with life satisfaction, and negatively correlate with NA and with physical and psychological health functioning. In order to validate the above arguments, we decided to investigate whether CSE will explain additional variance of health functioning above and beyond the effect of SWB. Finally, we were interested in investigating whether CSE moderates the SWB – health functioning relationship. Baron and Kenny (1986) defined moderator as the variable that alters the direction or strength of the association between two other variables.

Therefore, we assumed that the relationship between SWB and health functioning would be stronger in those with high CSE scores since health may be affected by positive personal evaluations.

Results

Table 1 presents the intercorrelation matrix along with the descriptive statistics of the study’s variables. In line with previous findings, CSE was positively correlated with PA and satisfaction with life, and negatively correlated with NA, and physical and psychological health functioning.

In order to explore the additive effect of CSE on health functioning above and beyond the effect of SWB, we estimated two hierarchical regressions – one using physical health as criterion variable, and

Discussion

This study examined the link between core self-evaluations and health, and also investigated whether CSE moderated the relationship between SWB and physical and psychological health functioning. Results of this study revealed two key points. First, there were significant relationships among CSE, SWB, and health functioning. Specifically, it was found that CSE explains additional variance of health functioning above and beyond the effect of SWB. There is ample evidence suggesting the positive

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