The relations among well-being outcomes and motives, religiosity, and personality factors in Malaysian muslim university students Naser Aghababaei1, Mustafa Tekke2 Journal of Research & Health Abstract Social Development & Health Promotion Research Center A major focus of attention in psychology has been on the Vol. 8, No.6, Nov & Dec 2018 consequences and determinants of well-being. Religiosity Pages: 565- 571 and personality have both been shown to predict well-being DOI: 10.29252/jrh.8.6.565 Brief Article and mental health, but the two predictors have not often been investigated together. The relations among well-being 1. Correspondence to: Department of outcomes and motives, religiosity, and personality factors were Behavioral Sciences, the Institute for Research and Development in the Humanities investigated in a Malay muslim context. 255 volunteer university (SAMT), Jalale-Ale-Ahmad, Yadegare Emam students completed satisfaction with life scale, subjective Bridge, Tehran, Iran Email: [email protected] happiness scale, rosenberg’s self-esteem scale, hedonic and 2. Department of Psychology and Counseling, eudaimonic motives for activities, religious orientation scale- Faculty of Education, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia revised, gratitude toward God questionnaire, and the 60-item honesty–humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness personality inventory-revised. The Received: 12 Agu 2014 Accepted: 21 Sep 2014 data were analyzed using the statistics such as partial correlation, and hierarchical regression. Results showed that religiosity How to cite this article: Aghababaei N, Tekke M. The relations among well-being outcomes measures were associated with higher levels of honesty–humility, and motives, religiosity, and personality conscientiousness, agreeableness, happiness, life satisfaction, factors in Malaysian Muslim university students. J Research & Health2018; 8(6): self-esteem, and a eudaimonic way of living. Religiosity had null 565- 571. or weak relationships with well-being outcomes and motives, beyond broad personality factors. Religiosity and honesty- humility may be relatively more important for eudaimonia than for hedonia. Keywords: Happiness, Personality, Religion, Well-being Introduction Subjective Well-Being (SWB), a person’s and personality [5]. Extraversion influences cognitive and emotional evaluations of his people’s positive affects, whereas Neuroticism life, includes what lay people call happiness determines people’s negative affects [6]. [1]. People from around the world strongly Furthermore, a growing body of research has desire SWB or happiness, and happy persons found positive links between happiness and are successful across multiple life domains, various aspects of religiousness. including marriage, friendship, income, job Religiosity and personality have both and academic performance, and health not been shown to predict happiness, but only because success makes people happier, the two predictors have not often been but also because happiness engenders success investigated together. Francis and Lester [2-4]. Personality has long been recognized as [7] found that, among college students in a strong predictor of happiness. There is also the United States, the positive link between some evidence of a genetic link between SWB religiosity and happiness is independent Aghababaei and Tekke of the personality factors of Eysenck. Using means of convenience for self-serving social single-item measures of life satisfaction and or psychological ends), associates with religiosity, Aghababaei [8] found that the and psychological adjustment, including positive links between religiosity and SWB happiness and also with personality factors are independent of individual differences such as Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in the HEXACO (Honesty–Humility, [4,13-15], we expect to find the same pattern Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, of results among our sample. Additionally, Conscientiousness, Openness) personality with few notable exceptions that have factors. Robbins, Francis and Edwards [9] found shown differential and overlapping effects a positive correlation between prayer frequency of hedonic and eudaimonic approaches to and happiness, but only before controlling for well-being [16], there has been very little individual differences in eysenck’s personality work comparing hedonia and eudiamnia. We factors. Additionally, it has been found that would like to see how these two approaches trait gratitude explained additional variance in converge and diverge in their associations life satisfaction and mental health when added with religiosity and personality factors. to religious gratitude, but the reverse was not the case [10]. Others have even found negative Method links between religion and SWB [11]. Given This study used a cross-sectional design, and these conflicting results, further research is a convenience non-random sampling method. necessary to explore the relations among Data were collected using self-administered religion, happiness and personality. questionnaires during the 2014 academic In this paper, we explore whether religiousness year. Participants from the international relates to well-being outcomes and motives Islamic university Malaysia, recruited orally among a sample of Malaysian muslims, a and through advertisements on campus, cultural context where psychological studies responded to questionnaire booklets in group have not been frequently conducted. Higher settings of various sizes. All participation levels of well-being are expected to associate was voluntary, and in conformity with with higher religiosity, and Extraversion institutional ethical guidelines. (defined in the HEXACO framework by Participants were 194 female and 61 male facets social self-esteem, social boldness, Malaysian muslim university students, sociability, and liveliness). As with previous with ages ranging from 18 to 56 (mean studies conducted both in Iran and in the age= 24.38). Participants completed the United States [8,12], religiosity measures are questionnaire booklets which consisted of the expected to positively correlate with Honesty– English versions of the following measures. Humility (defined in the HEXACO framework A five point Likert-type scale was applied by facets sincerity, fairness, greed-avoidance, for all items described in this section, unless and modesty), Agreeableness (defined by indicated otherwise facets forgiveness, gentleness, flexibility, and The widely used 5-item Satisfaction with patience), and Conscientiousness (defined by Life scale was used to measure the cognitive facets organization, diligence, perfectionism, aspect of SWB. A two-month test-retest and prudence). We also are interested in correlation of this scale was 0.82, and its knowing whether the links between religiosity coefficient alpha was 0.87 [17]. The 4-item and well-being remain beyond personality Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) was used factors. Since a host of studies have shown that as a measure of global happiness. Sample intrinsic religiosity (defined as a mature form of item is ‘‘In general I consider myself: 1= religiosity serving as a master motive for one’s not a very happy person to 7= a very happy way of life), more than extrinsic religiosity person’’. Coefficient alphas of the SHS (defined as the immature faith serving as a ranged from 0.79 to 0.94, and a one-month 566 Well-being, religion and personality test-rest reliability was 0.85 [18]. Rosenberg’s was used to measure religious gratitude 10-item Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure [22]. Coefficient alphas of the gratitude self-esteem, a construct distinguishable questionnaire were from 0.89 to 0.92 [21]. from, yet closely related to SWB [19]. The Personality factors were measured using the 9-item Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motives for 60-item HEXACO Personality Inventory- Activities was applied to assess eudaimonia Revised, assessing Honesty–Humility, and hedonia as motives for activities [16]. This Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, newly designed scale asks participants to what Conscientiousness, and Openness. The degree they typically approach their activities internal consistency reliabilities of the with hedonic (e.g. “Seeking relaxation”) or HEXACO factors in a college sample ranged eudaimonic (e.g. “Seeking to pursue excellence from 0.77 to .80 [23]. or a personal ideal”) intentions. Coefficient The data were analyzed using descriptive alphas of the eudaimonia and hedonia scales and inferential statistics including partial were 0.82 and 0.85, respectively [16]. The correlation, and hierarchical regression 14-item Religious Orientation Scale-Revised analyses. The data were analyzed using the was used to measure intrinsic, extrinsic software SPSS-18. personal, and extrinsic social religiosity [20]. Coefficient alphas of these religiosity Results scales ranged from 0.75 to 0.85 [21]. A More demographic information has been 4-item Gratitude toward God Questionnaire depicted in Table 1. Table 1 The demographic information of the study sample Gender 194 (76.1%) female 61 (23.9%) male Age Mean: 24.38 SD: 5.30 aa Marital status 220 (86.3%) single 35 (13.7) married Religion 255 (100%) Muslim Degree 61 (23.9%) graduate 194 (76.1%) undergraduate Ethnicity 254 (99.6%) Malay 1 (0.4%) unspecified Table 2 provides intercorrelations among the motive (p=0.01) and 1% of variance in study variables. As expected, religiosity was hedonic motive (p=0.068), beyond HEXACO