Personality Factors and Perceived Social Support as Determinants of Psychological Well-Being among University Students

Sense of well-being is one of the most important goals which individuals strive for. With an increasingly competitive existence, the pressures and challenges confronting the individual are extremely high, therefore, it is difficult to maintain this sense of well-being at all stages of life especially adolescence and early adulthood. The present paper aimed to study psychological well-being in relation to personality factors and perceived social support among a sample of students studying in Aligarh Muslim University (N = 311). Psychological Well-being Scale constructed by Carol Ryff (1989) was used to assess psychological well-being. The tool used to assess personality factors was NEO FFI Personality Inventory by Paul T. Costa and Robert Mc Crae (1992) and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) was used to measure perceived social support. Results showed that three personality factors namely Neuroticism, Openness and Conscientiousness and Perceived social support from family emerged as significant predictors of psychological well-being.