The Circumplex Model of Occupational Well-being: Its Relation with Personality

The purpose of this study was to identify different types of occupational well-being based on the circumplex model (Russell, 1980; Warr, 1994), and to examine how these types are related to the Big Five personality profiles. The middle-aged participants were drawn from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (N = 183). Application of a person-oriented approach with latent profile analysis yielded four types of occupational well-being: (a) Engaged (30%), (b) Ordinary (54%), (c) Bored-out (9%), and (d) Burned-out (7%). The personality profiles showed a strong relationship with these occupational well-being types. Resilient individuals (low in neuroticism and high in the other Big Five traits) typically belonged to the Engaged type, whereas Overcontrolled individuals (high in neuroticism and low in the other Big Five traits) typically belonged to the Burned-out type. Overall, the findings suggest that personality can be consistently located within the circumplex model of occupational well-being.