Inside the Happy Personality: Personality States, Situation Experience, and State Affect Mediate the Relation Between Personality and Affect

Abstract Personality traits are strongly related to affect, but the mechanisms accounting for this association remain mostly unclear. We test a new theoretical model that proposes that personality states, situations, and affective experiences mediate the relation between personality traits and trait affect. Data from an experience sampling study (N=206; 4,381 observations) indicate that personality traits are associated with personality states and experienced situation characteristics, personality states and experienced situation characteristics are associated with state affect, state affect is associated with trait affect, and that these variables indeed mediate the relation between personality traits and trait affect. These results emphasize the importance of daily experiences for trait-level variables and call for further research on the interplay between personality, behavior, situations, and affect.