Personality and life satisfaction: a moderated mediation model of subjective health and rural-to-urban migration experience

It is important to investigate whether subjective health mediated the relationship between personality and life satisfaction, and whether the rural-to-urban migration experience moderated this relationship via subjective health. The findings could inform ways to promote subjective health and improve life satisfaction for rural-to-urban migrant adolescents and young adults. However, few studies have examined these research questions, and the present study therefore investigated them. Participants were recruited from six high schools and universities, and were selected randomly at each school using the cluster random sampling method. A total of 943 Chinese adolescents and young adults participated in the study (17.18 ± 1.76 years old; 415 with rural-to-urban migration experience and 528 without migration experience). The NEO-Five-Factor inventory, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and subjective health complaints were implemented. The results showed that subjective health was significantly correlated with both personality and life satisfaction. In addition, subjective health mediated the relationship between personality and life satisfaction. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that the direct and indirect relationships between personality and life satisfaction were moderated by the rural-to-urban migration experience. The indirect effect of the extraversion dimension of personality on life satisfaction via subjective health was weaker for rural-to-urban migrant adolescents than for nonmigrant adolescents and young adults. In summary, subjective health mediated the relationship between personality and life satisfaction; further, the rural-to-urban migration experience moderated the relationship between personality and life satisfaction via subjective health, which fills the knowledge gaps.