Self-Construal and Psychological Wellbeing in Scottish and Italian Young Adults

The present study investigated the role of self-construal in explaining psychological wellbeing in two European countries. Eight hundred and fifteen Italian and Scottish students completed measures of life-satisfaction, optimism, subjective happiness and a scale measuring interdependent and/or independent self-construal. We obtained three main findings. First of all, scores on the scales of psychological wellbeing were positively associated with scores on the independent scale and independence was found to be the factor that best explained variance in psychological wellbeing. Second, and contrary to our prediction, the Italian group had significantly higher scores for the independence scale than Scots. Third, gender was found to have a significant effect with regard to interdependence of self, life satisfaction, and optimism.