The Role of Age and Personality in the Subjective Evaluation of Significant Life Events

ABSTRACT: People often evaluate significant life events by the extent to which they believe these events have affected their well-being and health. Such appraisals—rather than the mere occurrence of an event—may be more closely related to well-being and health. Personality may be linked to how people appraise events as having a more positive or negative impact on their well-being and health, and these associations may vary with age. To test this hypothesis, we conducted pre-registered multi-level analyses in a large sample of German-speaking adults (n = 6688; 18–90 years), who identified the most impactful event from the prior two years and rated its positive and negative impact on their subjective well-being, physical health, and mental health. Emotional stability and conscientiousness were the most consistent correlates of more favorable evaluations (i.e., higher positive and lower negative impact). However, these patterns varied with age: conscientiousness was more strongly related to favorable evaluations in younger adults, and emotional stability in older adults. These findings align with regulatory capacities across adulthood: self-regulatory capacities may be particularly relevant when adult roles are being built in young adulthood, whereas affect-regulatory capacities may be particularly relevant when losses loom, and emotion regulation is prioritized in older adulthood.