Happiness is a thing called stable extraversion: Testing eysenck's hypothesis among Hebrew-speaking students in Israel

Eysenck's classic dimensional model of personality, originated in the 1950s, distinguished between the two orthogonal dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism. Operationalised through the Eysenckian family of personality measures, the extraversion scale and the neuroticism scale have defined a two-dimensional psychological space within which a range of personal and social attitudes have been consistently located. Within this context, Eysenck's thesis, connecting positive psychology and personality psychology, that stable extraverts record higher levels of happiness has been previously established and confirmed mainly within the linguistic and cultural contexts of Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA. The present study examines Eysenck's thesis among a sample of 284 Hebrew-speaking female undergraduate students in Israel who completed the short-form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised alongside the Oxford Happiness Inventory. The data supported Eysenck's thesis by reporting a positive correlation with extraversion (r = .42, p > .001) and a negative correlation with neuroticism (r = -.39, p > .001). In the light of these findings questions are raised regarding whether the Oxford Happiness Inventory may have operationalised the notion of happiness in ways that advantage extraverts and disadvantage introverts.