Predicting Life Satisfaction According to Adolescent Girls' Defense Mechanisms and Personality Traits

This descriptive-correlational study aimed to predict life satisfaction according to defense mechanisms (reasoning, projection, denial, omnipotence, inefficiency, transition to action, physicalization, autistic imagination, isolation, passive aggression, displacement, suppression, sublimation, humor, prediction, false altruism, reaction organization, rationalization, and undoing) and personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, flexibility, agreeableness, and responsibility). The population included all girl secondary high school students in the city of Qom. 377 girls were selected as the sample by the multistage sampling. The data were gathered by the questionnaires of defense styles, personality traits, and life satisfaction, and they were analyzed using the correlation method and multiple regression analysis. Based on the results, prediction, denial, and isolation as three defense mechanisms, and neuroticism and extraversion as two personality traits can predict life satisfaction, but flexibility, responsibility, and agreeableness, and other defense mechanisms cannot predict life satisfaction. Therefore, it is possible to improve adolescent girls' life satisfaction by correctly planning and teaching personality traits and defense mechanisms to them.