The present study focused on relationships between personality traits, self-efficacy, self-esteem and basic trust, and well-being in context of entrepreneurial activity. Participants were 301 unemployed people, 157 of whom had received a grant from an employment agency to start their own business. Participants completed measures of personality traits, self-efficacy, self-esteem, basic trust, satisfaction with life, positive and negative affect. To verify if beliefs about the self and about the world mediated relationships between personality traits and well-being we conducted a multiple-sample SEM. The study results confirm that the beliefs mediate relationships between personality traits and well-being. They also show that different types of beliefs serve a different function, depending on an individual’s circumstances. Among grant acceptors, self-efficacy did not impact well-being, while self-esteem and basic trust had similar functions in both groups.

The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between Big-Five personality traits, perceived self-efficacy (GSES) and dimensions of occupational burnout in accordance with Christina Maslach’s three-factor burnout model (emotional burnout, depersonalization, perceived lack of own accomplishments). Data collected among 271 teachers (82% female) aged 20–68 confirmed findings from previous research that four personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness) are correlated with burnout and that they are significant predictors for all dimensions of burnout. In addition, it was shown that GSES plays a moderating role as a buffer that protects people with high levels of neuroticism from a sense of lack of own accomplishments. It was also found that GSES plays a mediating role for the relationship between Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism and perceived lack of own accomplishments and that it is a suppressor for the relationship of neuroticism with emotional exhaustion. The results are discussed in the context of personality theories and their possible applications.