Construct validity of global life-satisfaction judgments: A look into the black box of self–informant agreement

•Life-domains were the key predictor of self–informant agreement.•Personality trait influence on life satisfaction is mostly mediated by life domains.•Rating biases influence self-ratings as much as valid information about life domains. Life-satisfaction judgments are ubiquitously used as indicators of wellbeing. The construct validity of these judgments relies heavily on self–informant agreement. However, agreement is necessary, but not sufficient to claim that life-satisfaction judgments are valid. In addition, self–informant agreement should be based on the use of valid information about satisfaction with important life domains. An alternative possibility is that agreement is based on impressions about personality traits. We tested these two hypotheses in a model that predicted self-ratings and informant ratings of life satisfaction from shared perceptions of personality and satisfaction with life domains. In a round-robin study of families, we found that life-domains were the key predictor of self–informant agreement. However, the Depressiveness facet of Neuroticism had a small direct effect. In addition, it was indirectly related to self–informant agreement because it predicts lower satisfaction in important life-domains that were used to form life-satisfaction judgments.