The High Five Model: Associations of the High Factors With Complete Mental Well-Being and Academic Adjustment in University Students

Traditionally, models of positive personality traits have referred to moral characteristics. The High Five Model (HFM) is a factor model of individual positive traits based on an inductive psycho-lexical approach. Unlike other models, in the HFM the positive characteristics were freely determined by lay people, beyond any moral tones. The HFM comprises the following factors: erudition, peace, cheerfulness, honesty, and tenacity, known as “the high factors.” This model was shown to positively exceed the capacity of normal personality to predict emotional, social, and psychological well-being. Additionally, this model is negatively associated with non-transmissible diseases, psychopathological symptoms, and psychopathological personality traits. This study aimed to increase the validation of the HFM, by analyzing the relationships among this model and positive mental health, psychopathological symptoms, academic adjustment, and academic performance in university students. Another objective was to study the association between complete mental well-being (i.e., high well-being and low psychopathological symptomatology) and the high factors of the HFM. The sample consisted of 256 university students. Correlations were calculated, and the two-step cluster analysis was used to obtain profiles. The results showed that tenacity and erudition high factors are positively associated with academic achievement and academic adjustment. Finally, each of the high factors was positively associated with complete mental well-being. The HFM has a broad scope, as it is related not only to psychological variables (e.g., well-being or psychopathological symptomatology) but also to academic performance (e.g., adjustment and achievement) in university students.

"high" for the factors of the HFM was selected, on the one hand, to show that these factors are linked to the individual characteristics that lay people value highly or positively. On the other hand, they are considered positive poles, in relative terms, of the Big Five model factors. It was found that the high factors of the HFM are positively associated with the Big Five factors. The high factor erudition is positively associated with the Big Five personality factor openness, peace with emotional stability, cheerfulness with extraversion, honesty with agreeableness, and tenacity with conscientiousness (Cosentino & Castro Solano, 2017). However, these relations should not be taken as exclusive and biunivocal but, rather, each factor of the HFM is primarily linked to one of the factors of the Big Five model, but secondarily to other factors. The results of previous studies on moral traits (e.g., virtues or character strengths) resemble the findings of the studies on the HFM, since moral traits are generally predictors of life satisfaction and different types of psychological well-being (e.g., Castro Solano & Cosentino, 2016;Cosentino & Castro Solano, 2015;Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004). In addition, moral traits are predictors of positive outcomes, such as good job performance (Harzer & Ruch, 2014) or good academic achievement (Cosentino & Castro Solano, 2012;Lounsbury, Fisher, Levy, & Welsh, 2009).
It is necessary to consider why personological variables, in this case positive traits, are expected to correlate with academic performance, given that the personality variables were not designed to predict such an outcome (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997). A corollary of the lexical hypothesis is that the more valued a personological characteristic, the more descriptors for this characteristic will be found in the natural language. If the lexical hypothesis is correct, then the dimensions of the HFM should be related to behaviors and outcomes that have been independently recognized as important (Poropat, 2009). Performance in both the academic and labor performance and personality measures would mirror corresponding correlations of intelligence with personality.
Therefore, not only do the personality variables predict important socially valued psychological outcomes, such as academic achievement and adjustment, but they are also directly related to the individual's willingness to perform.
A validation study of the HFM model was conducted among university students attending different undergraduate courses. The complete optimal functioning, the construct we related to the HFM, was assessed in terms of academic performance (academic adjustment and academic achievement), indicators of positive mental health (i.e., high hedonic and eudemonic well-being), and absence of psychopathological symptoms. It was assumed that the HFM makes it possible to predict positive results. Therefore, the objectives of this research were 1) to study the associations of the HFM factors with self-reported academic achievement and self-perceived academic adjustment in university students, and 2) to study the associations of the HFM factors with indicators of positive mental health and absence of psychopathological symptoms in university students.
This was a convenience sample of urban Argentinean university students who study and work to afford their education. Participation was voluntary, consented, and anonymous. No economic incentives were given for participation. The sample was recruited by advanced psychology students doing their research practice at the end of their undergraduate studies.

Instruments High Five Inventory
The High Five Inventory (HFI; Cosentino & Castro Solano, 2017) is an instrument to assess the HFM factors, known as high factors: erudition, peace, cheerfulness, honesty, and tenacity. This instrument was developed through an inductive procedure originating from lay people's point of view about human positive characteristics (moral or non-moral). The scale consists of 23 items. Participants are asked to answer each item (e.g., I am patient) on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 7 (Always). The higher the score of each HFI subscale, the higher the high factor. The HFI has convergent and divergent validity in relation to Peterson and Seligman's Castro Solano & Cosentino 659 (2004) Values in Action classification. The HFI also has incremental validity, that is, beyond the factors or facets of the Big Five, the HFI increased the prediction of the three dimensions of Positive Mental Health model of Keyes (2005). Additionally, the HFI presented a good fit to the data from both the initial (e.g., CFI = 0.968) and the confirmation (e.g., CFI = 0.963) samples. The alpha and omega reliabilities for each factor were greater than .80. The internal consistency of the high factors in this sample is shown in Table 2.

Symptom Checklist 27
The tremely). In this study, the GSI was used as an indicator of symptomatology. The SCL-27 dimensions were strongly positively associated with each other (Kuhl et al., 2010). The discrimination capacity between general and clinical population is similar to that of the SCL-90-R. This short version is often recommended for screening in clinical and research studies (Müller, Postert, Beyer, Furniss, & Achtergarde, 2010) because it has demonstrated adequate levels of sensitivity, specificity, discrimination, and internal consistency, compared with other short versions of the SCL-90-R. The alpha reliability of the general scale for the sample of this study was .92.

Mental Health Continuum-Short Form
The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) (Keyes, 2005) is composed of 14 items that evaluate emotional (3 items), psychological (6 items), and social (5 items) well-being. Participants answer how they have felt over the previous month, in a Likert-format option, ranging from 0 (Never) to 5 (Every day  & Keyes, 2011;Petrillo, Capone, Caso, & Keyes, 2015;Robitschek & Keyes, 2009;Yin, He, & Fu, 2013). The Argentinean version of the MHC-SF was used in the present study. The psychometric properties of this version, such as adequate reliability, factor structure, and convergent validity, have been confirmed (Lupano Perugini, de la Iglesia, Castro Solano, & Keyes, 2017). In the sample of the present study, the internal consistency was α = .81 for emotional well-being, α = .79 for psychological well-being, and α = .80 for social well-being.

Academic Adjustment Scale
The Academic Adjustment Scale (Anderson, Guan, & Koc, 2016, adapted by Castro Solano & Cosentino, 2017 was designed to assess international students' self-perception of adjustment to university life. The Argentinean version of this scale includes five out of the nine original items. This inventory is answered on a 5-Likert-type scale, ranging from 0 (Almost never) to 5 (Always). The items of the Argentinean adaptation are grouped into a single factor that denotes satisfaction with their adjustment. The internal consistency for this sample was high (omega = .81).

Sociodemographic Data
A survey was designed to gather sociodemographic characteristics of the population (e.g., sex, age, type of educational institution).

Procedure
The battery of instruments was administered by advanced psychology students attending a university located in Buenos Aires city and performing their professional research practice. They were instructed to contact university students residing in Buenos Aires City and the surrounding area, who responded individually. Instruments with missing data were not included (nine protocols were eliminated). The data were analyzed with the statistical package SPSS version 17. Descriptive statistics and correlations among variables were calculated. Four clusters of complete mental well-being were obtained and the relationships among these groups and the high factors were established.

Descriptive Statistics and Multiple Regression Analysis among Variables
Firstly, descriptive statistics of the variables included in the study were calculated (Table 2).
Secondly, successive series of stepwise multiple regression analysis were performed, including the five high factors as independent variables and the other variables of the study. The high factors peace, tenacity, cheerfulness, and erudition accounted for between 16 and 25% of the variance in well-being, depending on the type

Complete Mental Well-Being: Cluster Analysis
The next step was to obtain clusters of complete mental well-being for the complete optimal functioning, under-
Associations between CMW groups and the HFM factors were analyzed. A MANOVA was conducted, comparing the five high factors across the CMW groups. Statistically significant differences were observed among the groups of CMW (Wilks' Lambda = .73, F(5, 248) = 5.52, p < .001, η 2 = .010). Univariate contrasts and post-hoc analyses were performed afterward. Significant differences were found among all clusters of CMW and the high factors. In most cases, the high factors of the HFM allowed us to differentiate between all the groups, as follows: For the erudition factor (F(3, 252) = 12.61, p < .001, η 2 = .13), post-hoc analyses (Tukey-b, p < .05) showed differences between the four groups of CMW. The highest scores on erudition were found in the group with the highest CMW, while the lowest scores on erudition were present in the group with the lowest CMW.
For cheerfulness (F(3, 252) = 7.58, p < .001, η 2 = .08), post-hoc contrast (Tukey-b, p < .05) showed differences between the inferior CMW group and the other three groups. The group with the poorest CMW presented the lowest levels of the cheerfulness factor. Therefore the better the CMW, the higher the high factor.
Finally, no differences in academic achievement (F(3, 252) = 0.94, ns) but differences in perceived academic adjustment (F(3, 252) = 13.53, p < .01) were found, the greatest differences being among superior, intermediate, and inferior CMW groups (Tukey-b, p < .05). While the highest academic adjustment was observed in the superior CMW group, the lowest levels were found in the inferior CMW group.

Discussion
The HFM is a model of positive personality traits with broad potential. Previous studies confirmed the replicabili- The main contribution of this research was to provide additional validity to the HFM. To investigate whether the high factors, besides being protective of mental health and promoters of well-being, were able to predict academic variables, a sample of university students was studied. As expected, the results of this study showed that the high factors are not only related to well-being in an adult population but are also associated with academic adjustment to university life and academic achievement.
Tenacity ( The personality model of the Big Five posits that human personality is composed of five basic dimensions named neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Among these personality traits, conscientiousness is the predictor most frequently associated with both academic success and organizational success (e.g., Zimmerman, 2008). Individuals with high scores on conscientious tend to be hardworking, systematic, and dutiful (Trautwein, Lüdtke, Roberts, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2009), features that contribute to students' success. This trait is also important in student retention. A meta-analysis conducted by Trapmann, Hell, Hirn, and Schuler (2007) concluded that conscientiousness is a constant predictor of college grades. Trautwein's et al. (2009) study suggests that conscientiousness is also positively associated with academic achievement. The tenacity factor of the HFM (expressed in positive characteristics such as dedication, persistence, effort, and industriousness) is conceptually and empirically related to the conscientiousness trait (Cosentino & Castro Solano, 2017) and therefore we considered conscientiousness as a proxy variable for the tenacity positive factor. As a result, the findings of this study for the prediction of academic success are consistent with those obtained with the Big Five model (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Judge, Heller, & Mount, 2002;Tross, Harper, Osher, & Kneidinger, 2000;Zimmerman, 2008). Along the same line, another positive trait associated with academic adjustment was found to be erudition (expressed in positive characteristics such as intelligent, wise, visionary, cultured, genius, and ingenious). The self-perception that one has positive qualities related to erudition conceptually refers to self-efficacy related to knowledge. The relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance is extensively documented in the literature (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996;Chemers, Hu, & Garcia, 2001;Greene, Miller, Crowson, Duke, & Akey, 2004;Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990;Schunk, 1994;Sharma & Silbereisen, 2007;Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994).
In short, the results of this study provide additional validity to the HFM as a predictor of CMW for the complete optimal functioning (i.e., low presence of psychopathological symptoms and high hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing). The five positive traits adequately identified different gradations in the optimal functioning continuum (from positive complete mental health to negative complete mental health). High scores for the high factors were found in the most adaptive groups while low scores on these factors were found in the least adaptive groups, that is, those with less mental well-being. Therefore, the results of this research provide additional evidence to support previous findings that high factors are indicators not only of mental health but also of lower risks of medical illness in the general population (Castro Solano & Cosentino, 2017). In this sense, previous conclusions could be generalized to university students.

Limitations and Future Perspectives
A possible limitation of our research is that only self-reported academic grades were used for academic achievement. Using objective grades obtained directly from educational institutions might serve as a more reliable source of information. In addition, this study was cross-sectional. A longitudinal study could have provided more conclusive evidence of the causal relationships in which the high factors could be considered independent variables. Besides, because this study aimed to show the links of the high factors with various positive variables, there was no control for the factors of the Big Five model. Further studies could include the Big Five factors as control variables to determine the contribution that the high factors make to the variables studied here, beyond the explanation of the Big Five factors. Future studies should also address the relationship between the HFM and academic dropout, as well as the behavior of high factors during a university academic period. Additionally, the role of the HFM as a predictor of good job performance could be studied.

Concluding Remarks
To summarize, the assessment of positive traits derived from a psycho-lexical approach, evaluated through a brief measurement instrument such as the HFI, can predict both complete mental health for optimal functioning and other positive outcomes such as academic performance (e.g., academic adjustment and achievement).
The items of the HFI use descriptors of the HFM model that are easy to understand and rapid to respond, taking no more than 5 minutes to fill out. Consequently, the HFI can be considered a reliable, valid, and efficient assessment of positive personality traits and a good alternative to the classic inventories and other personality assessment techniques that consist of a large number of items and/or more complex evaluation.