Hardiness Flashcards
What is Hardiness?
A set of personality traits defined by Kobasa(1979). The traits are felt to protect a person from the negative effects of stress and explain individual differences on how people cope with stressful situations.
How did Kobasa come up with the hardy personality?
Compared two groups of middle aged executives on responses to recent stressful life events. Both groups had a similar level of stress in terms of recent events, but while one group became ill afterwards, the other group did not. After analysing the data, she found that the only major difference between the two groups was that the ‘ill’ group showed fewer characteristics of the personality type she referred to as hardiness.
What are the three features of hardiness?
Commitment
Challenge
Control
What is commitment in hardiness and give an example?
Having a strong sense of purpose, and viewing tasks in relation to the effort they take to complete effectively. For example, someone with high levels of hardiness might be committed to getting an A grade in Psychology, and will recognise that to achieve this they will need to work really hard all the way through the course.
What is challenge in the hardy personality and give an example?
Viewing change as a challenge to be mastered, rather than a source of stress. They recognise that change is a normal part of life, and it is not something to be feared. For example, a person with high levels of hardiness who finds themselves facing redundancy from work may welcome the challenger to seek out a new career rather than worrying about being out of work.
What is control in the hardy personality and give an example?
Feeling that they have the ability to take control of any situation, and that they can influence the outcome of a situation. For example, someone with a high level of hardiness could be described as having an internal locus of control. They are likely to take personal responsibility for what happens to them, meaning that they will not give up easily when faced with potential stressors.
finish the evaluation: the concept of hardiness has a useful application to real life
Hardiness training can help people cope with stress in their everyday life by buffering the negative effects. Therefore the research has high ecological validity.
finish the evaluation: most research into hardiness is conducted on stress that occurs in people’s natural life
Meaning that it is more ethical than deliberately exposing people to artificial stress
finish the evaluation: some people would argue that hardiness does not exist as a personality type but rather that it reflects a positive way of thinking
So rather than being hardy these people may just adopt positive thinking styles that help them deal with stress more easily.
finish the evaluation : research to support
Wiebe (1991) found that participants high in hardy personality traits had a higher level of tolerance for frustration, perceived stressful tasks as less threatening, and were more likely to approach tasks with a positive rather than negative attitude when compared to participants low in hardiness m. She also found that males with high hardiness showed a lower level of physiological arousal in response to stressful tasks.
finish the evaluation: real life application
Maddi et al(2002) compared two groups of university students deemed high risk for drop out failure. The experimental group were given hardiness training during their first semester, while the control group were not. At the end of the first year the retention rate for the experimental group was higher and showed a higher increase in assessment scores than the control group. This suggested that being trained in hardiness may make people cope better with stressful situations such as starting university.
