Indiviula Differneces Flashcards
Two types of individual differences
Hardiness and personality factors
Psychologists associated with personality factors
Friedman and roseman
4 types of personality’s
A,B,C,D
What is behaviour pattern characterised by
Time pressure, competitiveness and Hostility
Type A behaviour
Time pressured always working to deadlines, unhappy doing nothing
Competitive always oriented toward achievement, play to win
Hostile easily irritated and impatient easily angered
What does high levels of type A cause
Increase vulnerability to heart disease
Type b behviour
Less competitive, less hostile and more patient , easy going
Type c personality
- Suppress emotions, non assertive, likeable people
- cope with stress in a way that gnomes own needs in order to please other
What has type c behaviour been linked to
- linked to cancer
- research suggest chronic stressors affect the immune system and increase risk of cancer
- women whose breast lumps were found to be cancerous were also found to have expressed lower level of anger type c suggest link between cancer and anger suppression
Type D personality
Like routine and not change, shy away from responsibility, highly obedient because the lack self assurance and fear rejection and become stress
What are type D personality’s prone to
cardiovascular disease up to 53% of cardiac patients are type D supporting assumption type D personality might be linked with increase for cardiovascular dieses
Key study for personality types
Friedman and rosenman
Aim: link between type A personality with CHD
Prodcedure:
- longitudinal study 3000 men aged 39-59
- examined signs of CHD to excluded individual already showing signs of CHD
- personalities types assed via interview, 25 questions and how they respond to everyday pressure
- interview conducted in a way to provocative way to elicit type A behaviour
- men categories in either type A or B
Found:
- after 81/2 years 257 developed CHD
- 12% type A Experience heart attack compared to 6% type B
- Type A higher blood pressure and higher cholesterol
- twice as many type A died of a cardiovascular problems
Conclusion:
- suggest personality traits are at risk of developing stress related illness and that psychological factors can have a physiological effect
Evaluation of personality types
Gender bias
- resend conducted on males therefore difficult to make assumptions about whether female type A Personality are also at a higher risk of devilling cardiovascular dieses
Direct link between personality and illness
- supported to by research people with depression 41% more sticky platelet in their blood linked to cardiovascular than non depressives
- patients platters dropped when on antidepressants
- mood seems to influence the body’s stress response directly
Who developed hardy personality
Kobasa and maddi
What is hardiness
A range of personality characteristics which help prevent us from feeling stressed
What are the characteristics of hardiness
Control
- believe you have control over what happens in your life rather than thinking it was controlled by external factors
Commitment
- sense of Involvement with the world around you
- describes people with a strong sense of purpose in their activities
Challenge
- whether you see the problem that will face you as a challenge to be overcome or a threat/stressor
Key research for hardiness
Kobasa
- studied 800 American business executives
- assessed stress using homes and Ralph’s SRRS
- 150 patients classified as high stress according to their SRRS scores some had low illness record and some had high
Found:
- individuals high stress/low illness group scored high on all characteristics of hardy personality
- individuals high stress/ high illness group scored lower on these
Conclusion:
- suggests something else modifying stress as I divulge experiencing same stress levels had different illness records
- believed hardy personality encourages resilience
Supporting research for hardy personality
Lifton et al
measured hardiness 5 US university to see if hardiness was related to the likelihood of completing their degree found students low in hardiness were disproportionally reps resented in the drop outs and students high in hardiness were more likely to succeed
Evaluation of hardiness
Correlational
- cannot be sure that is was hardiness that had the beneficial effect in health or greater health making people hardier
- perhaps hardy people are more likely to look after their health
Gender differences
- hardiness only found to offer as a buffering effect against stress in men suggest that hardy women are less protected against the effects of stress related illness so hardiness doesn’t apply to both genders
Self report
- self report questionnaires which are completed retrospectively
- ptps might not recall any stress related illness accurately or may not be honest about the extent they are effect by them
- negative effect on validity of research about hardiness
