Stress And Personality Flashcards
Friedman and Rosenman
Investigated the effects of a Type A personality on stress related illness.
Used a sample of 3,200 men between 39-59 and assessed their personality using a structured interview. They were followed up 8 years later to see who had a heart disease.
They found that those with a Type A personality were 2X more likely to develop heart disease than those with Type B
Evaluation of Friedman and Rosenman
:) Longitudinal, can see the casual relationship between stress and heart disease as they measured personality before
:) Control of extraneous variables- factors such as obesity and smoking were taken into consideration
:( Androcentric- only done on American males of a certain age, cannot be generalised
:( Does not tell us which aspect of a type A personality causes the illness
Type A Personality features
Hostile/Angry (though they may hide this), competitive, self critical, feel under time pressure
Type B Personality Features
Can express their feelings calmly, easy going, co-operative, self confident, does one thing at a time, patient, sensitive to others feelings
Why is type A personality associated with stress
- They seek out pressure
- They have an overactive biological stress response
Lee and Watanuki
Investigated the difference in type A and B stress response by measuring the heart rate of 14 Type A and 16 B students. They were shown distressing images, such as a car accident, and then relaxing image.
The results found that type A personalities had a higher heart rate when shown the unpleasant images than type B and their heart rate took longer to return to normal rate
Lee and Watanuki evaluation
:) The results were measured using objective measures
:) Lab study - controlled environment
:( Ethical issues - may be raised from showing distressing images
:( Small sample - can’t be generalised
Hardy Personality
Control
Commitment
Challenge
Kobassa
Investigated whether hardiness helps prevent stress related illness. She measured 150 male business executives with a high score on the SRRS and measured their hardiness levels. She then looked at their illness levels and split them into a low illness group and high illness group.
Those with low stress had a higher hardiness score
Kobassa Evaluation
:( Low population validity - Androcentric, only on one profession so cannot be generalised
:) Other studies can show further support
Maddi
Investigated the effect of hardiness on illness with employees in telephone companies where redundancies were taking place. The stress levels and hardiness were measured.
2/3 of employees had high stress and the 1/3 that didn’t had high hardiness
Evaluation of Maddi and Kobassa
:( Correlational - cannot tell cause and effect
:) Practical implications - SEAL in the USA army are given the training to increase their hardiness in order to reduce stress related illnesses
