Stress : Individual Differences In Stress Flashcards
What is personality?
It can be thought of as a set of characteristic behaviours, attitudes and general temperament that remain relatively stable and distinguish one individual from another
What is type A personality?
participants were competitive, hostile and ambitious. Demonstrating many different characteristics; such as impatience, workaholism and are always rushing around
What is type B personality?
participants were non-competitive relaxed and easy going.
What is Type C personality?
They are ‘people pleasers’ they strive to be compliant , patient beyond all reason , passive and self-sacrificing
What was the FRIEDMAN AND ROSENMAN’S (1959, 1974) study? (Aim)
Aim :
- Friedman and Rosenman aimed to test the hypothesis that Type A individuals (time pressured, competitive and easily angered individual; a high-stress personality type) were more likely to develop coronary heart disease (CHD) than Type Bs (relatively relaxed individuals and not showing type A characteristics).
Procedure
- This was testing their observations as cardiologists that their patients displayed a common behaviour pattern consisting of three key components: impatience, competitiveness, and hostility. Thus, a positive correlation between Type A behaviour and CHD was sought by various forms of stress.
What was the FRIEDMAN AND ROSENMAN’S (1959, 1974) study? (Procedure)
• A self-selected sample of nearly 3200 Californian men aged between 39 and 59 years was used.
• This was a longitudinal study, as the participants were healthy at the outset in 1960 and were assessed over a period of 8 1⁄2 years.
• Part one of the study included a structured interview and observation, which assessed personality type and current health status.
• Personality type was determined by the amount of impatience, competitiveness, and hostility reported and observed during the structured interview and from their answers to questions.
• On the basis of the Structured Interview, participants were classified as A (Type A), X (equal amounts of Type A and Type B), or B (fully Type B). Part two of the study was the follow-up 8 1⁄2 years later when incidence of CHD was recorded.
• A correlational analysis was carried out to test the association between Type A/B behaviour pattern and CHD
What was the FRIEDMAN AND ROSENMAN’S (1959, 1974) study? (Results)
• Of the original sample of 3200, 257 participants had developed coronary heart disease (CHD) during the 8 1⁄2 years, 70% of whom had been classified as Type A.
• This was nearly twice as many as were Type B, even when other factors (e.g. blood pressure, smoking, obesity) known to be associated with heart disease were taken into account.
• Compared to Type Bs, Type As were found to have higher levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline (both associated with stress) and cholesterol. A significant but moderate positive correlation was found between personality type and coronary heart disease.
What was the FRIEDMAN AND ROSENMAN’S (1959, 1974) study? (Conclusions )
- The research shows that Type A behaviour pattern is correlated to CHD.
Friedman and Rosenman concluded that the Type A behaviour pattern increases the individual’s experience of stress, which increases physiological reactivity, and that in turn increases vulnerability to CHD. - The high levels of the stress hormones suggest that they do experience more stress than Type Bs.
- The stress response inhibits digestion, which leads to the higher level of cholesterol in the blood, and this places Type As at risk of CHD.
- Implications include the need to reduce the “harmful” Type A characteristics.
Behaviour modification programmes to reduce type A behaviour could reduce this risk.
It’s correlational evidence so causation cannot be assumed.
What was the FRIEDMAN AND ROSENMAN’S (1959, 1974) study? (evalaution )
- Type A behaviour pattern consists of a number of characteristics and so the variable Type A lacks precision: does it make much sense to assign everyone in the world to only four categories? It is too broad to be useful, because it is not clear which aspect of Type A is most strongly associated with CHD. Consequently, the research lacked internal validity, as it did not precisely measure what it set out to.
- Later research by Matthews et al. (1977), who re-analysed the data, found that the hostility component of Type A correlated highest with CHD. Thus, hostility, rather than Type A in general, may explain the findings.
- Weaknesses of the correlational method mean that there is no control over Type A/B behaviour as a variable, which makes interpretations difficult. For example, rather than causing physiological reactivity, the Type A behaviour pattern may be a response to heightened physiological reactivity in some individuals. Thus, the direction of effect can be questioned: does Type A result in increased physiological reactivity or is Type A a result of high levels of physiological reactivity, which may be genetically determined? Most importantly, cause and effect cannot be inferred, as the variables are not under the control of the researcher (causation can only be inferred when an independent variable has been directly manipulated). Thus, it cannot be said that Type A causes coronary heart disease and so conclusions are limited.
- It has proved fairly difficult to repeat the findings of Friedman and Rosenman (1974). Indeed, there are several later studies in which the correlation between personality type and coronary heart disease was non-significant. These later findings cast doubt on the notion that coronary heart disease depends in part on the Type A personality.Ragland
What is Commitment in personality type Hardiness?
“Hardy” individuals show greater involvement in their work and personal relationships. They put 100% into whatever they do and do not give up easily. The feel a strong sense of involvement in the world.
What is Challenge in personality type Hardiness?
Stressful situations are perceived as a challenge an opportunity a chance for personal growth and development, rather than threats or stressors.
What is Control in personality type Hardiness?
“Hardy” individuals feel that they are in control of their lives and so are less likely to blame others or experience learned helplessness. This is very similar to having an internal locus of control - they do not feel that their level of stress is controlled by external factors.
What was Kobasa’s study on personality hardiness ? (Method)
Studied 800 male American business executives assessing stress using Holmes & Rahe’s SRRS (a measure of life events which is thought to indicate stress levels).
Approximately 150 of the participants were classified as having high stress according to their SRRS scores.
Participants were also asked to list the number of illness episodes that they had experienced in this time.
Of these, some had a high stress/low illness record (86 participants) whereas others had a high stress/high illness record (75 participants).
This suggests that something else was modifying the effects of stress because individuals experience the same stress levels had different illness records.
What was Kobasa’s study on personality hardiness ? (Findings and personality )
Three months later, participants were asked to complete a series of personality tests, which included assessment of control, commitment and challenge.
Findings: The individuals who are in the high-stress/low-illness group scored highly on all 3 of the hardiness characteristics, whereas the high-stress/high-illness group scored lower on these variables.
Conclusion: Kobasa proposed the notion that a hardy personality type encourages resilience and therefore helps an individual to cope with stress. This suggests that hardy personality type is linked to stress levels and that a hardy personality provide defenses against the negative effects of stress.
Application of personality hardiness?
The concept of hardiness is useful to explain why some soldiers are better able to combat war related stress.
Applicants for US Navy Seals and other elite military units are now screened for hardiness AND hardiness training is becoming widespread in US military.
