Week 6 - Personality and Stress

Question 1

External events cannot be identified as stressors independently of what?

Answer 1

an individual’s appraisal of the event

Question 2

What factors account for individual differences in experiencing stress?

Answer 2

Personality factors

Personality factors: relatively stable traits and characteristics

Question 3

What are three advantages of psychological traits?

Answer 3

(1) Describes people
(2) Explains behaviour
(3) Predicts future behaviour

Question 4

Traits exist as (?) rather than (?).

Answer 4

dimensions; categories

Question 5

Describe the Big Five personality dimensions (OCEAN)

Answer 5

(1) Openness: those with high openness are imaginative, curious, and creative, those with low openness are shallow and imperceptive
(2) Concientiousness: those with high conscientiousness are organized, thorough, and reliable, those with low concientiousness are careless, negligent, and unreliable
(3) Extraversion: those with high extraversion are talkative, assertive and active, those with low extarversion are silent, passive and reserved
(4) Agreeableness: those highly agreeable are king, trusting, and warm, those not very agreeable are hostile, selfish, and mistrustful
(5) neuroticism: those highly neurotic are nervous, moody, and temperamental, those not very neurotic are even tempered, calm, and emotionally stable

Question 6

What are the 5 models of the personality-illness connection?

Answer 6

1. Interactional Model
2. Transactional Model
3. Health Behaviour Model
4. Predisposition Model
5. Illness Behaviour Model

Question 7

Describe the interactional model of the personality-illness connection.

Answer 7

suggests that personality moderates, or determines the impact that of stressors on an individual

there is an interaction between personality and one’s illness

Question 8

Describe the transactional model of the personality-illness connection.

Answer 8

suggests that personality has 3 potential effects by influencing:
1. coping
2. how a person appraises or interprets events
3. the events themselves

there is a transaction occuring between personality and coping, personality and appraisals, and personality and events

Question 9

Describe the Health Behaviour Model of the personality-illness connection.

Answer 9

suggests that personality doesn’t directly influence responses to stress, but rather, it affects health indiretly through either health-promoting or health-degrading behaviour (acting as a mediator)

Mediator: effect of one variable on another is due to a third variable

Question 10

Describe the predisposition model of the personality-illness connection.

Answer 10

suggests that there may be a third variable that influences both personality and illness (some predisposition underlies both)

Question 11

Describe the illness-behaviour model of the personality-illness connection.

Answer 11

suggests that personality influences the degree to which a person perceives and attends to bodily sensations

Question 12

What are 5 characteristics that those with high neuroticism exhibit?

Answer 12

1. lower tolerance for stress
2. respond with negative emotions more frequently and intensely when stressed
3. experience negative affect more frequently and intensely in daily life
4. engage in ineffective coping strategies for stress
5. experience lower happiness, life satisfaction and positive affect

Question 13

Neuroticism leads to the most (?) relative to other factors in the Big Five Model.

Answer 13

stress risk

Question 14

Describe Type A behaviour and Type B behaviour. Are they dimensional or categorical?

Answer 14

Type A behaviour is characterized by competitiveness, anger, hostility, impatience, hastiness, restlessness, and being high achieving.

Type B behaviour is characterized by the opposite of Type A.

Both are characterized dimensionally.

Question 15

What are the 3 sub traits of Type A behaviour?

Answer 15

1. Competitive achievement motivation
2. Time urgency
3. Hostility

Hostility is different from anger, whereas hostility is an attitude and anger is a feeling.

Question 16

What subtrait of Type A behaviour is a strong predictor of cardiovascular disease? What is it nicknamed?

Answer 16

Hostility (‘toxic core’)

Question 17

Describe Type D personality.

Answer 17

A distressed personality type that has high negative affectivity and social inhibition.

Negative affectivity: tendency to frequently experience negative emotions (similar to neuroticism)
Social Inhibition: tendency to inhibit expression of emotions, thoughts and behaviours in social interations, and are less likely to seek social support during problematic times

Question 18

What are two ways that Type D personality increases the risk for cardiovascular disease?

Answer 18

1. disturbs the brain’s stress response, as type D individuals who an axaggerated stress response, therefore releasing more cortisol in blood
2. lifestyle factors get affected because they have poor health-related behaviours and low social support

Question 19

What is a Hardy Personality? What are its 3 elements?

Answer 19

A hardy personality is a stress-resistant personality that demonstrates courage through:
1. control (vs powerlessness)
2. challenge (vs security)
3. commitment (vs alienation)

Question 20

Define engagement coping and disengagement coping. Which of the Big Five personality traits are associated with engagement coping?

Answer 20

Engagement coping: dealing directly with a stressor

disengagement coping: avoiding a stressor

Those high in conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, and openness are associated with engagement coping.