Role of personality

• What is personality?

  Characteristics or traits that make up who you are

  Generally consistent in different situations and over time
• Personality and stress

  ·         Your personality influences how you respond to stress

  ·         Also helps influence whether the stress you’re experiencing is going to make you ill
• What are the 2 types of personality traits that influence how we respond to stress

  Hardiness

  Type A
• Hardiness:

  ·  Commitment: hardy people are deeply involved in their relationships and their activities. They throw themselves into life and have a strong sense of purpose. Their attitude is ‘if something is worth doing, it is worth doing to fullest, even if stressful’
• Hardiness:

  ·         Challenge: hardy people are resilient and welcome change as opportunity rather than threat. Recognise that life is unpredictable, see as exciting and stimulating. Stressful situations something to learn from.
• Hardiness

  Control: Hardy people have strong belief that they are in charge of events that they are the ones making things happen, rather than things happening to them.
• Those with a nigher level of 3 c’s perceive stressors as less threatening than non-hardy people do, and are therefore less likely to experience stress-related illness.
• Type B: opposite of type A

  ·         Relaxed

  ·         Laid back

  ·         Tolerant of others
• Personality and stress: Type A

  ·         -Prone to stress from impatience

  ·         -long term stress causes susceptibility to high blood pressure and CHD

  ·         -tends to multitask

  ·         -suited to high pressure fast paces and competitive jobs

   
• Personality and stress: Type B

  ·         Less prone to stress and more relaxed

   

  ·         Fewer stress related health problems

   

  ·         Suited to roles that require practise

   

  ·         Tends to focus on one task at a time

   
• Evaluation

  ·         *both type a and hardiness provide targets for reducing the effects of stress. E.g: we could work with individuals to increase their hardiness, and those who are type a could be encouraged to slow down

  ·         -unclear what they really are

  ·         -Generally measured using self-report questionnaires- social desirability, bias