Individual Differences

Q: Friedman and Rosenman (1974) - Personality and Stress

Friedman and Rosenman (1974) proposed that individuals with certain types of personality are more likely to develop certain stress-related illnesses, such as coronary heart disease (CHD).

Q: Kobasa (1979) - Identification of ‘Hardiness’

**Kobasa (1979)** investigated the impact of a ‘hardy’ personality in mitigating the negative effects of stress.

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Friedman and Rosenman (1974) - Personality and Stress

Friedman and Rosenman (1974) proposed that individuals with certain types of personality are more likely to develop certain stress-related illnesses, such as coronary heart disease (CHD).

Personality types and stress

Researchers have often tried to split people’s personalities into types, and one theory proposes that people can be split into types A, B and C.
Friedman and Rosenman studied 3,000 males over the course of five years to see if their personality type was linked to development of CHD.
Overall, 257 men developed CHD over the five years. None of these men had it at the start.

Type A

Individuals who are personality type A are described as being competitive, driven, ambitious and hostile.
70% of the men in Friedman and Rosenman’s sample who developed CHD were personality type A.
From this, the researcher proposed that people with personality type A are more vulnerable to the impact of stressors, and are more likely to live a stress-filled life.

Type B

People with type B personalities have the opposite traits to individuals with type A. They are relaxed, easy-going, friendly and enjoy slow-paced lifestyles.
According to this theory, type B individuals are not as vulnerable to stressors. Their relaxed lifestyles mean they are less likely to be exposed to the stress build-up that can lead to illness.

Type C

Type C personality was proposed by Temoshok (1987) to describe individuals who are people-pleasing but often at the expense of suppressing their own emotions.
These individuals may have an increased risk of developing depression, although the individuals may not recognise this because of their emotion suppressing tendencies.
Individuals with type C personalities have been shown to have an increased risk of developing cancer than controls of other personality types.

Evaluation - simplistic study

All these proposed personality types are very simplistic and broad. It is unlikely that everybody’s personality will fit into one of them totally.
Studies like this are often looking at very specific populations of people. Because of this, the findings cannot be generalised to others.
Individuals are very complex, and it may be better to study particular characteristics rather than entire personality types.

Hardiness and Stress

Hardiness is an individual’s adaptability and resilience to changes in everyday life. There is evidence that hardy people are less susceptible to stress and the ill health that comes with it.

Atittudes towards commitment

Hardy people are described as being very committed in all areas of their life - be it work, relationships, or other activities.
On the other hand, non-hardy individuals give-up on things easily and don’t feel driven to sustain commitment for activities.

Attitudes towards control

Hardy people tend to feel more control over the direction of their life and things that happen to them - they have an internal locus of control.
Non-hardy people feel they have no control over their life. They believe that what happens to them is determined by external factors.

Attitudes towards challenge and change

Hardy people see many opportunities that may be construed as negative as challenges that can test them. They use experiences of change for skills and personal development.
Non-hardy individuals see most experiences of change in a negative way and believe that they cannot cope with many situations.

<b>Maddi et al. (1987)</b> - hardiness protection

Maddi et al. (1987) - hardiness protection

Evidence suggests that hardy individuals are less likely to develop stress-related health problems than non-hardy ones.
Maddi et al. (1987) found that, of the workers in a telephone company during a downsizing, ⅔ developed stress-related illnesses while the other ⅓ thrived. Those that thrived were more likely to show hardy personality traits.

Evaluation of theories

As a concept, hardiness is difficult to quantify in experiments. This means testing it is not straightforward.
Most evidence in this area is correlational, and it may be that individuals are hardy because they have less stress in their lives.
It is likely that hardiness levels are not constant throughout the lifespan, and that the relationship between stress and hardiness may work in more that one direction (certain stressors, such as unemployment, may reduce hardiness).

Kobasa (1979) - Identification of ‘Hardiness’

Kobasa (1979) investigated the impact of a ‘hardy’ personality in mitigating the negative effects of stress.

Procedure

Self-report study.
800 American male executives were assessed using Holmes & Rahe’s SRRS: 150 were found to have high stress scores. They were then asked about illness history.
86 had high stress/low illness and 75 had high stress/high illness.
Three months later, the participants were asked to complete a personality test which assessed the three Cs.

Results & conclusions

Results
- Participants with a hardy personality were the ones that had high stress scores and low illness scores.
Conclusion
- A hardy personality mitigates the negative effects of stress.

Evaluation

Strengths
- Supported by further research.
- Practical applications.
Limitations
- Self-report – demand characteristics and social desirability.
- Social, gender and cultural variations.