Suzanne C. Kobasa

Stressful life events, personality, and health: an inquiry into hardiness.

Personality was studied as a conditioner of the effects of stressful life events on illness onset. Two groups of middle and upper level executives had comparably high degrees of stressful life events in the previous 3 years, as measured by the Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Life Events. One group (n = 86) suffered high stress without falling ill, whereas the other (n = 75) reported becoming sick after their encounter with stressful life events. Illness was measured by the Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes Seriousness of Illness Survey. Discriminant function analysis, run on half of the subjects in each group and cross-validated on the remaining cases, supported the prediction that high stress/low illness executives show, by comparison with high stress/high illness executives, more hardiness, that is, have a stronger commitment to self, an attitude of vigorousness toward the environment, a sense of meaningfulness, and an internal locus of control.

Personality and social resources in stress resistance

This study examined personality, social assets, and perceived social support as moderators of the effects of stressful life events on illness onset. In a group of 170 middle and upper level executives, personality hardiness and stressful life events consistently influenced illness scores, the former serving to lower symptomatology, the latter to increase it. Perceived boss support had its predicted positive effect. Executives under high stress who perceived support from their supervisors had lower illness scores than those without support. Perceived family support, on the other hand, showed a negative effect on health when reported by those low in hardiness. Finally, social assets made no significant impact on health status. These results underscore the value of differentiating between kinds of social resources, and of monitoring the effects of two or more stress-resistance resources in a single study.

Personality and exercise as buffers in the stress-illness relationship

This study examined exercise and personality-based hardiness as independent buffers of the stressful event-illness relationship. Self-report measures of exercise, hardiness, stressful events and illness were obtained from 137 male business executives. Hardiness and exercise each interact with stressful events in decreasing illness. Further, subjects high in both hardiness and exercise remain more healthy than those high in one or the other only. These additive effects are consistent with the view that hardiness buffers by transforming the events themselves so as to decrease their stressfulness, whereas exercise buffers by decreasing the organismic strain resulting from experiencing stressful events.

Effectiveness of hardiness, exercise and social support as resources against illness

The effects of the resistance resources of personality hardiness, exercise, and social support, taken singly and in combination, on concurrent and prospective levels, and probability of illness were studied. In 1980, 85 male business executives identified as high in stressful events were tested for the three resistance resources. Predicting their illness scores in 1980 formed the concurrent aspect of the study. For the prospective aspect, illness scores in 1981 were available on 70 of the subjects. With regard to resistance resources, when there are none, one, two or three, the level and probability of both concurrent and prospective illness drop in a regular and marked fashion. These results highlight the importance of multiple resistance resources. Estimates of relative effectiveness indicate that hardiness is the most important of the resistance resources studied.

An alienation test

imprecise nature (e.g., Kenniston, 1966; Srole, 1956) or overly narrow and limited (e.g., Neal & Rettig, 1967). Our research’ aimed to develop an alienation test that is conceptually comprehensive. A large pool of questionnaire items was constructed to sample four types and five contexts of alienation. The following types were chosen to represent major themes in relevant theorizing: powerlessness (Elmore, 1962; Neal & Rettig, 1967; Seeman, 1959), or despair of any influence over social or personal affairs; adventurousness (Kenniston, 1966; Maddi, 1967), or the inability to experience vitality unless one is engaged in extreme and dangerous activities; nihilism (Levin, 1960; McDill & Ridley, 1962; Maddi, 1967), or the insistent attempt to discredit anything that appears to have meaning; and vegetativeness (Elmore, 1962; Horney, 1950; Maddi, 1967), or the inability to believe in the truth, importance, or interest value of anything one is doing. The contexts in which these types of alienation can be expressed are the person’s relationship to work (Blauner, 1964; Marx, 1963), social institutions (Kenniston, 1966; Merton, 1957), family (Horney, 1950; Kenniston, 1966), other persons (Horney, 1950; Maddi, 1970), and self (Fromm, 1941; Maddi, 1970). Each questionnaire item was intended to tap one type and one context of alienation.

Type A and hardiness.

The study examined the relationship between the Type A behavior pattern and personality hardiness and predicted an interaction between the two that would be influential for illness onset. Type A and hardiness were found to be conceptually different and empirically independent factors. Under high stressful life events, male executives who were high in Type A and low in hardiness tended toward higher general illness scores than any other executives. Type A and hardiness emerge from this study as bases for extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, respectively.

Personality and resistance to illness.

Personality was found significantly to mitigate the illness-provoking effects of stressful life events. Two groups of executives had comparably high degrees of stress over a 3-year interval, as measured by the Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Life Events. One group (n = 86) suffered high stress without falling ill, while the other (n = 75) reported becoming sick after their encounter with stressful life events. Illness was measured by the Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes Seriousness of Illness Survey. Discriminant function analysis supported the prediction that high stress/low illness executives show, by comparison with high stress/high illness executives, more control, commitment, and interest in change as a challenge.

Intrinsic Motivation and Health

The concept of intrinsic motivation, championed by D. E. Berlyne, has by now taken root in psychology. Whether deprived of nutrients or not, both animals and humans will display considerable curiosity and play, and will actually work for no other reward than gaining information about the environment. Further, intrinsically motivated activities have proven to be especially satisfying, and without boredom or anxiety. Consistently with this, stimuli of a complex or changing nature attract more attention, and are considered more aesthetically pleasing.

Barriers to Work Stress: II. The Hardy Personality

Business executives, lawyers, and U.S. Army officers have at least three things in common: (a) they are subjected to significant numbers of stressful life events in their work, (b)many members of each occupational group remain mentally and physically healthy in the face of even high stress levels, and (c) their health is explained, in part, by their characteristic personality styles which interact with other stress-resistance resources to buffer the negative impact of stressful life events. These are the general conclusions of a series of stress studies conducted on different occupational groups. All were guided by the question: How is it that some persons do not get sick following their encounter with frequent and serious life stresses? Each professional group provided a complementary but slightly different answer emphasizing personality.