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

TLDR

The study examined how personality moderates the impact of stressful life events on the onset of illness. Participants were divided into high‑stress groups, one with no illness and one with illness, and illness was assessed using the Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes Seriousness of Illness Survey. Analysis showed that high‑stress executives who remained healthy exhibited greater hardiness—strong commitment to self, vigorous engagement, meaningfulness, and internal locus of control—than those who became ill.

Abstract

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.