(Summary)
Keeping psychological health under stressful situation is important for effective
performance. Psychological hardiness (a personality trait consists of commitment,
control and challenge) is one of the indicator of psychological health based on
existential personality theory.
This study confirms the relationship between hardiness at time 1 and psychological
stress response (PSRS) at time 2. Total score and sub scores of PSRS were compared by 8
categories of hardiness (created by median split of commitment, control and challenge).
Result indicated that (1) Three components of hardiness have adequate reliability
and have moderate inter-correlation, (2) Total score and sub scores of PSRS were
negatively correlated with three components of hardiness, (3) Some sub scores and total
score of PSRS were highest in category that all components of hardiness are in high, and
lowest in category that all components of hardiness are in low.
Results and methodology of this study were discussed on the viewpoints of stress
theory, performance study, and psychopathology.
---|Go to the top|
I. Introduction
Typical approaches to performance, as an intentional self expression on wide range
(Kosaka,1995), paid attention to actual nonverbal expressions, for example, eye contact
(Sato,1994). On the other side, relationship between performance and inner part of
human being is studied, logically in using psychoanalytic theory(Stern & Henderson,1993),
empirically in focusing on relationship to needs(Kobayashi et al.,1994; Yamaguchi,1995),
etc. Especially, personality theory as a framework of understanding individual,
represents viewpoints of human in psychology. Further investigations on performance
from viewpoints of personality theories are useful in understanding relationships
between performance and psychological aspects of individual.
It is necessary to keep psychological health for performance as effective self
expression. Kobayashi et al(1994) defined neurosis patient group as "performance
defective group". They adopted psychological health as a standard of performance.
However, psychological health will have effect to performance even in non-clinical
people or people who doesn't need psychotherapy.
For example, psychological stress(cf. Lazarus & Folkman,1984) has an effect to
psychological health. Psychological stress is a process occured in relationship
between person and environment that is appraised by the person as exceeding his/her
resources. Person will be confused by such psychologial stress, he/she can't act
as usual. Sometimes it has some effects to physical health.
However, not all people experiencing psychological stress confused or lose
their health. Many studies indicates that stress inducing events (stressor) explain
only 9% for variance of health status(Kosaka & Yoshida,1992). In 1980's, many
researchers looked for factors that mediate between psychological stress and health
status, for example, social support, self-esteem, personality characteristics.
Kobasa(1979) considered that people in high stress condition has personality trait
consisted of commitment, control and challenge, based on existential personality
theories(Kobasa & Maddi,1977; Maddi,1988,1989). Commitment is the tendency to involve
oneself fully in one's total life spece. Control, including responsibility, is the
tendency to believe and act as if one can influence the course of events within
reasonable limits. Challenge is based on the belief that change rather than stability
is the normative mode of life, anticipated as an opportunity for personal growth
(Orr & Westman,1990).
Hardiness is considered as the measure of one's tendency to make relationship to
oneself and one's outside world. It is not a mere rigidness or stress "endurance",
but a power to cultivate one's way under difficult conditions and go through
stressful events. It is not like an reckless attack, but an ability to understand
conditions around oneself, an ability to self-decision.
One need performance in daily life, when he/she have to communicate something
important. Especially, it will be the case on the verge of changing one's value,
social status, income, or one's total life. Such conditions is considered as
stressful. It is neccessary to have stress-overcoming personality trait for
effective performance.
In this study, performance is defined as "Psychological response on stressful
situations".The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of hardiness
to psychological stress response, confirming the hypotheses of "People high in
hardiness express less psychological response on experiencing stressful situation."
---|Go to the top|
II. Method
Subjects were 224 college students in two universities around Tokyo area. Data
were collected twice to fulfill one of the condition for confirming causal relationship
(Asher,1976). Few weeks before examination at the first semester were set as Time 1
and the days around three months after Time 1 was set as Time 2. At time 1,
questionnaire of hardiness was distributed to all subjects. Questionnaire of psychological
stress response was distributed at time 2. Details of each scale are explained below.
(1)hardiness
Many scales to measure hardiness were established(Kosaka,1992a). However, early
hardiness scales have some problems; changing hardiness subscores to z-score,
challenge scale didn't predict health(Hull et al.,1987).
Kobasa(1986) established 50-items hardiness scale(Personal Views Survey: PVS)
and Bartone et al(1989) established 45-items hardiness scale(Dispositional
Resilience Scale: DRS) to solve these problems. Though Funk(1992) recommends to
use DRS to measure hardiness, Japanese version of DRS(faithfully translated)
indicated moderate reliability(Cronbach's alpha) in total score(.75) and commitment
(.70), and remarkably low in control(.52) and challenge(.52) for 212 college
students(Kosaka,1994).
In this study, PVS was translated in Japanese and some items disunderstandable
for Japanese were modified. This scale consists of 16 items for commitment, 17 items
for both control and challenge. Scores of 39 items are reversed. Ratings of each
item are 0(not at all) to 3(definitely yes) in 4 escalation. Scores of each
component are calculated, dividing total low score by each high score(commitment:48,
control and challenge:51) and multiply by 100. Each score indicates positive value
of hardiness.
Kobasa(1986) summarize scores of all components and divide by 3 for hardiness
score as single trait. However, according to Funk(1992), hardy individuals have
consistently been described as high in all components(Kobasa,1979) and if
researchers use composite scores and divide into high-hardy and low-hardy subject
group using a median split, it is not consistent with hardiness theory. Thus,
discrimination of high-hardy and low-hardy subject should be done by scores of
three components of hardiness, not by composite score.
(2)Psychological stress response
So many kinds of variables were adopted for an index of stress response.
However, emotional response as anxiety or depression is selected by each
researcher, supposed to represent psychological stress, and such response doesn't
always a response in experiencing stressors or just a part of psychological stress
(Niina et al.,1990).
Psychological Stress Response Scale(PSRS: Niina et al.,1990) is adopted for this
study. PSRS is established for measure all-round response in experiencing stressors.
This 53-items scale aimed to measure two aspects of response, emotional response and
cognitive behavioral response. Emotional response consists of four factors (depressive
mood, anxiety, displeasure, Anger) and cognitive behavioral response consists of
nine factors (losing confidence, distrust, despair, worry, hard to consider,
impractical wish, inactiveness, withdrawal, impatience). Ratings of each item
are 0(not at all) to 3(definitely yes) in 4 escalation and total score indicates
positive value of psychological stress response.
---|Go to the top|
III. Results
There were no significant differences in each variable between colleges and genders.
Table 1 indicates basic statistics and correlation of commitment, control, challenge,
and age. Reliability of each component of hardiness was in high level and inner-
correlation was moderately high.
- - -
Table 1: Means, standard deviations, medians, reliabilities, and
correlations of the three components of hardiness and age (N=164).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cronbach's (Correlations)
M SD Median alpha commitment control challenge
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
commitment 70.44 8.85 70.83 .95 ---
control 63.83 7.89 64.71 .94 .60**
challenge 63.15 10.34 62.75 .91 .44** .35**
age 20.27 0.99 --- --- .12 .13 .16*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*:p<.05, **:p<.01
- - -
According to preceding studies, discrimination of high and low groups of hardiness
should be done by combination of high and low discriminations in commitment, control,
and challenge. In this study, subjects were discriminated in high and low groups by
using median split as for three components of hardiness and they were categorized
into eight groups; all components in high group, commitment and control are in
high group, commitment and challenge are in high group, control and challenge are
in high group, commitment is in high group, control is in high group, challenge
is in high group, all components are in low group. An analysis of variance was
performed with this category of hardiness as the independent variable and subscores
and total score of PSRS as the dependent variables. The results of ANOVA with
related statistics are indicated in Table 2.
- - -
Table 2: Means, standard deviations, medians, reliabilities of subscales of PSRS,
correlation with hardiness components, and results of ANOVA by 8 categories
of hardiness components (N=164).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PSRS Cronbach's (Correlation with hardiness) (ANOVA)
subscale M SD alpha Commitment control challenge df F
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Emotive response)
Depressive mood 5.36 5.69 .92 -.30** -.28** -.24** 162 2.29*
Anxiety 4.91 5.17 .89 -.21** -.33** -.14 162 1.93
Displeasure 4.16 3.81 .85 -.22** -.27** -.16* 162 1.96
Anger 2.31 2.98 .82 -.18* -.22** -.20* 162 2.01
Total score 16.74 15.52 .95 -.27** -.32** -.21** 162 2.49*
(Cognitive behavioral response)
Losing confidence 1.82 2.22 .77 -.38** -.29** -.25** 162 2.75*
Distrust 1.29 1.79 .67 -.35** -.26** -.20** 162 1.51
Despair .98 1.59 .74 -.38** -.28** -.15 162 1.51
Worry 2.22 2.35 .76 -.23** -.26** -.19** 162 1.72
Hard to consider 1.74 2.30 .84 -.33** -.26** -.25** 162 3.10**
Impractical wish 2.76 2.45 .72 -.22** -.24** -.28** 162 1.74
Inactiveness 1.63 2.16 .78 -.42** -.29** -.15 162 3.10**
Withdrawal 1.30 1.88 .81 -.33** -.31** -.24** 162 3.41**
Impatience 1.04 1.56 .69 -.18* -.22** -.11 162 .98
Total score 14.78 14.59 .95 -.39** -.34** -.26** 162 3.10**
PSRS total score 31.52 29.05 .97 -.34** -.34** -.24** 162 2.92**
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*:p<.05, **:p<.01
- - -
Most coefficients of reliability of subscores and total scores of PSRS are above .80,
reached moderate internal consistency. The correlations with three components of hardiness
were all negative and most of them were statistically significant. As for the result of
ANOVA, category of hardiness was statistically significant with depressive mood, total
score of emotional response, losing confidence, hard to consider, inactiveness, withdrawal,
total score of cognitive behavioral response, and PSRS total score. Table 3 shows the
results of Tukey's HSD test about these variables.
- - -
Table 3: Means of PSRS total and subscores by 8 categories of hardiness
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Emotive response) (Cognitive behavioral response) PSRS
Categories Depressive Total Losing Hard to Inacti- With- Total total
(High in hardiness) N mood score confidence consider veness drawal score score
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1)All in high group 35 3.11 10.94 .94 1.14 .69 .49 8.43 19.37
(2)Commitment&Control 18 5.79 19.05 1.68 1.26 1.53 1.37 13.42 21.11
(3)Commitment&Challenge 19 5.71 18.14 2.43 2.29 2.57 1.71 18.86 32.47
(4)Control&Challenge 7 4.12 11.35 1.24 1.00 .82 .88 10.18 37.00
(5)Commitment 17 3.71 11.71 1.29 .79 1.79 .64 12.36 38.94
(6)Control 10 6.24 21.82 1.88 2.06 1.76 1.35 17.12 28.90
(7)Challenge 14 5.50 15.70 2.00 1.20 1.30 .90 13.20 24.07
(8)All in low group 44 7.66 22.32 2.86 2.91 2.61 2.27 21.84 44.25
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
p<.05 combinations in (1)-(8) (1)-(8) (1)-(8) (1)-(8) (1)-(8) (1)-(8) (1)-(8) (1)-(8)
Tukey's HSD test (5)-(8)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- - -
All PSRS scores in Table 3 indicated 5 percent of significance of difference between means of
"All in high group" and "All in low group". In most of them, "All in high group" got lowest
score of stress response and "All in low group" got highest score.
---|Go to the top|
IV. Discussions
According to Table 2, the higher three components of hardiness (commitment, control, and
challenge) are, the lower subscores and total score of PSRS are. As for total score of PSRS, when
commitment, control, and challenge are all in high group, effects of stressors are weakest.
When all are in low group, effects of stressors are strongest. Hence, the relation between
hardiness and stress response were clarified in the context of original hardiness theory by
Kobasa(1979), and hypothesis of this study was almost proved. All hardiness studies are
itself confirm the validity of hardiness(Funk,1992) and this result will be beneficial for
further hardiness research. Relationship between hardiness and some of the subscores of
PSRS were not clarified. Most of the reasons are that the reliability was low
and the numbers of items were few. These result indicated possibility that hardiness has influence to
individual's effective performance or self-expressions.
However, some problems that are needed to discuss in this study are listed below.
(1)Measuring stressors
There were two major ways to measure stressor, one is Social Readjustment Rating Scale
(Holmes & Rahe,1967), that measure life change in experiencing major life events, and the
other is Daily Hassles(Kanner et al.,1981), that measure cognitive appraisal about
troublesome in daily life. However, it is difficult to select items of events that is
suitable to each subject. According to Ganellen & Blaney(1984), evaluative ratings of
events and memory for distant events might be influenced by hardiness. In this study,
questionnaire was distributed just before examination at the first semester and stressors
were not measured, because the examination was seemed to be a common stressor for all
subjects. Influences of stressor except the examination need to be controlled in further
studies.
(2)Characteristics of subjects
Relatively comparing, college students might not be exposed to psychological stress
than office workers. Though psychological stress is subjective and it is not clear that
there are differences in the ways of response in stressful situation, It is considered
that office workers are in situations that require more performances than college students
are. Especially, further research on members of society is needed to clarify more about
the relationship between hardiness and performance.
(3)Relations with actual performance
Actually expressed performances were not measured in this study. One of the way to
make clear the relationship between hardiness and performance may be to study differences
of actual performance between hardy and non-hardy in a specific situation that may require
performance. At present, the standard to measure performance is not established yet. An
attempt to measure performance is "AS Performance Sheet", established by Sato(1995).
This is in a style of self-report and it does not always reflect subjects' performance
when they have distorted cognition. It is necessary to establish subjective perspective
of performance for studying performance in any field.
(4)Personality disorders and performance
This study adopted a self-report response in stressful situation as an index of
performance in the relationship between psychological health and performance.
However, every personality theory has different standard of psychological health.
It is desirable to research relationships with performance in wider area of science.
Though some people value individual's expressions that have some impacts to others or
active relating to others, such estimations of performance need cautions.
Over-expression of oneself or personal relationship with no psychological distance to
others are included in the diagnostic standards of some personality disorders
(Borderline Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Narcissistic
Personality Disorder, etc.) on DSM-IV(American Psychiatric Association,1994), that is
one of the manuals for diagnostic criteria of psychiatric disease. Recent psychoanalytic
theories, such as "Separation-Individuation theory"(Mahler,Pine,& Bergman,1975) or
"Neurotic Personality Organization, Borderline Personality Organization, and Psychotic
Personality Organization"(Kernberg,1976), have strong effects to the diagnositic standards
in DSM-IV. These theories are valuable to be focused as a part of further researches on
performance.
---|Go to the top|
(References)
American Psychiatric Association(1994) Quick reference to the diagnostic
criteria from DSM-IV. American Psychiatric Association.
Asher,H.B.(1976) Causal modeling. London:SAGE.
Bartone,P.T.,Ursano,R.J.,Wright,K.M.,& Ingraham,L.H.(1989) The impact of
a military air disaster on the health of assistance workers:A prospective
study. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease,177,317-328.
Funk,S.C.(1992) Hardiness: A review of theory and research. Health Psychology,
11,335-345.
Ganellen,R.J.,& Blaney,P.H.(1984) Hardiness and social support as moderators of
the effects of life stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,47,
156-163.
Holmes,T.H.,& Rahe,R.H.(1967) The social readjustment rating scale. Journal of
Psychosomatic Reserach,11,213-218.
Hull,J.G.,Van Treuren,R.R.,& Virnelli,S.(1987) Hardiness and health:A
critique and alternative approach.Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology,53,518-530.
Kanner,A.,Coyne,J.C.,Schaefer,C.,& Lazarus,R.S.(1981) Comparison of two models
of stress measurement: Daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events.
Journal of Behavior Medicine,4,1-39.
Kernberg,O.(1976) Object relations theory and clinical psychoanalysis. New
York:Jason Aronson.
Kobasa,S.C.(1979) Stressful life events,personality,and health: An inquiry into
hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,37,1-11.
Kobasa,S.C.(1986) Personal views survey. The Graduate School and University
Center of The City University of New York.
Kobasa,S.C.,& Maddi,S.R.(1977) Existential personality theory. In R.Corsini
(Ed.) ,Current personality theories. Illinois: Peacock. Pp. 243-276.
Kobayashi,S.,Shirakura,K.,& Kitanishi,K.(1994) Meaning of performance in terms
of psychiatry(1) :Relation between performance and desire. Journal of
Performance Studies,1,39-44(in Japanese).
Kosaka,M.(1992a) Existential personality trait as a resource for stress
resistance: A review on hardiness scales. Studies in Sociology, Psychology,
and Education, Keio University No.35,29-36(in Japanese).
Kosaka,M.(1992b) Factor structure of 50-item hardiness scale in Japanese
college sample. Paper presented at 1st conference of Japan Society of
Personality Psychology(in Japanese).
Kosaka,M.(1994) An attempt to establish Japanese version of 45-item hardiness
scale(Dispositional Resilience Scale). Paper presented at 3rd conference of
Japan Society of Personality Psychology(in Japanese).
Kosaka,M.(1995) A discussion of a position of performance in psychology:
Relationship between hardiness and performance. Journal of Performance
Studies,2,44-49(in Japanese).
Kosaka,M.,& Yoshida,S.(1992b) Relationship of personality hardiness, stressor,
and psychological health: Study of executives. Studies in Sociology,
Psychology, and Education, Keio University No.34,43-50(in Japanese).
Lazarus,R.S.,Folkman,S.(1984) .Stress,appraisal,and coping.New York:Springer.
Maddi,S.R.(1988) On the problem of accepting facticity and pursuing
possibility.In S.B.Messer,L.A.Sass,& R.L.Woolfolk(Eds.) , Hermeneutics and
psychological theory:Interpretive perspectives on personality,psychotherapy
and psychopathology. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Pp.182-209.
Maddi,S.R.(1989) Personality theories: A comparative analysis.5th ed.
California:Brooks/cole.
Mahler,M.S.,Pine,F.,Bergman,A.(1975) The psychological birth of the human
infant.New York: Basic Books.
Niina,R.,Sakata,S.,Yatomi,N.,& Homma,A.(1990) Development of the psychological
stress response scale. Shinshin-Igaku(psychosomatic medicine),30,
29-38(in Japanese).
Orr,E.,& Westman,M.(1990) Does hardiness moderate stress, and how?: A review.
In M.Rosenbaum(Ed.) , Learned resourcefulness: On coping skills, self control,
and adaptive behavior(pp. 64-94) . New York: Springer publishing company.
Sato,A.(1994) A study of the characteristics of Japanese performance focusing
on eye contact. Journal of Performance Studies,1,25-37(in Japanese).
Sato,A.(1995) How to express myself?: An introduction to performance study.
Tokyo:Kodansha(in Japanese).
Stern,C.S.,& Henderson,B.(1993) Performance: Texts and contexts. Longman.
Yamaguchi,I.(1995) An empirical study of needs-actualization process of
Japanese workers: A crucial link among needs, motives, motivation and
behavior as "Performance". Journal of Performance Studies,2,34-43
(in Japanese).