Although a large body of research on hardiness (a personality construct with dimensions of commitment, control, and challenge) has accumulated, several fundamental issues remain unresolved. Although there are several hardiness scales, the properties of these scales have not been compared. There is debate as to whether hardiness is one or several characteristics. Research studying the pathways through which hardiness exerts its effects has not been comprehensively evaluated. Whereas critics have argued that hardiness does not buffer stress, others have suggested that hardiness buffers for working adults, for males, and in prospective analyses. There is also growing concern that hardiness is related to neuroticism. A review of the literature supports the following conclusions: The Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS) has several advantages over alternative scales; DRS items form three factors that are consistent with hardiness theory; hardiness dimensions generally show low to moderate intercorrelations; the most common way of categorizing subjects as high or low in hardiness is not consistent with hardiness theory; hardiness does not buffer stress, and it does not buffer stress for working adults, for males, or in prospective analyses; both old and new hardiness scales inadvertently measure neuroticism. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Prior research has suggested that hardiness buffers the effects of stressful life events. This prior research also contains several shortcomings, including (a) little evidence that hardiness does in fact have a buffering effect; (b) the failure of a previous factor analysis of the hardiness subscales to reproduce the three dimensions of hardiness; (c) the measurement of hardiness with negative indicators that may tap general maladjustment; and (d) the frequent use of inappropriate statistical techniques. We conducted this study to address these shortcomings. First, although we were able to replicate the main effects for hardiness found in previous retrospective studies when the data were analyzed by an analysis of variance (ANOVA), we found no buffering effects. Second, a factor analysis of the hardiness subscales revealed two factors. The loadings of subscales on these factors were not consistent with the conceptualization of hardiness. Third, we found statistically significant correlations (p < .01) between the hardiness measure and two measures of maladjustment. In addition, many of the effects of hardiness were not found when maladjustment was statistically controlled. Finally, most of the effects of hardiness found when ANOVAS or analyses of covariance were used were not obtained when we used multiple regression, the preferred method of analysis.We wish to express our gratitude to Lynn Pace, Jennifer Orleans, and Sharon Holleran for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of the article and to Carl Coppage for his assistance with scoring of the data.

No abstract

The authors experimentally investigated the effects of multiple-choice and short-answer format exam items on exam performance in a college classroom. They randomly assigned 50 students to take a 10-item short-answer pretest or posttest on two 50-item multiple-choice exams in an introduction to personality course. Students performed significantly better on items presented in a multiple-choice format. The high internal validity achieved with matched test items, manipulation of item type order, and manipulation of student expectancy across exams was complemented by high external validity and pedagogical ecology afforded by the college classroom, extending previous laboratory findings. Performance on multiple-choice exams may provide inaccurate information to instructors concerning student learning and overestimate students' learning of course information.

Tardive dyskinesia (TD)