The Stressful Personality: A Meta-Analytical Review of the Relation Between Personality and Stress

Luo, Jing; Zhang, Bo; Cao, Mengyang; Roberts, Brent W.

doi:10.1177/10888683221104002

Cited by 57 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 330 publications

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“…Our results were largely consistent with previous work in showing people high on neuroticism are exposed to more stressors and perceive them as more severe and out of their control on average, whereas people high on agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness are exposed to fewer stressors and generally perceive stressors as within their control. In contrast to previous studies (Luo et al, 2022), we found that only neuroticism and agreeableness (but not conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness) were correlated with average perceived stress severity. The discrepancy could be due to using different methods of assessing traits, such that global trait assessments tap characteristic appraisal styles more than a daily measure, or it may just be sampling variability.…”

Section: Individual Differences In Daily Stress Processescontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Broader individual differences, including the Big Five personality traits, also have robust associations with stress appraisals and responses. Considerable research has shown that people higher on neuroticism tend to perceive stressful events as threatening, whereas those higher on conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness tend to perceive such events as less threatening or as challenge that can be overcome (Ebstrup et al, 2011;Kaiseler et al, 2012;Luo et al, 2017Luo et al, , 2022. Presumably as a downstream effect of these differences in stress appraisal (in part), Big Five traits also relate to how people cope with stress.…”

Section: Individual Differences In Daily Stress Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterizing Stress Processes by Linking Big Five Personality States, Traits, and Day-to-Day Stressors

Ringwald¹,

Nielsen²,

Mostajabi³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The accumulation of day-to-day stressors can impact mental and physical health. How people respond to stressful events is a key mechanism responsible for the effects of stress, and individual differences in stress responses can either perpetuate or prevent negative consequences. Most research on daily stress processes has focused on affective responses to stressors, but stress responses can involve more than just affect. Additionally, most research has been on the role of neuroticism in shaping those responses, but many other individual differences are associated with stress outcomes. In this study, we more comprehensively characterized daily stress processes by expanding the nomological networks of stress responses to include Big Five personality states. We also linked those stress responses to all Big Five traits, as well as individual differences in stress exposure and stress appraisal. We studied a sample of participants (N = 1,090) who reported on stressful events, their appraisal of events in terms of severity and controllability, and their Big Five personality states daily for 7-10 days (N = 8,870 observations). Multi-level structural equation models were used to separate how characteristics of the perceived stressful situation and characteristics of the person play into daily stress processes. Results showed that (1) all Big Five personality states shift in response to perceived stress, (2) all Big Five personality traits relate to average levels of perceived stress exposure and appraisals, (3) individual differences in personality and average perceived stress exposure and perceived severity relate to the strength of personality state responses to daily stress. Our results point to new pathways by which stressors affect people in everyday life and begin to clarify processes that may explain individual differences in risk or resilience to the harmful effects of stress.

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Section: Individual Differences In Daily Stress Processescontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Individual Differences In Daily Stress Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing Stress Processes by Linking Big Five Personality States, Traits, and Day-to-Day Stressors

Ringwald¹,

Nielsen²,

Mostajabi³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One might expect that Emotional Stability (the flip side of Neuroticism) would predict psychological distress in the current situation because it measures both reactivity to negative events and how prone a person is to negative emotional states such as anxiety, depression, and anger (for reviews, see [ 33 , 34 ]). Consistent with this expectation, when Stability was added to the reduced model (see Table 3 ), the model accounted for 64.9% of the variance in psychological distress and the AICc (i.e., the Akaike Information Criterion with a correction for small sample sizes) decreased from 2896.0 to 2515.4.…”

Section: Age and Individual Differences In Psychological Distressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distress Signals: Age Differences in Psychological Distress before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Hale

Myerson

Strube

et al. 2023

IJERPH

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Psychological distress reached historically high levels in 2020, but why, and why were there pronounced age differences? We address these questions using a relatively novel, multipronged approach, part narrative review and part new data analyses. We first updated previous analyses of national surveys that showed distress was increasing in the US and Australia through 2017 and then re-analyzed data from the UK, comparing periods with and without lockdowns. We also analyzed the effects of age and personality on distress in the US during the pandemic. Results showed distress levels and age differences in distress were still increasing through 2019 in the US, UK, and Australia. The effects of lockdowns in 2020 revealed the roles of social deprivation and fear of infection. Finally, age-related differences in emotional stability accounted for the observed age differences in distress. These findings reveal the limitations of analyses comparing pre-pandemic and pandemic periods without accounting for ongoing trends. They also suggest that differences in personality traits such as emotional stability modulate responses to stressors. This could explain age and individual differences in both increases and decreases in distress in response to changes in the level of stressors such as those occurring prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“…Against this background, identifying individual characteristics that make teachers more versus less prone to experiencing high levels of stress becomes an important goal for psychological research with far-reaching implications for practice. For example, research can identify individual teachers who are at higher risk of suffering from stress and can inform the design of interventions for teachers to develop certain characteristics 11,12 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Effects of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Teacher Characteristics on Stress: A Virtual Reality Study

Bardach¹,

Huang²,

Richter³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Identifying personal characteristics associated with teachers’ stress is a longstanding research goal with important implications for practice. The present work revisits the effects of cognitive (intelligence) and non-cognitive (neuroticism, classroom management self -efficacy) teacher characteristics on stress using virtual reality (VR). Relying on a sample of 56 German pre-service teachers (Mage = 22.73, SDage = 4.93; 50.9% females), we capitalized on a VR classroom environment that allowed the integration of experimental control and authentic teaching situations, where pre-service teachers responded to the disruptive behaviors of the student avatars. We focused on stress responses in terms of psychological stress (self reported stress) assessed after the VR session, and physiological stress (heart rate) assessed during the VR. Results from linear mixed effects models revealed that neuroticism positively predicted psychological and physiological stress responses in pre-service teachers. Classroom management self-efficacy and intelligence were not significantly related to stress responses. This study underlines the value of VR as a tool for psychological research. Our findings contribute to existing knowledge on teacher characteristics and stress, and support the adoption of a personality psychology perspective to better understand teachers’ stress in challenging situations.

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The Stressful Personality: A Meta-Analytical Review of the Relation Between Personality and Stress

Cited by 57 publications

References 330 publications

Characterizing Stress Processes by Linking Big Five Personality States, Traits, and Day-to-Day Stressors

Characterizing Stress Processes by Linking Big Five Personality States, Traits, and Day-to-Day Stressors

Distress Signals: Age Differences in Psychological Distress before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Revisiting Effects of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Teacher Characteristics on Stress: A Virtual Reality Study

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