FOCUS ON RESEARCH Personality and Health

405
Stress Mediators
vulnerability to heart disease and other stress-related illnesses (Kajantie & Phillips,
2006). If that is the case, gender differences in stress responses may help to explain why
women live an average of 5.3 years longer than men (Hoyert, Kung, & Smith, 2005).
The role of gender-related hormones in stress responding is supported by the fact that
there are few, if any, gender differences in children’s stress responses. Those differences
begin to appear only around adolescence, when sex hormone differences become pronounced (Allen & Matthews, 1997).
LINKAGES
Are childhood traits related to
how long we live? (a link to
Human Development)
T
he way people think and act in the face
of stressors, the ease with which they
attract social support, and their tendency to be optimists or pessimists are but a
few aspects of personality.
FOCUS ON RESEARCH
Personality and Health
■ What was the researchers’ question?
Are there other personality characteristics that protect or threaten people’s health? This
was the question asked by Howard Friedman and his associates (Friedman, 2000;
Friedman et al., 1995a, 1995b). In particular, they attempted to identify aspects of
personality that increase the likelihood that people will die prematurely from heart
disease, high blood pressure, or other chronic diseases.
■ How did the researchers answer the question?
Friedman suspected that an answer might lie in the results of the Terman Life Cycle
Study of Intelligence, which was named after Louis Terman, author of the StanfordBinet intelligence test. As described in the chapter on thought, language, and intelligence, the study was originally designed to measure the long-term development of
1,528 gifted California children (856 boys and 672 girls), nicknamed the “Termites”
(Terman & Oden, 1947).
Starting in 1921, and every five to ten years thereafter, Terman’s research team
had gathered information about the Termites’ personality traits, social relationships,
stressors, health habits, and many other variables. The data were collected through
questionnaires and interviews with the Termites themselves, as well as with their
teachers, parents, and other family members. By the early 1990s, about half of the
Termites had died. It was then that Friedman realized that the Terman Life Cycle
Study could shed light on the relationship between personality and health, because
the personality traits identified in the Termites could be related to how long they
lived. So he examined the Termites’ death certificates, noting the dates and causes
of death, and then looked for associations between their personalities and the length
of their lives.
■ What did the researchers find?
Friedman and his colleagues found that one of the most important predictors of long
life was a dimension of personality known as conscientiousness, or social dependability
(described in the personality chapter). Termites who, in childhood, had been seen as
truthful, prudent, reliable, hard working, and humble tended to live longer than those
whose parents and teachers had identified them as impulsive and lacking in self-control.
Friedman also examined the Terman Life Cycle Study for what it suggested about
the relationship between health and social support. In particular, he compared Termites
whose parents had divorced or who had been in unstable marriages themselves with
those who grew up in stable homes and who had stable marriages. He discovered that
people who had experienced parental divorce during childhood, or who themselves had
in review
406
Chapter 10 Health, Stress, and Coping
STRESS RESPONSES AND STRESS MEDIATORS
Category
Examples
Responses
Physical
Fight-or-flight syndrome (increased heart rate, respiration, and muscle tension; sweating; pupillary
dilation); SAM and HPA activation (involving release of catecholamines and corticosteroids);
eventual breakdown of organ systems involved in prolonged resistance to stressors
Psychological
Emotional: anger, anxiety, depression, and other emotional states. Cognitive: inability to concentrate
or think logically, ruminative thinking, catastrophizing. Behavioral: aggression and escape/avoidance
tactics (including suicide attempts)
Mediators
Appraisal
Thinking of a difficult new job as a challenge will create less discomfort than focusing on the threat
of failure.
Predictability
A tornado that strikes without warning may have a more devastating emotional impact than a
long-predicted hurricane.
Control
Repairing a disabled spacecraft may be less stressful for the astronauts doing the work than for
their loved ones on earth, who can do nothing to help.
Coping resources
and methods
Having no effective way to relax after a hard day may prolong tension and other stress responses.
Social support
Having no one to talk to about a rape or other trauma may amplify the negative impact of the
experience.
?
1. The friends and family we can depend on to help us deal with stressors are called our
network.
2. Fantasizing about winning money is a(n)
-focused way of coping with financial stress.
3. Sudden, extreme stressors may cause psychological and behavioral problems known as
.
unstable marriages, died an average of four years earlier than those whose close social
relationships had been less stressful.
■ What do the results mean?
Did these differences in personality traits and social support actually cause some
Termites to live longer than others? Friedman’s research is based mainly on correlational
analyses, so it was difficult for the investigators to draw conclusions about what caused
the relationships they observed. Still, Friedman and his colleagues searched the Terman
data for clues to mechanisms through which personality and other factors might have
exerted a causal influence on how long the Termites lived (Peterson et al., 1998). For
example, they evaluated the hypothesis that conscientious, dependable Termites who
lived socially stable lives might have followed healthier lifestyles than those who were
more impulsive and socially stressed. They found that people in the latter group did, in
fact, tend to eat less healthy diets and were more likely to smoke, drink to excess, or use
drugs. But health behaviors alone did not fully account for their shorter average life
spans. Another possible explanation is that conscientiousness and stability in social
relationships reflect a general attitude of caution that goes beyond eating right and
avoiding substance abuse. Friedman found some support for this idea in the Terman
data. Termites who were impulsive or low on conscientiousness were somewhat more
likely to die from accidents or violence than those who were less impulsive.