Hardiness Flashcards
Who identified hardiness?
Kobasa
What is someone with a hardiness personality like?
Less likely to perceive events as stressful and even when they do they experience much lower levels of stress
What are the three characteristics of a hardiness personality?
Commitment, challenge and control
What is commitment?
Hardy people are deeply involved in their relationships, their activities and themselves. This means they throw themselves whole heartedly into what life offers them and they will get something valuable out of the experience. Therefore if a situation if potentially seen as stressful it is better to get involved than withdrawing themselves and becoming isolated
What is challenge?
They are resilient and welcome change as an opportunity or challenge rather than as a threat. They recognise that life is unpredictable but see this as exciting and stimulating. Stressful situations can help us to learn and this is more fulfilling than retreating into comfort and easy life
What is control?
Have a strong belief that they are in charge of events, that is is they who make things happen rather than things happening to them. Even if those events are stressful, they strive to influence their environments rather than becoming powerless and passive observers of life passing them by
What was the method of the research into hardiness?
Used a correlational method by studying 800 male managers of a public service company in an American city. She assessed their stress levels by using the SRRS questionnaire. She then looked at approx. 150 managers who has high stress score and in this group compared those who had experienced very little sickness with those who had often been ill. So some had a high SRRS score so should have had high illness but they didn’t because they had hardiness
What are the findings and conclusion into the study on hardiness?
She found that those who had high stress scores but who had rarely been ill had a personality which she called hardiness. This shows the mangers who were hardy were less likely to see life events as stressors and to see changes as challenges that they could control and do something about
What are two strengths of research into hardiness?
- practical applications as led o training programmes to increase people’s hardiness
- Lifton et al found that U.S students with high scores were more likely to finish their degree
What are four limitations of research into hardiness?
- male participants only were used
- correlational research so cause and effect can’t be established
- self report questionnaires were used so affected by researcher and participant bias
- hardiness may not exist. Funk believes that a low hardiness score just means that someone is negative
