Health-damaging personality traits and verbal–autonomic dissociation: The role of self-control and environmental control.

Abstract

This study tested predictions derived from D. C. Glass's (1977) uncontrollability model regarding the link between control-related personality attributes and the dissociation of affective and autonomic responses to stress. Pressured drive, measured by the Jenkins Activity Survey (D. S. Krantz, D. C. Glass, & M. L. Snyder, 1974), and emotional defensiveness, measured by the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1964), were examined in relation to cardiovascular and affective responses to mental arithmetic in 31 male and 26 female college students. Pressured drive was positively associated with cardiovascular reactivity but unrelated to affect ratings. In contrast, emotional defensiveness was unrelated to cardiovascular reactivity, but high scores were associated with smaller increases in self-reported negative affect. The findings suggest that these potentially health-damaging personality attributes may influence stress response measures through independent mechanisms for maintaining environmental control and self-control.

Physiological stress responses in defensive individuals: Age and sex matter

“…Our findings of a negative relation between defensiveness and stress reactivity in men conflict with those obtained by most studies. Indeed, positive (Al'Absi et al, 2000;Fuller, 1992;Grossman, Watkins, Ristuccia, & Wilhelm, 1997;Jorgensen et al, 1995;Pauls & Stemmler, 2003;Shapiro et al, 1995;Warrenburg et al, 1989) or null (Barger, Marsland, Bachen, & Manuck, 2000;Contrada et al, 1997;Helmers & Krantz, 1996;Linden, 1985;Tomaka et al, 1992) relations have generally been reported between defensiveness and BP and/or HR reactivity to stress in men. Cardiac autonomic response to stress, on the other hand, has shown mixed results.…”

“…In two recent studies (Movius & Allen, 2005;Pauls & Stemmler, 2003), more defensive undergraduate men and women showed reduced parasympathetic activity during an arithmetic task, as measured through time domain and spectral analyses of HRV. Nonetheless, several studies were unable to replicate these results in other student populations (Blackhart, Eckel, & Tice, 2007;Contrada, Czarnecki, & Li-Chern Pan, 1997;Helmers & Krantz, 1996;Linden, 1985). This may reflect the fact that investigations have differed considerably with respect to the types of physiological indices, stressor, and measure of defensiveness employed.…”

Rethinking Social Desirability Scales

“…Other studies report negative associations between IM and anxiety and negative affect (Clark, Crewdson, & Purdon, 1998;Contrada, Czarnecki, & Li-Chem Pan, 1997;Derakshan & Eysenck, 1997;M.W. Eysenck & van Berkum, 1992;Martin, 1982;Mogg et al, 2000;Thomsen, Jørgensen, Mehlsen, & Zachariae, 2004;D.…”

“…Contrada et al (1997) placed participants under pressure by asking them to work on a stressful arithmetic task. The results showed no physiological response indicative of stress among individuals high in IM.…”

Listening for Avoidance: Narrative Form and Defensiveness in Adolescent Memories

“…A high score (for example, endorsing ''True'' for the first item and ''False'' for the second two) indicates that a person consistently denies experiencing very common feelings or behaviors that are less than admirable. Numerous studies conducted over the past three decades [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] have shown that people are earnest in these denials of slightly negative states or behaviors, and their favorable bias cannot be ascribed merely to conscious ''impression management.'' The conclusion from these studies is that the scale measures self-deception as well as other-deception, that is, not only the need for social approval, but the avoidance of internally disapproved-of emotional states.…”