Personality, Health, and Coping

Abstract

This study explored group and relational differences in personality, health, and coping across 189 Australian students and 243 Singaporean students. Life Orientation Test—Revised showed a one-factor structure for Australians but a two-factor structure for Singaporeans. Australians tended to be more agreeable, more conscientious, more optimistic, more satisfied with their lives, while Singaporeans tended to be more neurotic and more pessimistic. Singaporeans tended to utilize less frequent adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies. Neuroticism was a significant predictor for state-trait anxiety and stress, while unipolar optimism was a significant predictor for life satisfaction and unipolar pessimism was a significant predictor for trait anxiety for both samples. Bipolar optimism was a significant predictor for trait anxiety and life satisfaction for both samples whereas it was a significant predictor for state anxiety for the Singaporean sample. Optimists, pessimists, and neurotics in both samples tended to use different coping strategies. Limitations and implications are discussed.

The Impact of Applicants’ Weight and Education About Obesity on Applicant Ratings

“…Neuroticism appears to reflect a negative cognitive bias that is positively associated with poor psychological outcomes and negatively related to psychological wellbeing. The results of the present study confirm previous findings on the positive association between neuroticism and distress (Aarstad et al, 2012;Beisland et al, 2013;Chien et al, 2007;Matthews et al, 2006;Wong et al, 2009) and the inverse association between neuroticism WINTER 2017 PSI CHI JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH and wellbeing (Beisland et al, 2013;Gale, Booth, Mottus, Kuh, & Deary, 2013;Gutiérrez et al, 2005;James et al, 2012).…”

“…Not surprisingly, among the FFM personality traits, high neuroticism was the sole positive predic tor of anxiety and stress among both Australian and Singaporean undergraduates in one study (Wong et al, 2009). Matthews et al (2006) also found that neuroticism positively predicted stress and worry in undergraduates.…”

“…In their efforts to identify individual differences associated with psychological distress in college students, researchers have found that neuroticism, a dimension of personality, is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress (Chien, Ko, & Wu, 2007;Matthews et al, 2006;Wong, Lee, Ang, Oei, & Ng, 2009) and inversely related to wellbeing (Gutiérrez, Jiménez, Hernández, & Puente, 2005) in this population. Additional research has established that personality and coping styles are closely intertwined (Bouchard, Guillemette, & LandryLéger, 2004).…”

Cultural Differences in Attitudes Toward Action and Inaction

“…According to prior work, East Asians score higher in neuroticism than European Americans (e.g., Wong, Lee, Ang, Oei, & Ng, 2009). Further, the experience of emotional lability (i.e., neuroticism) is correlated with emotional complexity, that is, the experience of positive and negative emotions simultaneously (Goetz, Spencer-Rodgers, & Peng, 2008).…”