Psychological determinants of health and performance: The tangled web of desirable and undesirable characteristics.

Abstract

Correlations were determined for male (n = 225) and female (n = 242) college students between sets of undesirable personality traits (anxiety, stress reactivity, anger, and alienation) and desirable personality traits (instrumentality, achievement strivings, and optimism measured by the Scheier-Carver [1987] Life Orientation Test), and a series of outcome variables related to health (self-reported health complaints and health maintenance behaviors and beliefs) and academic performance (academic expectations and actual grade point average). Significant correlations were found between many of the personality variables and the outcome variables. However, partial correlations revealed different relationships for the various criteria. With other variables held constant, health complaints were related to several undesirable characteristics, whereas health maintenance behaviors and beliefs were related to several desirable attributes. Only achievement strivings made an independent contribution in both sexes to the 2 measures of academic performance. The theoretical and methodological wisdom of using measures of multiple personality constructs and outcome variables is discussed.

The impact of personality on the reporting of unfounded symptoms and illness.

“…This results in reporting greater numbers of symptoms and more severe symptoms on retrospective measures (Brown & Moskowitz, 1997;Larsen, 1992). Most studies have looked at the association between neuroticism and the reporting of nonspecific symptoms in healthy participants (e.g., Robbins, Spence, & Clark, 1991;Watson & Pennebaker, 1989 (Deary, Clyde, & Prier, 1997;Deary & Prier, 1995;Hepburn, Deary, MacLeod, & Prier, 1994). The researchers conducting these studies did not, however, control for objective illness.…”

Mammography Screening within the Context of the Theory of Planned Behavior: The Role of Personality Traits and Personal Factors

“…Although in previous research optimism has been associated with the practice of health behaviors such as alcohol consumption, smoking, healthy eating and physical exercise in healthy populations (Robbins, Spence, & Clark, 1991;Steptoe, 1994) most of the studies examine the effect of dispositional optimism through its association with factors such as coping strategies or emotional affect (Baker, 2006;Chang & Sanna, 2003;Taylor et al, 1992). This also applies to studies that examine mammography screening, where the effect of optimism is associated with either perceptions of risk and worry (Facione, 2002;MacGregor et al, 2004) or perceptions of benefits and barriers within the theoretical framework of the Health Belief Model (Farmer et al, 2007) and no direct associations between optimism and mammography screening behavior have been reported either.…”

“…Apart from the inclusion of sociodemographic and health-related information, optimism, measured as a personality trait, was selected to be included in the expanded model. Our rational for including optimism was based on previous research reporting associations between optimism and health-related behaviors (Robbins, Spence, & Clark, 1991;Steptoe, 1994), including mammography screening (Farmer, Reddick, D'Agostino, & Jackson, 2007). Furthermore, the majority of the studies that have incorporated personality traits within the TPB framework focus predominantly on general traits like the Big-Five factors (Conner & Abraham, 2001;Courneya, Bobick, & Schinke, 1999;Rhodes, Courneya, & Jones, 2002).…”

Rôle de certains facteurs psychosociaux dans la réussite universitaire d’étudiants de première année1

“…Certains auteurs ont montré l'influence favorable de l'estime de soi (Lane, Lane & Kyprianou, 2004), du sentiment d'auto-efficacité (Chemers, Hu & Garcia, 2001 ;Hampton & Mason, 2003 ;Voelkl Finn & Frone, 2001) et de l'optimisme (Robbins, Spence & Clark, 1991) sur les performances académiques. Les travaux de Watson et Pennebaker (1989) ont abouti à deux dimensions caractérisant les états émotionnels habituels : l'affectivité positive (enthousiasme, activité, vivacité) et l'affectivité négative (hostilité, pessimisme).…”

“…Ces dimensions se sont avérées associées à diverses mesures de bien-être et de santé. L'affectivité négative prédirait l'échec chez les étudiants en médecine (Robbins et al, 1991).…”