Situational determinants of coping responses: loss, threat, and challenge.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Biomedical subjects
R R McCrae
Publications and source records attributed to R R McCrae.
Extraversion is not a filter, neuroticism is not an outcome: a reply to Lawton.
Although Lawton acknowledges that Extraversion is positively, and Neuroticism negatively, related to subjective well-being, he misinterprets the natures of these two broad personality traits. "Extraversion" refers to two quite different conceptions in personality theory, and Lawton has based his discussion on the wrong one. The mood variability and environmental sensitivity he attributes to extraverts is better seen as a result of the personality dimension of Openness to Experience. In addition, Lawton fails to distinguish between states and traits, and so concludes that Neuroticism is an outcome rather than a determinant of well-being. Evidence from retest studies and experimental mood manipulation shows that Neuroticism is indeed a personality trait that may influence mood outcomes. Since measures of subjective well-being are so strongly influenced by stable personality traits, other approaches to the measurement of life quality are needed, and Lawton's identification of behavioral competence and the external environment as independent sectors of well-being is an important contribution.
Affect↗
Age differences in the use of coping mechanisms.
Two cross-sectional studies are reported, which attempt to assess the influence of age on the use of 28 coping mechanisms. In the first study 255 men and women, aged 24 to 91 years, completed a questionnaire describing their coping efforts in response to a recent life event categorized by the investigator as either a loss, a threat, or a challenge. In the second study 150 persons, aged 21 to 90 years, completed a shortened version of the questionnaire in response to three separate stresses that they selected. Results showed that the older people in this sample coped in much the same way as younger people and that, where they employed different mechanisms, it appeared to be largely because of the different types of stress they face. However, middle-aged and older persons were consistently less inclined than younger persons to rely on hostile reaction and escapist fantasy, regardless of type of stress.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Personal adjustment to aging: longitudinal prediction from neuroticism and extraversion.
Personal adjustment to aging as measured by scales from the Chicago Attitude Inventory (CAI) was examined longitudinally in a community-dwelling sample of 557 men aged 17 to 97. Concurrent and predictive relations between this age-appropriate measure of well-being and personality were examined by correlating the CAI variables with three factors from the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey identified as Neuroticism, Extraversion, and "Thinking Introversion." As hypothesized, Neuroticism was related negatively and Extraversion was related positively to most concurrent measures of well-being in both younger and older subsamples. "Thinking Introversion" was related only to positive attitudes toward religion. Predictive correlations between personality and subjective well-being over two-to-ten (M = 5.3) and ten-to-seventeen (M = 12.6) year intervals confirmed earlier research, and showed that enduring personality disposition antedate and predict measures of personal adjustment to aging.
Adolescent↗
Somatic complaints in males as a function of age and neuroticism: a longitudinal analysis.
Previous research has shown that both age and neuroticism are correlated with total scores on self-report health inventories; the present study concerns the influence of these two factors on reports of physical complaints in various bodily systems. Six- and twelve-year longitudinal analyses of the physical health sections (A-L) of the Cornell medical Index were supplemented with cross-and time-sequential analyses. Subjects, aged 17-97, were taken from a group of 1038 male participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Results showed that problems in sensory, cardiovascular, and genitourinary systems increased with age, while health habits improved. More neurotic subjects, as measured by the psychiatric sections (M-R) of the CMId and the Emotional Stability Scale of the GZTS showed higher levels of endorsements on all sections. These results suggest that age does not produce a generalized increase in physical complaints; instead, specific age-related symptoms show increases. Implications of these findings for research involving self-assessments of health are discussed.
Adult↗
Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: happy and unhappy people.
Three studies are reported that examine the relations between personality and happiness or subjective well-being. It is argued that (a) one set of traits influences positive affect or satisfaction, whereas a different set of traits influences negative affect or dissatisfaction; (b) the former set of traits can be reviewed as components of extraversion, and the latter as components of neuroticism; and (c) personality differences antedate and predict differences in happiness over a period of 10 years, thus ruling out the rival hypothesis that temporary moods or states account for the observed relations. A model of individual differences in happiness is presented, and the separate and complementary roles of trait and adaptation-level theories in explaining happiness are discussed.
Extraversion, Psychological↗
Constancy of adult personality structure in males: longitudinal, cross-sectional and times-of-measurement analyses.
Constancy or change in adult personality organization can be assessed by comparing the factor structure of personality instruments at different ages, and some studies have reported cross-sectional differences in structure. The present study compares the factor structure of the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey scales longitudinally in three administrations 6 years apart and cross-sectionally in three age cohorts. Additional analyses compare first administration data collected in two successive decades to test for variation in structure resulting from cultural change over that period. Subjects were 769 male volunteers in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, aged 17 to 97 at the time of the first administration. Three varimax-rotated principal components were extracted in each of eight analyses. Results show no systematic evidence of variation in structure in any of these groups, with coefficients of factor congruence ranging from .83 to .99. This longitudinally demonstrated invariance of personality structure is discussed in terms of the implications for the stability of personality organization throughout the adult years and for the use of personality tests in elderly groups.
Adolescent↗
Smoking motive factors: a review and replication.
A review of recent research shows that some consensus on the number, nature, and function of smoking motives or styles is emerging. Large-scales studies on the stability of motives and the utility of the smoking motive model, however, have not yet been reported. To test the factorial replicatibility and longitudinal stability of smoking motives, the Horn-Waingrow Smoker Survey was administered to subjects in 1973 and again in 1976, together with 20 additional items developed by Coan. Subjects were 1,340 current and former adult male smokers. Factor analyses showed that the original factor structure could be satisfactorily replicated at both times, and that the addition of Coan's new items contributed only one new factor. The 3-year stability coefficients for both continuing and former smokers ranged from .45 to .67, consistent with the idea that smoking motives are a relatively stable reflection of personality needs and traits.
Adult↗
Anxiety, extraversion and smoking.
In previous large-scale studies, smoking has been found to be associated either with extraversion or anxiety, though not both. Using a large population of adult American males, anxiety and extraversion scores were examined in groups of never smokers, former light, former heavy, current light and current heavy smokers to test the hypotheses that smokers would be both more extraverted and more anxious than non-smokers. Two independent measures of both traits were used. Heavy current smokers were seen to be significantly higher than non-smokers on both measures of neuroticism or anxiety; there were no differences between groups in extraversion. The small magnitude of reported relations led to the suggestion that future research focus on more meaningful classification of smokers and more specific facets of personality.
Adult↗
Psychiatric symptom dimensions in the Cornell Medical Index among normal adult males.
Factor analysis of items from the psychiatric portion of the Cornell Medical Index (CMI) was performed to determine the empirical symptom dimensions in a sample of 1682 normal adult males. Six factors were extracted and interpreted as Irritability, Inability to Cope, Depression, Timidity, Normal Anxiety, and Clinical Anxiety. The factors showed some correspondence to the clinical groupings in the CMI and to factors discovered in other studies. Whiel all showed small positive correlations with a measure of Neuroticism, the consistency of these results argues against the hypothesis that the CMI M-R sections measure only a urinary factor of neurotic complaining. Some modifications in the CMI are recommended that could emhance its utility as a diagnostic or personality instrument.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Age differences in personality structure: a cluster analytic approach.
A cluster analytic approach was used to determine possible age differences in the structure of personality as measured by the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Subjects were 969 adult male volunteers, originally divided into three groups: 25 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55 to 82. Two familiar dimensions of personality, Anxiety-Adjustment and Introversion-Extraversion, were found to be cross sectionally stable. A third cluster dimension, interpreted as openness to experience, showed age-related differences. Young subjects showed openness to feelings; middle-aged subjects showed openness to ideas; and old subjects showed a balanced openness to both feelings and ideas. Repartitioning of the sample into two groups (ages 25 to 43 and 44 to 82), and three groups (25 to 39, 40 to 47, and 48 to 82) confirmed these age differences in the third cluster. The interpretation of the third cluster is discussed in terms of Jung's concepts of psychological functions.
Age Factors↗
Relations of age and personality dimensions to cognitive ability factors.
The relation between three cognitive ability factors - Information Processing Ability (IPA), Manual Dexterity (MD), and Pattern Analysis Capability (PAC) - and three personality dimensions - Anxiety, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience - were examined in three age groups. Subjects were 969 male volunteers ranging in age from 25 to 82. Subjects high in anixety scored lower on all three cognitive factors; subjects open to experience scored higher on IPA and PAC; and introverted subjects scored higher on PAC. Most of these effects remained when the education and socio-economic status were held constant in covariance analyses. Older subjects performed less well than younger ones on MD and PAC, but not on IPA. While personality has some influence on cognitive performance, the declines with age in performance on some cognitive tasks are not mediated by personality.
Adult↗
Age, anxiety, and self-reported health.
A sample of 472 normal males ranging in age from twenty-five to eighty-two was divided into anxious and adjusted groups on the basis of a cluster analysis of the Cattell 16PF test, and compared for scores on a self-report measure of health. While the anxious men reported more symptoms than the adjusted in the young and middle age groups, there was no difference in the old group. Although anxiety was found to be unrelated to health as evaluated by physicians' examinations, the anxious men indeed reported more health problems in eight major areas of health concern than was warranted by their actual physical health status. This relation also did not hold in the old group. Anxious men seemed to be more vagilant about their health in young and middle age groups, but not in the old group. This was interpreted as a defensive denial of symptoms in the old anxious group; for a person with trait anxiety, anxiety about approaching death and increasing health problems is just too much to bear, and he resorts to denying symptoms in an effort to diminish his anxiety.
Adult↗
Cynicism and paranoid alienation in the Cook and Medley HO Scale.
Factor analysis of responses from 1002 men and women were used to define two subscales of the Cook and Medley Hostility Scale. Both the Cynicism and the Paranoid Alienation subscale described attitudes of mistrust and alienation, and both were correlated with MMPI factors measuring aspects of psychopathology. It was suggested that measures of the broader domain of Agreeableness-Antagonism be examined as possible predictors of CHD.
Coronary Disease↗
A caution on the use of the MMPI K-correction in research on psychosomatic medicine.
The MMPI K scale is widely used to screen for invalid responses and to adjust substantive scale scores for defensiveness. In a normal volunteer sample, correlations of MMPI clinical scales and the Cook-Medley Hostility (HO) scale with self-reports and peer ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) were decreased rather than increased by K-correction. Similarly, in a medical sample, structured interview-based ratings of Potential for Hostility were better predicted by uncorrected HO scores than by K-corrected HO scores. Finally, in a prospective study of mortality among lawyers, uncorrected HO scores were a significant predictor of all-cause mortality; K-corrected scores were not. The data suggest that, under some circumstances, the K scale may measure substantive traits rather than defensiveness, and should be used and interpreted with caution. Its use is probably contraindicated for most research on psychiatrically normal subjects.
Adult↗
Predicting personality in adulthood from college MMPI scores: implications for follow-up studies in psychosomatic medicine.
To assess the long-term predictive utility of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) content scales, 1,960 individuals who had completed the MMPI in college in 1964 or 1965 were administered two measures of adult personality, the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) and the Cook and Medley MMPI Hostility scale, in 1988. A comparison group of 274 men and women in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging were given both MMPI and NEO-PI between 1981 and 1987. Predictive correlations between MMPI scales and NEO-PI factors were qualitatively similar to concurrent correlations, but approximately half as large in magnitude. Theoretically, these correlations were interpreted to mean that about half the variance in basic dimensions of personality is stable from college age into middle adulthood. Practically, the relatively modest correlations suggest that predictive studies of medical outcomes probably require large samples, and that baseline data from adults (e.g., over age 30) may be more useful for future studies. The combination of stability and change suggests that the decade of the 20s may be a particularly fruitful time to conduct research on interventions to alter personality and their effects on health outcomes.
Adolescent↗
Age differences in personality structure revisited: Studies in validity, stability, and change.
Construct validity and longitudinal stability evidence for three cluster dimensions of personality identified as Anxiety, Extraversion, and Openness is examined in a sample of adult males. Correlations with Allport-Vernon-Lindsay Value scales, Cornell Medical Index scores, Eysenck E and N scales, and factors from the SVIB are presented in support of the interpretation of the three clusters. Nine-year longitudinal evidence of stability is presented for Anxiety and Extraversion scores. Previous evidence for change in the structure of Openness to Experience is reconsidered in the light of eleven-year longitudinal data. While the earlier structural differences were not longitudinally replicated, a pattern of external correlates provided evidence for validity of an Openness dimension. Finally, the structural approach to personality development is illustrated by examining the differing relations between field-dependence and tendermindedness in younger and older men.
Adult↗
Psychological research in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.
The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) is an ongoing multidisciplinary study of biomedical and psychosocial aging. Over 1000 men and women are currently active, returning to the Gerontology Research Center every 2 years for a 2.5-day visit. Longitudinal studies of cognitive functioning have shown a variety of patterns of age changes in vigilance, problem solving, divergent thinking abilities, and visual memory. Studies of personality traits have shown stability in both mean levels and individual differences. Future BLSA research will add neuroimaging studies to link personality and cognition to the structure and function of the aging brain.
Adolescent↗