Personality plays a key role in how individuals respond to and cope with stress. The document discusses several personality types and traits that are either stress-prone or stress-resistant. Stress-prone personalities include Type A, codependent, helpless-hopeless, and irrational personalities. Stress-resistant personalities include Type B, hardy, survivor, and sensation-seeking personalities. Big Five traits like neuroticism and conscientiousness also impact stress responses. Locus of control, self-esteem, anger, and time management styles further influence individual stress levels.

1. Personality and Stress
Sinem Bulkan
Stress and Trauma
PhD in Organisational Behaviour

2. Personality
• Is a relatively stable set of traits that aids in explaining
and predicting individual behavior.
• Traits –Characteristics that influence how people think,
feel and behave on and off.
• Personality is based on genetics and environmental
factors.

3. Personality
• Personality is thought to comprise several:
• traits
• characteristics
• behaviors
• expressions
• moods
• feelings as perceived by others

4. Personality
• The complexity of one’s personality is thought to be
shaped by:
• genetic factors
• family dynamics
• social influences
• personal experiences

5. Personality and Stress
• How we deal with stress is due in large part to our
personalities, yet regardless of personality, we each
exhibit many inner resources to use in the face of stress.
• New behaviors can be learned and adopted to aid in this
coping process.

6. Response to Stress
• There are four distinct responses that correspond to our
primary behavioural tendencies.
These are:
Fight, Flight, Tolerate, and Avoid

7. Personality Types
• Stress Prone Personalities
These personalities do not cope with stress well:
• Type A personality
• Codependent personality
• Helpless-hopeless personality (Type C)
• Irrational-Illogical Personality
• Stress Resistant Personalities
These personalities cope with stress well
• Type B Personality
• Hardy Personality
• Survivor Personality
• Type R Personality (Sensation Seekers)

8. Stress-Prone Personality Types
Type A Personality
• Time urgency / Rushed Life Sytle
• aggressive, hostile, easily angered
• hard driving , unable to relax, cynical, not generally
anxious
• Polyphasia (multitasking) / 2 things at one
• Ultra-competitiveness
• Rapid speech patterns
• Manipulative control
• Predictor of heart disease
• Hyperaggressiveness and free-floating hostility

9. The Type A Personality
Type A Personality
• The Type A individual is described as being easily aroused, very concerned
over wasting time, and often angry. Beginning in the 1980s, health care
professionals sought to identify these individuals in order to intervene and
prevent the development of coronary problems.
• In response to stress: tightened facial muscles, gestures, grimacing,
explosive speech, interrupt the interviewer, hurrying the pace
• increased risk for CHD & all other causes of premature death – even when
other risk factors are controlled
• Anger (state) & Hostility (trait) may be esp. important

10. Stress-Prone Personality Types
Codependent Personality
• Ardent approval seekers
• Perfectionists
• Super-overachievers
• Crisis managers
• Devoted loyalists
• Self-sacrificing martyrs
• Manipulators
• “Victims”
• Feelings of inadequacy
• Reactionaries

11. Stress-Prone Personality Types
Helpless-Hopeless Personality (Type C)
• Poor self-motivation
• Learned helpnessness
• Cognitive distortion where perception of failure repeatedly
eclipses prospects of success
• Emotional dysfunction
• External locus of control of reinforcing behavior
• Feel helpless, hopeless, give up, little or no emotional
• response to stress
• please others at their expense, often depressed, behavioral
inertia
Type C is related to poor health: more likely to get cancer

12. Stress-Prone Personality Types
Irrational-Illogical Personality
• Characterized as: awfulizers, evaluators, needy
• Do not perceive situations accurately
• unrealistic expectations,
• most stress stems from negative thoughts & irrational beliefs
• ABC Model: A = activating agent
B = illogical beliefs
C = consequences – bio psychosocial
A+B=C

13. Stress-Resistant Personality Types
Type B Personality
• opposite type A, relaxed, easy-going, experience fewer
hassles than type A
• Typically not as successful as type A, but many are
successful nevertheless
• decreased risk of CHD

14. Stress-Resistant Personality Types
The Hardy Personality
• Based on the work of Maddi and Kobasa
• Three characteristics noted in those who cope
well with stress:
• Commitment (invests oneself in the solution)
• Control (takes control of a situation, doesn’t run from it)
• Challenge (sees opportunity rather than the problems)

15. Hardiness
• Over time, male business executives were studied, and those in the group
who most adequately survived stressful events were said to have a hardy
personality style and to be characterized by
• commitment: devotion to jobs, families, and other valued activities
• control: a sense of personal mastery over their activities and lives
• challenge: a perception of life events as challenging (not threatening) and as
an opportunity to test themselves
• Other studies have found that while commitment and control are associated
with good health, challenge is not always necessary. However, feeling
helpless (that is, not in control) and being uncommitted have themselves
been found to be stressful conditions, and people with an optimistic outlook
on life have been found to be healthier.

16. Stress-Resistant Personality Types
Survivor Personality Traits
• A person who responds rather than reacts to danger/stress
• Bi-phase traits (left and right brain skills)
• Proud but humble
• Selfish but altruistic
• Rebellious but cooperative
• Spiritual but irreverent
• Considered optimists and good at creative problem solving

17. Stress-Resistant Personality Types
Type ‘R’ Personality (Sensation Seekers)
Zuckerman (1971) identified the sensation-seeking
personality as those people who seek thrills and sensations
but take calculated risks in their endeavors; they appear to
be dominated by an adventurous spirit.

18. Big Five Traits and Stress
• Openness to Experience
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticsm

19. Big Five Traits
• Openness to experience – (inventive/curious vs.
consistent/cautious). Appreciation for art, emotion,
adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of
experience.
• Openness reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity,
creativity and a preference for novelty and variety.

20. Big Five Traits
• Conscientiousness – (efficient/organized vs. easy-
going/careless).
• A tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim
for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous
behavior; organized, and dependable.
• Extraversion – (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved).
Energy, positive emotions, surgency, assertiveness,
sociability and the tendency to seek stimulation in the
company of others, and talkativeness.

21. Big Five Traits
• Agreeableness – (friendly/compassionate vs.
cold/unkind). A tendency to be compassionate and
cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic
towards others.
• Neuroticism – (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident).
The tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily,
such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability.
Neuroticism also refers to the degree of emotional
stability and impulse control, and is sometimes referred
by its low pole – "emotional stability".

22. The Myer Briggs Type and Stress
• Identifies an individual’s personality preferences.
• Is based on an individual’s four preferences (or inclinations)
for certain ways of thinking and behaving:
• Extrovert (external focus, energy from people)
Introvert (internal focus)
• Sensing (rely on senses, practical, deal with facts)
Intuitive (dreamers, deal with ideas)
• Thinking (logical, analytical, think through decisions)
Feeling (emotional, decisions based on values)
• Judging (organisation and order, work ahead of schedule)
Perceiving (spontenaus, work best at the last minute)

23. Locus of Control and Stress
• It is a continuum representing one’s belief as to whether external or
internal forces control one’s destiny.
• External Locus of Control: People believe that they have little
control over their performance and are closed to new experiences.
• Internal Locus of Control: People believe that they are in control
and are open to new experiences to improve performance.
• Internal locus of control determines level of satisfaction with self,
stress level, and career path.

24. Self-Esteem and Stress
• Low self-esteem = stress-prone
• High self-esteem=stress resistant
• Self-Value
• Practices of high self-esteem: (Stress resistant)
• Focus on action
• Living consciously
• Self-acceptance
• Self-responsibility
• Self-assertiveness
• Living purposefully

25. Self-Esteem and Personality
Characteristics of High Self-Esteem
• Connectedness (support groups)
• Uniqueness (special qualities)
• Empowerment (uses inner resources)
• Role models or mentors (has others to look up to)
• Calculated risk taking (not motivated by fear)

26. Anger and Stress
Anger often results when we are not able to achieve a
desired goal in a given time period.
If we personalize anger, we become fearful and anxious,
feel concerned , become further angered, and lose control.
Both anger and stress lead to anxiety, sleeplessness,
uncontrolled thinking, brooding, restlessness, irritability
and so on.
Ex: Type A – hostility and anger

27. Personality Types
DISC Profile System
• The Disc Dimensions of Behaviour Model describes behavioural patterns
in terms of four tendencies. They are defined as:
• D Dominance: People with a high ‘D’ behavioural tendency seek to
shape their environment by overcoming opposition to accomplish
results.
• İ Influence: People with high ‘i’ behavioural tendency seek to shape
their environment by influencing or persuading others.
• S Steadiness: People with high ‘S’ behavioural tendency seek to
cooperate with others to carry out their tasks.
• C Conscientousness: People with high ‘C’ behavioural tendency seek to
work within existing circumstances to ensure quality and accuracy.

28. Personality Types
DISC Profile System and Response to Stress
Hans Selye (1956) stated that there are four distinct responses that
correspond to our four primary behavioural tendencies:
• Fight: High ‘D’ people will attemp to destrot the impact of the stress or
eliminate its cause. The fighting may be verbal or physical.
• Flight High ‘i’ people will attempt to flee from the situation. If physical
flight is not possible, they will attempt to flee emotionally by changing
the subject or ignoring the issue.

29. Personality Types
DISC Profile System and Response to Stress (cont.)
Hans Selye (1956) stated that there are four distinct responses that
correspond to our four primary behavioural tendencies:
• Tolerate: High ‘S’ people will not attempt to flight or flee; however
they will tend to shut down. They will remain in the situation with
apparent calmness; however, they may become dysfunctional, not
knowing what to do.
• Avoid: High ‘C’ people will tend to withdraw in order to avoid conflict.
They may in fact use the time as an opportunity to carefully plan their
next move.

30. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Type A Personality
• Workaholics
• Time Jugglers
• Procrastinators
• Perfectionists
• Lifestyle Behaviour Trappers

31. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Type A Personality
• In pursuit for competition, these people,
• tend to complete tasks in hurry
• Spend time in hostility
• Try to performs several tasks at one time
• All of these wasting time.

32. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Workaholics
These people,
• Tend to derive satisfaction from long work hours.
• Tend to do trivial tasks in normal work hours amd major projects
after hours
• Do not use timesaving measures

33. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Time Jugglers
These people,
• Try to perform more than one thing at a time
• Spend more time than needed on tasks
• Miss out on important responsibilities
• Begin several tasks without reaching closure on any

34. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Procrastinators
These people,
• Tend to do less difficult tasks rather than important tasks
• Take a stab at the task but find an excuse to drift away from
completing it
• Knowingly do things other than the job at hand

35. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Perfectionists
These people,
• Are obsessed with carrying out every task to perfection
• Get caught in detail
• Never see the big picture
• Are too hard on themselves and others
• Perform the same task repeatedly

36. Time Waster Personalites and Stress
• Life Style Behaviour Trappers
These people,
• Have a hard time saying no
• Look for gratification from others
• Have other people’s agendas thrust upon them, they never make
efforts at organising their tasks.

37. Resilient Personality and Stress
Characteristics of a resilient personality are:
• ability to cope in stressful situations,
• continuing engagement in activities,
• flexibility to unexpected changes in life,
• ability to seek social support,
• perceiving stress as a challenge - a chance for growth and
development rather than a threat to life,
• taking care of one's body,
• living in harmony with nature,
• optimism and sense of humour,
• work and love,
• developing spiritualism and seeking true sense.

38. THANK YOU....