Personality and stress

Presented by

Prof. Dr: Ghada Mourad

Professor and Head of psychiatric mental health nursing department

Objectives:
At the end of lecture every student should be able to:

• Identify concept of personality

• Explore factors affecting personality development
• Illustrate five personality traits
• Identify concept of stress and coping
• Explore different coping styles

Introduction:

Personality encompasses the relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and

behavioral patterns a person has. Our personality differentiates us from
other people, and understanding someone’s personality gives us clues about
how that person is likely to act and feel in a variety of situations. In order to
effectively manage organizational behavior, an understanding of different
employees’ personalities is helpful. Having this knowledge is also useful
for placing people in jobs and organizations.

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Personality:
A characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Personality
embraces moods, attitudes, and opinions and is most clearly expressed in
interactions with other people. It includes behavioral characteristics,
both inherent and acquired, that distinguish one person from another and
that can be observed in people’s relations to the environment and to
the social group.

Factors affecting personality development

The determinants of personality are broadly categorized into

biological familial, cultural, social and situational categories. The
biologically factors include heredity and the physical feature of a person.
The structure of the brain is also a factor falling in this category. Cultural
factors is also contribute in the personality of a person. Attributes like
independence, competition, aggression and co-operation are affected by
culture. Familial factors also have a significant impact on the personality of
a person particular in early stage. This category includes factors like parents
and other member s of family, environment at home and the order of birth
among siblings. Social and situational factors also affect the personality of
a person.

Big Five Personality Traits:

- Openness: People who like to learn new things and enjoy new
experiences.
- Conscientiousness: People that have a high degree of
conscientiousness are reliable and prompt.

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 - Extraversion: Extraverts people get their energy from interacting
with others
- Agreeableness: These individuals are friendly, cooperative, and
compassionate
- Neuroticism: tendency to frequently experience negative emotion
such as Anxiety, worry and depression as well as personnel sensitivity

1-Openness:
It is the degree to which a person is curious, original, intellectual,
creative, and open to new ideas. People high in openness seem to thrive in
situations that require being flexible and learning new things. They are
highly motivated to learn new skills, and they do well in training settings.
They also have an advantage when they enter into a new organization.

Their open-mindedness leads them to seek a lot of information and

feedback about how they are doing and to build relationships, which leads
to quicker adjustment to the new job. When supported, they tend to be
creative. Open people are highly adaptable to change, and teams that
experience unforeseen changes in their tasks do well if they are populated
with people high in openness. Compared to people low in openness, they
are also more likely to start their own business.

2-Conscientiousness
It refers to the degree to which a person is organized, systematic,
punctual, achievement oriented, and dependable. Conscientiousness is the
one personality trait that uniformly predicts how high a person’s
performance will be, across a variety of occupations and jobs. In fact,
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conscientiousness is the trait most desired by recruiters and results in the
most success in interviews. This is not a surprise, because in addition to
their high performance, conscientious people have higher levels of
motivation to perform, lower levels of turnover, lower levels of
absenteeism, and higher levels of safety performance at work. Finally, it
seems that conscientiousness is a good trait to have for entrepreneurs.
Highly conscientious people are more likely to start their own business
compared to those who are not conscientious, and their firms have longer
survival rates.

3-Extraversion
It is the degree to which a person is outgoing, talkative, and sociable,
and enjoys being in social situations. One of the established findings is that
they tend to be effective in jobs involving sales. Moreover, they tend to be
effective as managers and they demonstrate inspirational leadership
behaviors. Extraverts do well in social situations, and as a result they tend
to be effective in job interviews. Part of their success comes from how they
prepare for the job interview, as they are likely to use their social network.

Extraverts have an easier time than introverts when adjusting to a new

job. They actively seek information and feedback, and build effective
relationships, which helps with their adjustment. Interestingly, extraverts
are also found to be happier at work, which may be because of the
relationships they build with the people around them and their relative ease
in adjusting to a new job. However, they do not necessarily perform well in
all jobs, and jobs depriving them of social interaction may be a poor fit.
Moreover, they are not necessarily model employees.
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 For example, they tend to have higher levels of absenteeism at work,
potentially because they may miss work to hang out with or attend to the
needs of their friends.

4-Agreeableness
It is the degree to which a person is nice, tolerant, sensitive, trusting,
kind, and warm. In other words, people who are high in agreeableness are
likeable people who get along with others. Not surprisingly, agreeable
people help others at work consistently, and this helping behavior is not
dependent on being in a good mood. They are also less likely to retaliate
when other people treat them unfairly. This may reflect their ability to show
empathy and give people the benefit of the doubt.

Agreeable people may be a valuable addition to their teams and may

be effective leaders because they create a fair environment . At the other
end of the spectrum, people low in agreeableness are less likely to show
these positive behaviors.

Moreover, people who are not agreeable are shown to quit their jobs
unexpectedly, perhaps in response to a conflict they engage with a boss or a
peer. If agreeable people are so nice, does this mean that we should only
look for agreeable people when hiring? Some jobs may actually be a better
fit for someone with a low level of agreeableness. Think about it: When
hiring a lawyer, would you prefer a kind and gentle person, or a pit bull?
Also, high agreeableness has a downside: Agreeable people are less likely
to engage in constructive and change-oriented communication. Disagreeing
with the status quo may create conflict and agreeable people will likely
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avoid creating such conflict, missing an opportunity for constructive
change.

5-Neuroticism
It refers to the degree to which a person is anxious, irritable,
aggressive, temperamental, and moody. These people have a tendency to
have emotional adjustment problems and experience stress and depression
on a habitual basis. People very high in neuroticism experience a number of
problems at work. For example, they are less likely to be someone people
go to for advice and friendship. In other words, they may experience
relationship difficulties. They tend to be habitually unhappy in their jobs
and report high intentions to leave, but they do not necessarily actually
leave their jobs. Being high in neuroticism seems to be harmful to one’s
career, as they have lower levels of career success (measured with income
and occupational status achieved in one’s career). Finally, if they achieve
managerial jobs, they tend to create an unfair climate at work.

Positive and Negative Affectivity You may have noticed that

behavior is also a function of moods. When people are in a good mood,
they may be more cooperative, smile more, and act friendly. When these
same people are in a bad mood, they may have a tendency to be picky,
irritable, and less tolerant of different opinions. Yet, some people seem to
be in a good mood most of the time, and others seem to be in a bad mood
most of the time regardless of what is actually going on in their lives. This
distinction is manifested by positive and negative affectivity traits. Positive
affective people experience positive moods more frequently, whereas
negative affective people experience negative moods with greater
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frequency. Negative affective people focus on the “glass half empty” and
experience more anxiety and nervousness. Positive affective people tend to
be happier at work, and their happiness spreads to the rest of the work
environment. As may be expected, this personality trait sets the tone in the
work atmosphere.

Types of Persons :
1. Type A Personality
The Type A personality is characterized as fast moving,
hardworking, Rigidly, Concerned with time management, time
conscious, comparative, impatient Want other people to get to the point
, preoccupied with work and Competitiveness.

2. Type B Personality
The Type B personality is characterized as lazy , Calm, avoid
responsibility , time consuming , not comparative, careless in work
,energetic ,Socializer, and enjoys being the center of attention, They’re
good relationship builders and have Adaptability to change.

3- Type C Personality
The Type C personality is a very detail-oriented individual who likes to
be involved in things that are controlled and stable. They’re interested
in accuracy, rationality, logic, and desire fact. They strive for excellence
and perfection. They control their emotions and appear objectivity.
They enjoy meaningful conversations, prefer to avoid conflicts with
others and dislike crowding.

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4- Type D personality
The Type D personality Called the distressed personality, They seek
security, stability and longevity on the job and are very happy doing a
repetitive task, day in and day out. The repetition allows them to
become very skilled in what they do. they don't like the change in rules
of works. they worry that the unknown may be even worse

These personalities do not cope with stress well:

• Type A personality

• Type C personality

• Type D personality

These personalities cope with stress well

• Type B Personality

Does any person able to change his personality?

In fact, our personality changes over long periods of time. For

example, we tend to become more socially dominant, more conscientious
(organized and dependable), and more emotionally stable between the ages
of 20 and 40, whereas openness to new experiences may begin to decline
during this same time. In other words, even though we treat personality as
relatively stable, changes occur. For example, having a sociable and
outgoing personality may encourage people to seek friends and prefer social
situations. This does not mean that their personality will immediately affect

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their work behavior. At work, we have a job to do and a role to perform.
Therefore, our behavior may be more strongly affected by what is expected
of us, as opposed to how we want to behave. When people have a lot of
freedom at work, their personality will become a stronger influence over
their behavior.

Stress:
Stress is a situation where there are demands on a person
There is a deep relationship between “personality and stress”. In the
present world these two concepts have attained a very important role. Stress
plays a very important role in everyday life of an individual and is present in
one form or another. Stress affects the personality as well as the performance
of a person. If we understand the relation between stress and the personality,
how they affect each other we will be able to manage stress in a better way.

Stress is an adaptation reaction of living organisms in response to internal or

external threats to homeostasis. It is considered as a complex defense
mechanism representing the final endpoint of numerous dynamic and
interconnected factors of biological, psychological and social nature. Stress
is not a simple, stimulus-response reaction, but the interaction between an
individual and the environment, involving subjective perception and
assessment of stressors, thus constituting a highly personalized process.
Specific inherited characteristics, early experience in life, and particular,
learned cognitive predispositions make individuals more or less susceptible
to the effects of stressors. Resilience and vulnerability to stressors as well as

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intensity of stress response are greatly dependable on age, gender,
intelligence, and numerous characteristics of personality.

Stress Not surprisingly, the amount of stress present in our job is related to
our satisfaction and commitment. For example, experiencing role ambiguity
(vagueness in relation to what our responsibilities are), role conflict (facing
contradictory demands at work), and organizational politics, and worrying
about the security of our job are all stressors that make people dissatisfied.
On the other hand, not all stress is bad. Some stressors actually make us
happier! For example, working under time pressure and having a high
degree of responsibility are stressful, but they can also be perceived as
challenges and tend to be related to high levels of satisfaction.

Types of stress:
Positive stress: we may say it is something good that out of the pressure or
stress the person is able to perform better.
Negative stress: if person can’t adjust to the demands of the situation, then
the stress is prolonged then this negative stress affects person performance,
health and over all personality

Coping with stress

Coping

It is a regulatory process that can reduce the negative feelings

resulting from stressful events. Coping is like the changing of thoughts and
actions to manage the external and/or internal demands for a stressful event.

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Indeed, coping is a dynamic process that fluctuates over time in response to
changing demands and appraisals of the situation.

Coping styles:
• problem-focused coping
• emotion-focused coping
• avoidant coping.

Problem-focused coping Problem-focused coping Problem focused

strategies aim to remove or reduce the cause of the stressor (e.g., problem
engagement and positive re-interpretation and growth) involves altering or
managing the problem that causes the stress and is highly action-focused.

Emotion-focused coping is a type of stress management that attempts to

reduce negative emotional responses associated with stress. Negative
emotions such as embarrassment, fear, anxiety, depression, excitement and
frustration

Avoidant coping Avoidant coping can be described as cognitive, and

behavioral efforts directed toward minimizing, denying or ignoring dealing
with a stressful situation. Avoidant coping is focused on ignoring a stressor
and is, therefore, passive

Personality and coping

Individual differences in coping are often explored through the role of the
‘Big Five’ personality traits (including, extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience).

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 Adaptive personality traits are significantly positively associated with
active coping styles. While maladaptive personality traits (neuroticism) are
positively associated with avoidance coping. The association between
personality and coping styles suggest that individuals with maladaptive
personalities are at a greater risk for experiencing psychological distress as
they probably use a maladaptive coping style such as avoidant coping.

For example: extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to more

engagement coping (i.e. problem-focused coping that focuses on dealing
with the issue or emotion-focused coping that is specifically aimed at
dealing with the emotions); neuroticism to more disengagement coping (that
avoids dealing with the issue or emotions).

Resilience

It is the process of being able to adapt well in times of stress. This

stress may manifest as family or relationship problems, serious health
problems, problems in the workplace or even financial problems.

Developing resilience can help you cope adaptively and bounce back after
changes, challenges, setbacks, disappointments, and failures.

The Main Factors Contributing to Resilience

There are many ways to increase resilience. Some of those include having a
good support system, maintaining positive relationships, having a
good self-image and having a positive attitude.

Other factors that contribute to resiliency include:

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• Having the capacity to make realistic plans.
• Being able to carry out those plans.
• Being able to effectively manage your feelings and impulses in a
healthy manner.
• Having good communication skills.
• Having confidence in your strengths and abilities.
• Having good problem-solving skills.

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