Kobasa\'s tough personality PDF

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The resistant personality is a personal quality that enables the person to face stressful situations of the life cycle and transform them into opportunities for individual development...

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Kobasa's tough personality The resistant personality is a personal quality that enables the person to face stressful situations of the life cycle and transform them into opportunities for individual development (Peñacoba and Moreno, 1998).

In our day to day we have to face a multitude of situations that cause us stress. Success in coping with these situations will allow us to achieve our goals. Therefore, any learning that helps us achieve victory will be highly beneficial. This Final Degree Project will consist of a bibliographic review of the resistant personality through the analysis of numerous publications to date in order to have a comprehensive vision of this concept.

The work is divided into different parts. First, there will be an introduction on occupational health. Next, the theoretical model of the resistant personality will be described, and then its relationship with other concepts. Subsequently, the different forms of evaluation of the construct in question will be analyzed and its relationship with health will be described. After solving the question about resistant personality training, we will end by hypothesizing about new lines of research on the concept.

The objectives of the work are:

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Identify in a basic way the origins of the Kobasa resistant personality theory.

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Accurately describe Kobasa's resilient personality model.

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Briefly compare resilient personality with other related concepts, such as resilient personality, pattern A of behavior, and sense of coherence.

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Analyze in a basic way the different scales of the resistant personality and their psychometric properties.

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Generally weigh the effects of resistant personality on health through the description of the relationship of resistant personality with mental and physical health.

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Fully investigate the question of whether the resilient personality can be trained.

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Exactly illustrate the Hardiness Institute-designed tough personality training program.

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Briefly hypothesize about possible future lines of research on the resistant personality.

2. HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE

In 1950, the ILO / WHO Joint Committee (as cited in Moreno-Jiménez and Garrosa, 2013), defined occupational health as that in charge of promoting, preventing and maintaining the physical, mental and occupational well-being of workers. Moreno- Jiménez and Garrosa (2013) describe the evolution that labor research has followed over the years. Occupational health has for years been an exclusively individual concern. However, three events caused a change in perspective: the birth of unions, the awareness of unions about the cost of illness and accidents at work and the appearance of laws that protected the right to health of the worker. Consequently, occupational health became a social and business problem and a worker's right.

Current models of stress propose an active role for the organism in events (GodoyIzquierdo and Godoy, 2002). For authors such as Allport, Bandura and Brehm (as cited in Moreno, Garrosa and González, 2000), people react to events according to their psychological structure and, consequently, subjects respond differently to different stressors. Therefore, it is necessary to determine what are the sources of resistance and variation of the subject to stress. The Kobasa model arises in response to the need to determine which are the individual and social indicators that favor health (Godoy-Izquierdo and Godoy, 2002).

3. THE RESISTANT PERSONALITY: THEORETICAL MODEL

Kobasa, Maddi, and their collaborators raised the concept of a resistant personality in the late 1970s and early 1970s.

a. Origins of the resistant personality

According to Godoy-Izquierdo and Godoy (2002), the origins of the resistant personality are found in the psychosocial theories of stress of the moment and in the existentialist theories of personality:

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For Kobasa (1979) the model of Holmes and Rahe published in 1967 on life events and disease had considerable limitations. On the one hand, it ignored individual differences in response to stress, and on the other, it conceived the subject as passive and reactive. As a consequence of these limitations, Kobasa tried to find the personality characteristics that would allow the individual to stay healthy under stressful situations. Understanding these characteristics would help enhance human well-being.

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In relation to Existential Psychology, the two most relevant principles for the conceptualization of the resistant personality are: the active construction of the resistant personality through dynamic processes and the ability of people to transform stress into opportunities for personal development and growth .

b. Development of the resistant personality model

The resistant personality model has been enriched since its formulation in 1979 thanks to the constant connection between theory, research and practice (Maddi, 2002). As Maddi and Martínez-Martí (2008) show us, the origin of this development was the longitudinal research carried out by Maddi and his team at the American company Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT). In 1975, the IBT was in the process of change. For 12 years Maddi has been annually evaluating the responses of IBT managers to the

changes that were beginning to be experienced. The results showed that some managers not only did not show any pathology, but also grew personally and professionally. Maddi and Kobasa focused on describing the individual personality characteristics that differentiated these managers.

c. What is the resistant personality?

For Maddi and Kobasa (as cited in Maddi and Martínez-Martí, 2008), the resistant personality is formed by attitudes and actions guided to transform stressful situations into opportunities for individual development. Next, we will go on to describe in more detail each of the resistant attitudes and actions and then present the model.

i.

Resilient attitudes

The concept of “hardiness” is formed by three existentialist attitudes that provide the courage and motivation necessary to face stressful events (Maddi, 2013). The three attitudes that make up the resilient personality are commitment, control, and challenge. Next, a description of the resistant attitudes made by Godoy-Izquierdo and Godoy (2002) is presented: The commitment component consists of the quality of being completely involved in all the activities that are carried out, either with oneself or with others. Commitment to oneself provides a sense of purpose that reduces the perception of threat from any stimulus. It also allows you to recognize your own personal goals and estimate your ability to make your own decisions. This quality in turn implies a feeling of community. People with high scores in this dimension turn to others when they need support and help others when they need it.

Control is characterized by the inclination to think and act convinced of the influence that one exerts on events. The control dimension allows events to be perceived as predictable and manipulable. They explain events both in the actions of others and in their own. The control is subdivided into three components. In

First, cognitive control allows events to be reinterpreted as less stressful. The second component is decisional control and allows to guide actions to manage stress. Lastly, coping skills provide the motivation necessary to guide actions toward success. In stressful situations, people with high scores on this dimension benefit from their autonomy and intentionality. They consider that they are capable of coping with stressful situations by following a plan of action in accordance with their beliefs.

The challenge is the belief that change is an opportunity for individual development. Stressful situations are conceived as an opportunity to improve one's own skills. This assessment helps reduce the impact of stressful events. The challenge allows a high degree of cognitive flexibility and tolerance for ambiguity.

ii.

Resilient Actions

The work of transforming stressful situations into growth opportunities involves putting in place resilient actions of coping, social support, and self-care (Maddi, 2002). According to Maddi (2013), resistant actions include:

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Resilient coping is about treating stressful circumstances as problems to be solved rather than avoided. This type of coping involves the identification of stressful circumstances, the analysis of what can be done to solve them and the implementation of the steps obtained in the identification and analysis. The opposite would be denial and avoidance.

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Resilient social support involves giving and receiving social support from significant others. The opposite would be victimhood and overprotection.

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Resilient self-care involves worrying about the correct functioning of the body through relaxation procedures, eating in a balanced and moderate way and maintaining an adequate level of physical activity.

iii.

Tough personality model.

Figure 1, which we can see below, shows the resistant personality model. It is made up of two parts: risk and resistance factors that influence well-being (Maddi, 2013). The following lines detail a description of the Kobasa resistant personality model made by Maddi (2013).

The first part of the model summarizes the vulnerability factors that influence well-being. The first square represents the total of stressful circumstances. These can be acute or chronic. Stressful stimuli increase the level of physical and mental arousal. Those stressful circumstances that are not resolved produce exhaustion processes. When stress is very high and prolonged, physical and psychological resources are depleted and a breakdown of wellbeing occurs. Crises can be physical, psychological, or emotional. The processes of exhaustion and breakdown of well-being occur in line with our inherited vulnerabilities.

The four bottom boxes represent the stress resistance factors. The box to the right summarizes the three resistant attitudes. These attitudes encourage resilient coping and resilient social support. The combination of resilient attitudes, coping and social support make it easy to transform stressful situations into opportunities for growth. This process will reduce stressful situations and consequently decrease the burden and the likelihood of crisis. The model also shows that stressful attitudes promote healthy practices. Self-care involves maintaining the right activation level so that there is enough energy to maintain resilient coping and support. Resistant healthy practices lower the level of arousal; but they do not in themselves reduce stress. Only coping and resilient social support can decrease stress.

4. THE RESISTANT PERSONALITY: THE SIMILARITIES AND THE DIFFERENCES WITH THE RESILIENT PERSONALITY, THE PATTERN A OF CONDUCT AND THE SENSE OF CONSISTENCY

The resilient personality is often confused with resilience. In terms of similarities, both constructs help people cope with stressful situations. Although resilience has been understood from different perspectives, Becoña (2006) shows that they all have in common the basic notion of resilience as adaptation to the environment, as is the case with the resistant personality. The role of parents is key to both learning resilience and resilient personality. One of the bases for the development of resilience is that children have affective family unions with their parents (Becoña, 2006). However, for authors such as Bonanno and Maddi (as cited in Fernández-Lansac and Crespo, 2011), there are many ways of developing resilience. Two people with high levels of resilience can cope with the same situations successfully by following very different paths. In contrast, people with high levels of resistant personality cope with situations in the same way. All of them will do so through resilient attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge. Resilience would be the process of adaptation to a stressful situation, while the resistant personality would be a way to achieve resilience (Fernández-Lansac and Crespo, 2011).

Kobasa, Maddi, and Zola (1983) differentiate the behavior pattern A and the resistant personality, as they may appear similar. Both emphasize the need to engage in activities and seek new goals. However, both differ in the type of motivation that drives them to pursue these goals. While resistant people show intrinsic motivation, those with a behavior pattern A have extrinsic motivation. The activities from the pattern A are seen as a means or obstacle to achieve the objectives and in the resistant personality as an opportunity for personal development.

The Antonovsky Sense of Coherence concept is one of the closest to the resistant personality. Like the Kobasa model, Antonovsky proposes a salutogenic model (Moreno, Alonso and Álvarez, 1997). Both authors look for individual characteristics that promote adaptation to circumstances, rather than those that make us sick. The origin of both concepts arises in a similar way. While the resistant personality began to be studied from the study of the IBT company, Antonovsky wondered why some of the survivors of concentration camps had not developed any psychopathology (Moreno, Alonso and Álvarez, 1997). The main difference between the two concepts is that Antonovsky (as cited in Moreno, Alonso and Álvarez, 1997) refuses to identify the sense of coherence as a personality variable. Rather, it would be the cognitive component resulting from facing an experience. Sullivan (1993) makes a comparison between the dimensions of the resistant personality and the sense of coherence. The control dimension is distinguished from manageability in that in the latter, the person does not have to perceive that the events are under their direct control, but rather they consider that with their resources they can do something on most occasions. The compromise resembles the significance of Antonovsky. Significance implies that situations are worth committing to in order to achieve a goal. The challenge dimension is also similar to significance. Antonovsky proposes that those people who find meaning in what happens to them can interpret events as challenges. There is no evidence of a relationship between the understandability dimension and any of the resistant attitudes.

5. THE ASSESSMENT OF THE RESISTANT PERSONALITY

There has been an important evolution in the assessment of resistant personality. As described by authors such as Peñacoba, Moreno, Godoy-Izquierdo, Godoy, Román and López (as cited in Serrato, 2017), “this process goes from the use of tests that contributed independently to the construct, then the use of specific tests of the Anglo-Saxon language until reaching the general adaptation of these instruments and ending with adaptations to evaluate the sports population ”(Serrato, 2017, p.27). Next, a review of the scales used to measure resistant personality is presented by Serrato (2017).

The resistant personality began to be studied from 18 different scales, some of them designed specifically for the evaluation of the same and others already existing. After different analyzes of these instruments, in 1979, Kobasa decided to use only six of the scales from the original set to assess resistant personality. According to Godoy-Izquierdo and Godoy (2004) these scales were:

"For the control dimension, the Rotter, Seeman and Liverant (1962) and" Impotence "scales of the Maddi, Kobasa and Hoover (1979) test were used. For the evaluation of the commitment dimension , the “Self Alignment” and “Work Alignment” scales of the Maddi et al. (1979) test were used. To measure the challenge component, the “Orientation towards Safety” scales were used. Hahn's test (1966) and the “Cognitive Structure” test of Jackson's test (1974). ”(p.46)

In 1982, what would constitute the first generation of resistant personality scales was designed. Scales that did not discriminate between healthy and sick subjects under stress conditions were eliminated. Specifically, the “Cognitive Structure” scale was eliminated, increasing the reliability of the instrument. The result was the publication in 1982 of the first scale of evaluation of the resistant personality elaborated by Kobasa, denominated "Undridget Hardiness Scale (UHS)". It was made up of 71 negative items and an alpha of 0.88. Due to the length of the scale, Kobasa, Maddi, and Khan developed two short scales for the measure of resistant personality in 1982.

The two scales developed by Kobasa, Maddi and Khan in 1982 are part of the second generation of the resistant personality measure (Godoy-Izquierdo and Godoy, 2004). The first one is the “Abridged Hardiness Scale. (AHS) ". It is made up of 20 items from the UHS and an alpha of 0.64. The second scale is the “Revised Hardiness Scale (RHS)”. It is made up of 36 items from the UHS and an alpha of 0.67. Both scales evaluated health with negative items.

The third generation of measurement scales for the evaluation of resistant personality is made up of two scales that introduced positive items in response to the criticisms of the two previous scales. Both are identical in content and format. The first of these was prepared by the Hardiness Insitute in 1985 and is called the “Personal Views Survey (PSV)”. It is made up of 50 items: 17 evaluate the control dimension, 17 evaluate the challenge dimension and 16 the commitment dimension. The second scale, the "Dispositional Resilience Scale," was published in 1989 by Bartone, Ursano, Wright, and Ingram. It is made up of 45 items, 14 for each of the dimensions. The PVS has been the most studied scale over the years and therefore the one that has been reviewed the most.

Maddi (2013) describes in his book the evolution of the “Personal Views Survey (PVS)” scale over the years. The first version was published in 1982 by the Hardiness Institute. It was developed for the evaluation of resistant personality in the longitudinal study of the IBT company. Before the study was completed, the “Personal Views Survey II (PVS-II)” was published. The scale is made up of the 30 items of the previous version that reflected resistant attitudes to a greater extent. However, PVS-II did not always directly correlate with attitudes of commitment and control. In response came the “Personal Views Survey III”. The latest version is the "Personal Survey Views III-R", published by Maddi and Kobasa in 2001. It is made up of 18 items from the previous version.

The resistant personality has also been evaluated in our language. The “Personal View Survey” questionnaire was translated into Spanish by Peñacoba and validated by GodoyIzquierdo and Godoy in 2004. It is made up of 50 items and an alpha of 0.9. In 2014, Moreno, Rodríguez, Garrosa and Blanco developed the first instrument in Spanish for measuring the

resistant personality: the "Labor Resistance Questionnaire". It is made up of 15 items and an alpha of 0.86.

Specific scales have been developed for the assessment of resistant personality in different settings. A considerable number of scales evaluate the resistant personality in athletes. Some examples are the “Scale of resistant personality in marathoners” (EPRM: Janes, Godoy and Román 2008) and the “PER-D” (Serrato, 2017). Other scales have focused on the evaluation of resistant personality in the military. Among them is the “Military Hardiness Scale” (Dolan and Adler, 2006). An interesting area of application is the evaluation of the construct in question in the adaptation to the disease (“health-related hardiness”). It is evaluated through the "Health R...