STRESS RESPONSIVITY - THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES

Relations were investigated between three measures of individual diffe rences (Neuroticism, Type A/B personality and Locus of Control) and me asures of stress in response to the challenge of performing mental ari thmetic. Three types of dependent measure were recorded, self-report ( stress and arousal), psychophysiological (heart rate and skin resistan ce) and performance (number of problems attempted and proportion, corr ect). Relations between the individual difference measures (and their interactions) and the stress and performance measures were assessed by multiple regression. Heart rate increased and skin resistance decreas ed during mental arithmetic, the increase in heart rate being less in subjects scoring higher on neuroticism. These subjects also reported h igher stress levels, but no greater increase in stress during the task . The number of mental arithmetic problems attempted was a complex fun ction of the combination of the three individual difference measures, but the probability of a correct answer was related only to Locus of C ontrol, Internal subjects performing better than Externals. Type B sub jects increased their probability of a correct answer from the first t o the second test session, while Type A subjects showed no improvement . These results show that different types of response to stress are re lated to individual differences in complex patterns, and several indep endent and dependent measures are needed to provide a comprehensive pi cture.