NEGATIVE AFFECTIVITY AND INTELLECTUAL ABILITY - A STUDY OF THEIR RELATION TO SELF-REPORTED PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS, PERCEIVED DAILY STRESS AND MOOD, AND DISCIPLINARY PROBLEMS IN MILITARY RECRUITS

In this study we examined the relationship between cognitive ability a nd Negative Affectivity (NA) (measured as cognitive and behavioral asp ects of anxiety) on the one hand, and somatic complaints, symptom attr ibution (i.e. subjective evaluation of psychological vs somatic sympto m causes), perceived daily stress/mood, and disciplinary problems on t he other hand, in a sample of military recruits. As expected, cognitiv e and behavioral anxiety correlated with measures of somatic complaint s and with perceived stress/negative mood in the daily service, as wel l as with symptom attribution. General ability correlated negatively w ith three of the five somatic complaint scales as well as with presenc e of disciplinary problems after controlling for NA. However, the effe ct of the ability factor on these dependent variables was very weak an d difficult to interpret. On the whole, cognitive ability does not see m to be an interesting variable in research on the NA-somatic complain ts relationship, at least as conceptualized on the trait level. Thus, cognitive ability appears to be of less importance as an explanatory f actor in theories of symptom perception and symptom attribution.