Article summary of The stressful personality: A meta-analytic review of the relation between personality and stress by Luo a.o. - 2023

Why is the relationship between the big five personality traits and stress of scientific interest?

Conceptualizations and measurements of stress vary widely and it is still unknown if the personality-stress link varies depending on how stress is conceptualized. There is also a need for a theoretical basis for understanding how different domains of the big five personality traits are associated with stress. Understanding individual differences in stress could identify those at higher risk of suffering from stress than others and may lead to better health and aging management. Finally, the magnitude and direction of the relations between personality and stress are inconsistent. A meta-analysis allows for studies into between-study heterogeneity.

What is stress?

Stress can be defined in different ways as it is a process with multiple stages and dimensions and therefore can refer to different components of the process. A few examples of definitions of stress:

• External environmental events or conditions that are potentially demanding, challenging, or threatening.
• Responses to external environmental exposures that involve physiological and/or psychological reactions.
• Psychological stress is caused by the appraisal of external situations and coping resources, when a person evaluates the demands of their circumstance as exceeding their ability to manage it.
• Allostasis refers to physiological stress and describes the biological processes that maintain homeostasis when facing environmental or physiological challenges such as stress. It involves the activation of multiple systems such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocotrical axis, cardiovascular system, and the autonomic nervous system.

Which theoretical bases are there linking personality traits and stress?

There are three main theories that link personality traits to stress:

• Stress generation hypothesis supposes a transactional relation between personality and exposure to stress. Some individuals are more likely to be exposed to stress due to their personality. Individuals actively create their own environment and are thus more vulnerable to higher rates of stress.
• The transdisciplinary model of stress states that personality influences the way in which stressors are perceived and how people respond physiologically and psychologically to stress. 
• Integrative models state that personality traits act as risk or resilience factors for exposure to stress and are precursors for stress reactivity.

How can the degree of stressor-dependency cause differential associations between personality traits and stressor exposure?

Stressor exposure, physiological stress response and psychological stress response show different association patterns with personality traits. Many stressors depend on someone's personality, but studies usually only look at stressors that are dependent (e.g. interpersonal stressors) and independent (e.g. disasters) of someone's personality. But since independent stressors are usually driven by environmental influences, they can weaken the relationship between stressor and personality.

What does the Five Factor Model (FFM) teach us about the relationship between personality and stress?

The FFM is an organizational model of personality traits that identifies five main personality traits: neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness. The five traits have different relationships with stress experiences:

• Neuroticism shows a positive association with stress, possibly because people high on neuroticism play a role in generating their own stressors and then react to events in negative ways and then overreact.
• Extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are negatively related to stress. These individuals tends to have good regulation abilities, resilience, more positive social interactions (increasing their perceived social resources), more self control, and are less likely to create their own stressors.

Which factors moderate the relations between personality traits and stress?

Three factors moderate the relations between personality traits and stress:

• Stress domain. For example, people high on neuroticism find themselves in stressful circumstances across a variety of life domains, and high extraversion is negatively related to stress (possibly due to more positive social interactions), 
• Culture. The moderating role of culture in links between personality and stress could be explained by differences in behaviors and lifestyle. For example, high extraversion may be a protective factor for stressor exposure in eastern culture.
• Perceived Stress Scale. The associations between personality and stress were larger when they were assessed by the Perceived Stress Scale compared to other types of psychological stress perception scales. This shows it is important to use standardized measures with high reliability to achieve better validity.