This project is concerned with the effects of stressors, coping mechanisms, and enduring personality dispositions on psychological and health outcomes. One study examines the impact of life changes separately and cumulatively on perceptions of health, well-being, and personality in a 10-year follow-up of a national probability sample; a second collaborative study on the effects of stress following the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island found no evidence of increase in neuroticism attributable to the incident; a third assessed the ability of the MMPI to measure agreeableness and conscientiousness--aspects of personality thought to be relevant to coronary prone behavior--and found that the MMPI must be supplemented with other measures; a fourth examined the Spielberger Anger scale as a potential measure of agreeableness and found that it was more strongly correlated with neuroticism than with agreeableness; a fifth study confirmed the adequacy of the five factor model of personality in analyses comparing factors in the California Q-Set with questionnaire and adjective checklist measures of the five factors; a sixth study provided cross-sectional evidence of stability in the personality dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience in a national probability sample; a seventh examines relations between physiology, psychological characteristics, and symptom reports associated with irritable bowel syndrome.
