Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine how the personality traits of neuroticism and extraversion attribute to an individuals’ style of coping, based on their use of an emotional or problem focused approach to stressors. The sample of 386 university students completed the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999). The results of the sample were then dichotomised based upon the participants’ scores on the IPIP subscales of neuroticism and extraversion. Emotion focused and problem focused coping styles of the sample was measured by the COPE Inventory (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). The hypothesis that students with high levels of neuroticism would be statistically significant with an emotion focused coping style, and that those with high levels of extraversion would also be statistically significant with problem focused coping was fully supported by this study. Adversely, the proposal that those students identified as having low levels of neurotic personality traits would engage in emotion focused coping, or that those as having low levels of extraversion would favour emotion focused coping was not significantly supported by the findings. These results significantly suggest that individuals’ with a dominant personality type of neuroticism are likely to engage in problem focused coping, as opposed to those with extraverted personality types that engage a problem focused approach to stressors. While those low in either neuroticism or extraversion are not shown in this study to have any preference to either emotion or problem focused coping strategies.
Introduction
The relationship between an individual’ personality and style of coping with stress has been the subject of numerous studies (Allen, Greenless & Jones, 2011; Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010; Vollrath, 2000; Vollrath, 2001). Especially in regards to physiological and psychological health outcomes (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010). The most dominant personality...