The influence of hardiness on the relationship between stressors and psychosomatic symptomatology

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Abstract
Thirty male and 58 female students responded to questionnaires based on a 9-month period in a prospective study of the impact of hardiness, life events, and hassles on reports of somatic symptoms. The data were analyzed utilizing cross-lagged panel analyses, analyses of variance, and multiple regression analyses. The results suggested that life events, hassles, and symptoms were significantly related in a recursive, mutually interactive manner. Although life events shared a high degree of variance with hassles, hassles consistently contributed above and beyond life events in predicting somatic symptoms. In addition, hardiness tended to have additive and opposite effects to that of stressors in its impact on symptomatology. Finally, and perhaps most important, compared to lower-hardy individuals, those higher in hardiness tended to experience less frequent stressors and to perceive the minor events they did experience as less stressful. Although significant relationships between stress and physical and psychological health have been well-documented, the strength of these relationships is at most moderate (Rabkin & Struening, 1976). Thus, a trend in current stress research has been to investigate variables that may moderate the association between stressors and health. One such variable is a personality style known as hardiness. Hardy persons, it has been hypothesized, share three basic personality characteristics, these being a sense of personal control, a sense of commitment to work and self, and a tendency to perceive change as a challenge rather than as a threat (Kobasa, 1979). Among male executives, hardiness, measured retrospectively (Kobasa, 1979) and prospectively (Kobasa, Maddi, & Kahn, 1982a), has been shown to act as a stress

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