Ego-Strength, Hardiness, Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy, Optimism, and Maladjustment: Health-Related Personality Constructs and the “Big Five” Model of Personality

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Six personality measures used in health psychology; the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) criterion measures of stress, self-reported health status, and coping; and a measure of social desirability were administered to samples of college students and adult community volunteers (N = 589) in a series of four confirmatory and exploratory factor analytic studies. The hypothesis that the six independently developed personality measures of ego-strength, hardiness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, and maladjustment would share common variance and that a hierarchical factor model with a single, higher-order Health Proneness factor loading two lower-order factors—Self-Confidence and Adjustment—would account for the covariance in these measures was tested against single and three-factor models and confirmed. The factor model was examined with respect to general personality as represented in the “Big Five” Model. Adjustment was related negatively to NEO-FFI Neuroticism and positively to NEO-FFI Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, whereas Self-Confidence was related to NEO-FFI Extraversion. None of these relationships is extensive, nor does any one account for more than 40% of the variance. Evidence of the validity of Self-Confidence and Adjustment was found in their moderate relationships to measures of stress, health status, and coping, and in their weak relationships to social desirability and negative affectivity.

This publication has 52 references indexed in Scilit: