Hardiness

1979

Suzanne Kobasa Ouellette (b. 1947)

In the 1970s, psychologists became very interested in the connections between personality and health. Suzanne Kobasa (now Suzanne Kobasa Ouellette) at the University of Chicago drew upon earlier concepts such as strenuousness (William James), productive orientation (Erich Fromm), the fully functioning person (Carl Rogers), self-actualization (Abraham Maslow), and competence (Robert White) to study possible links between personality, Stress, health, and disease. Based on her research, Kobasa suggested that a personality trait, which she termed hardiness, could play an important role in maintaining health. Her 1979 article, “Stressful Life Events, Personality, and Health: An Inquiry into Hardiness,” stimulated numerous other investigations into the role of personality in helping humans manage stress.

The opportunity to explore these possible linkages came when the federal government mandated that the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) restructure itself, which required that Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) be spun off from the parent company. Kobasa surveyed IBT managers about how they handled the restructuring, which included significant layoffs. She found that the stress of the events had widely differing effects that varied by personality. For many of the managers there was little connection to illness or other negative effects. Kobasa suggested that certain attitudes or personality traits may have moderated the effects of stress. Her follow-up studies found that hardiness, along with social support and physical exercise, seemed to provide protection against stress-related health problems.

Like such pioneers as James, Fromm, and Maslow, among others, Kobasa suggested that our personalities are important in every domain of our lives. Hardiness, Kobasa argued, consists of three attitudes: commitment, control, and challenge. Commitment means being oriented toward involvement with others and with the events of life, in contrast to detachment and isolation. Control means seeking to influence and shape one’s life rather than being passive, while challenge indicates that a person wants to learn from life experiences, even when these are not positive. With this conceptualization, Kobasa made a major contribution to our understanding of how our personalities may influence our health.

SEE ALSO Resilience (1973), Psychoneuroimmunology (1975), Biopsychosocial Model of Health (1977), Mind-Body Medicine (1993)

F. W. de Klerk (left), the last president of apartheid-era South Africa, and Nelson Mandela (waving), his successor, wait to speak to a crowd in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1993. Perhaps no person alive illustrates the concept of hardiness better than Nelson Mandela.