Personality type is key Êto how you handle stress
By Karen S. Peterson
USA Today
Americans are faced with many reasons for anxiety these days: the escalating war in Iraq, pictures of American prisoners of war, a teetering economy, the long-term threat of terrorist attacks at home.
But not all Americans are equally anxious; not all fear the same events.
Whether you're lying awake nights or coping calmly during the tumult may depend in part on your personality type. What makes one person anxious — con-fusing information about terrorist attacks, for example, or a bad day for the Dow — might not affect another's anxiety level at all.
People simply cope with threats differently, says David Barlow, director of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University.
"People might cope by trying to put a threat aside, ignoring it. They are the repressors," Barlow said. "Others are the sensitizers. They highlight the danger in every little thing."
Personality patterns help determine how everyone from political leaders to postal workers react to stress. The styles influence poll statistics, which in turn can influence public policy. A recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that 75 percent of adults feel confident about the war in Iraq, but 71 percent are sad, and 26 percent are afraid.
The response that adults have to long-term tension "is colored by their individual personality styles," says John Oldham, executive director of the Institute of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
Those who study personality in all its complexity can provide guideposts on those who will do the best psychologically in the months, and possibly years, ahead.
There is no "right" personality style or set of traits that help deal with long-term anxiety. No one type wins the emotional lottery.
People have different combinations of traits. Though they may favor one pattern or style, they are very capable of drawing on others.
Researchers stress that personality involves much more than a list of traits. It is a stew of genetic, environmental, hormonal, cultural and other ingredients that determine how an individual thinks, feels and behaves.
How do you know where you fit in? Various tests, often with significant price tags, are offered by groups with varied approaches to assessing personality types.
Such tests might help you understand why you react to the world the way you do. But there is no credible "10 tips" list that will analyze personality in any significant fashion.
Sources for additional information include the Internet, mental health counselors, the clergy and self-help books. Many managers also make use of personality tests to help bring harmony to the workplace.
An adult's emotional stability determines how well he or she copes, says Paul Costa Jr., a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who has developed his own models of personality. "But other personality factors determine the form the coping will take."
He emphasizes that there are different ways to manage effectively. Extroverts seek social support, while introverts do not. "But both ways can be equally effective" in dealing with tough times, depending on the individual.
Costa mentions resilient individuals who are not frequently anxious in difficult times; the conscientious, whose strong sense of competence helps them deal with uncertainty; those who are open to new experiences; and the antagonistic, who are "critical, skeptical, tough-minded," want to see the evidence and would not be prone to panic at a Code Orange alert.
Regardless of personality type, Americans are being tested. All hope they and their loved ones thrive on the home front emotionally and psychologically.
The prognosis is fairly good.
"It is true that this generation has not been tested," says Roy Licklider, an expert on political terrorism at Rutgers University. "But that is true of almost every generation that finds itself in a new and difficult situation. There is no evidence to indicate we would not make it."
