The Connection between Personality Traits and Perceived Stress: An In-Depth Look at How Personality Traits Can Influence Perceived Stress during an Immersion Study in a Developing Nation

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships of the Big Five personality traits on levels of perceived student stress. A convenience sample of 28 undergraduate students (13 who were immersed in the culture of a developing nation and 15 in a normal setting) completed measures of perceived stress and the NEO-Personality Inventory. It was found that personality traits (neuroticism and extraversion) play a role in how educational stress is perceived, and that there is significant differences between the experimental and control groups on levels of perceived stress. The current study adds validity to previous research while adding the unique perspective of participants being immersed in the culture of a developing nation during a study abroad program. PERSONALITY AND STRESS 3 The Connection between Personality Traits and Perceived Stress: An in-depth look at how Personality Traits can Influence Perceived Stress during an Emersion Study in a Developing Nation. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, “Stress” (2014), almost everyone experiences some sort of stress in their life. While a certain amount of stress can actually be healthy, acute stress also causes many physiological reactions that could lead to complications with health; examples of these stress reactions are increased heart rate and blood pressure, as well as lowered immune functioning that can be the result of things like acute stress. Acute stress, a type of stress that is an immediate reaction to a perceived threat, causes many neural processes that change the way the brain functions (“Stress,” 2014). The way in which stress is perceived by an individual can determine the impact it has on that individual. A stressor that may be acute to one person may not be so powerful in another. It is believed that personality plays an intricate role in how stress is perceived from one person to the next (Ebstrup, Eplov, Pisinger & Jorensen, 2011). There has been much research done on the topic of personality traits and perceived stress, specifically that those who are high in neuroticism are more likely to perceive life events as highly stressful while those high in extraversion are less likely to perceive life events as stressful (Ebstrup, et. al., 2011). Travel to a developing nation (or any foreign culture) causes excessive acute stress, due to the many cultural and environmental changes that a person undergoes while immersed in this type of foreign environment, which is generally referred to as culture shock (Berno & Ward, 2005). Thus, the connection between the Five Factor Model of personality, PERSONALITY AND STRESS 4 perceived acute stress, and travel to a developing nation was examined and compared to a control group that did not leave their country of origin. This topic is important to study for many different reasons. According to Dwyer (2004) the number of college students who participated in study abroad courses increased 236% from 1985 to 2002. With the number of students who are participating in study abroad courses on the rise, it is becoming increasingly important to make these programs as beneficial to the student as possible. In order to provide the student with the best learning experience, it might be beneficial to understand their personality traits so as to equip them with effective stress-coping skills prior to travel. It is also important to monitor acute stress on a daily basis while students are in a developing nation, to make sure that both their physical and mental health remain homeostatic. In a more general sense, understanding the connection between personality and acute stress could allow for international studies professors to have a better understanding of what kind of study abroad experience might be more beneficial dependent on personality traits. A prior knowledge of participant’s personality types might provide those who lead study abroad excursions with a base line from which to systematically measure the stress levels of those participants who are prone to experience higher levels of perceived stress. In order to understand the impact that stress can have on an individual it is important to establish exactly what happens during times of acute stress. When a threat is perceived, the release of catecholamines (chemical messages) such as dopamine and epinephrine activate the amygdala, causing a heightened emotional response (“Stress”, 2014). These catecholamines also inhibit the frontal areas of the brain that manage short-term memory, rational thought, and concentration. Other chemicals are released that cause decreased sleep and increased alertness and anxiety (“Stress”, 2014). According to Palmer (2013), acute stress has direct negative effects PERSONALITY AND STRESS 5 on learning and cognitive performance. Taking all of these things into consideration, it is easy to see that acute stress effects the body and brain in significant ways, and should be not only considered, but closely monitored while traveling to a developing nation in order to provide the student with the most learning conducive experience. Stress and the College Population In order to show a connection between academic performance and stress, Gadzella, Baloglu, Masten, and Wang (2012) evaluated the relationship between college students and stress that enabled them to establish a connection between the two. While the main purpose of the study was to compare the Student Life Stress Inventory (SSL) with other established inventories, a significant negative relation with perceived stress and academic performance was found. Students who scored higher on perceived stress had lower academic performance than those students who scored lower on levels of perceived stress. With these results in mind, it is also important to have an understanding of stressors that are unique to college students. Ross, Neibling, and Heckert (1999) examined what life factors caused the most stress specific to college students. The top five stressors for college students were found to be: changes in sleeping habits, vacations/breaks, changes in eating habits, increased work load, and new responsibilities. These results showed that college students in general have a unique set of stressors to deal with, whether immersed in a developing nation or not. Other stressors that college students face appear to be related to their transition and change in roles, as in Towbes and Cohen (1996) study where the experimenters developed and tested the College Chronic Life Stress Survey (CCLSS) to measure chronic stress and psychological distress specific to the university student population. It was stated in this article that there are stressors unique to the college student population, including preparation for a PERSONALITY AND STRESS 6 career and preparation for a relationship and family development. The researchers claimed that these specific stressors require the student to take on new professional and social roles, which could lead to unique chronic stress. Another claim made by the authors was that because college students have unsettled lives, stressors that appear to be minor to the general population could evolve into chronic stress or depression in the college student population. Stress and Personality Traits In a study conducted by Ebstrup et. al. (2011) the association between stress and NEO Five-Factor model of personality was explored. The survey tested the Five-Factor personality model, as well as a screener that measures perceived stress. Mroczek and Almeida (2004) also conducted a study regarding daily stress levels and the Five-Factor Model of personality. According to these researchers, those higher in neuroticism react to stressful events in a more aversive and negative way. The results of both studies showed a significant positive correlation between perceived stress and levels of neuroticism, and that those participants that scored higher on neuroticism reported an over-all higher amount of stress on any given day. Other important results included that extraversion was significantly negatively correlated with perceived stress (Mroczek & Almeida, 2014). Furnham (1981) investigated the relationships between neuroticism, extraversion, and personality by examining these variables through the lens of choice of social situations. This information is specifically important to the current study because for the experimental group many new social situations were experienced during their immersion in a developing nation (Berno & Ward, 2005). In this study, after being screened to determine personality traits, participants were asked to rank various described social situations on whether or not they would prefer or avoid specific situations. The results showed that high extraversion scores led to PERSONALITY AND STRESS 7 significantly different activity choices than those participants low in extraversion. It was also shown that those participants who scored high in neuroticism preferred and avoided different activities than those who scored low in neuroticism in a significant way. Considering the intense change in total environment during immersion in a developing nation, including social situations, this variable could easily cause changes in the perceived stress of persons with different personality types. Two studies by Bolger and Schilling (1991) and Bolger and Zuckerman (1995), focusing solely on neuroticism, sought to create a suitable framework to study personality and stress and took into consideration that personality may not only play a role in the reaction to stressors but also exposure to the stressful events themselves. This framework also included the connection between personality traits and coping efforts. The results showed that those participants who scored higher in neuroticism had significantly greater reactivity to conflict, as well as significantly more exposure to conflict. Adding to those results, the coping strategies chosen and the effecti