Personality and Coping Styles

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between personality and coping styles in a sample of students from the University of Tehran. A correlational analysis was performed to assess the kind of association exist among five personality dimensions including neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and  conscientiousness with coping styles of problem-focused and emotional-focused. Three  hundred and seventy eight students (176 boys, 202 girls) were included in this study. All participants were asked to complete Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and Tehran Coping Styles Scale (TCSS). Analysis of the data involved both descriptive and inferential statistics including means, standard deviations, t-tests, pearson's correlation coefficients and regression analysis. The results revealed that neuroticism, extraversion, and  conscientiousness can predict changes of problem-focused, positive emotional focused, and negative emotional focused coping styles; openness can predict changes of problem-focused and negative emotional focused coping styles; and agreeableness can only predict changes of negative emotional focused coping style. It can be concluded that personality characteristics will influence the way people cope with stressful life events. Results and implications are discussed.

Keywords