NEUROTICISM
Neuroticism is one of the Big Five personality traits. It refers to the tendency to
commonly experience negative emotions such as distress, anxiety, fear, anger and guilt
(Watson and Clark, 1984). Because of the focus on negative emotions it is sometimes
referred to as negative affect. Those high in neuroticism or negative affect worry about
the future, dwell on failures and shortcomings, and have less favourable views of
themselves and others. There are a number of well-established measures of neuroticism.
For example, the International Personality Item Pool (www.ipip.ori.org/ipip), which
contains a set of public domain measures of the Big Five personality traits, includes
statements such as ‘worry a lot’ and ‘get upset easily’; those high in neuroticism are
more likely to consider these statements as good self-descriptions. A variety of studies
show that those high in neuroticism report themselves as experiencing more physical
symptoms and that these symptoms are more intense (Affleck et al., 1992). For
example, Costa and McCrae (1987) reported neuroticism to be related to frequency
of illness, cardiovascular problems, digestive problems and fatigue across a sample of
women with a wide variety of ages. These effects have been demonstrated in various
cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.
Similar to the case for hostility, a number of mechanisms by which neuroticism
might influence health outcomes have been suggested. One potential mechanism
relating neuroticism to health outcomes might be through perceived or actual stress
experienced. For example, those high in negative affect tend to perceive events as more
stressful and difficult to cope with than those who are low in negative affect (Watson,
1988). In addition, those high in negative affect may experience more prolonged
psychological distress after a negative event (Ormell and Wohlfarth, 1991). However,
an important alternative suggestion in relation to neuroticism is that the reported impact
on health symptoms may be attributable to the use of self-report measures of health.
The hypothesis is that high levels of neuroticism lead to an individual noticing or
complaining more about symptoms without this influencing the symptoms he or she
experiences. Work that has objectively assessed physical health has indeed tended to
report little association between such measures and neuroticism (Watson and
Pennebaker, 1989). This importantly suggests the need to measure and control for the
effects of neuroticism in any studies using symptom reports as outcome measures.
A further mechanism by which neuroticism may lead to negative health outcomes
is through impact on coping mechanisms. Neuroticism might be related to maladaptive
coping strategies in a similar way to pessimism. For example, Costa and McCrae (1990)
showed that those high in neuroticism were more likely to engage in self-blame and
less likely to engage in problem solving in response to a scenario describing a nuclear
accident. Another mechanism by which neuroticism influences affect health outcomes
is through social support. It has been suggested that those high in neuroticism may
have greater difficulties in forming and maintaining close relationships and may
experience higher levels of interpersonal conflict. In support of this view those high
in negative affect have been shown to have lower marital satisfaction (Burke, Weir
and DuWors, 1980). These effects of neuroticism may have the result that those high
in neuroticism experience less social support and so are less likely to experience the
health protective effects associated with social support (see Chapter 5).
126 COPING RESOURCES