The hardy personality and its relationship to extraversion and neuroticism

Hardiness is conceptualised as a personality characteristic which encompasses three component traits (commitment, challenge and control), and acts as a resistance resource mitigating the adverse effects of stressful life events (Kobasa, 1979). A number of empirical studies in the U.S. have demonstrated its role in moderating stress-illness relationships, but hardiness has not received much attention in the U.K. In the present article, data from a U.K. sample (N = 87) are used to examine (i) the psychometric characteristics of the current version of Kobasa's hardiness measure, and (ii) the relationships of hardiness, and its component scales, to the Eysenck dimensions of extraversion, neuroticism and the lie scale. Hardiness scores were found to be negatively related to age, but did not differ significantly between males and females, and were not influenced by social desirability biases. The alpha value for the reliability of the overall scale was 0.89. Scores on the components of commitment, challenge and control were strongly related to extraversion (positively) and to neuroticism (negatively), the canonical correlation being 0.60. Multiple regression analysis showed that age, gender and the Eysenck dimensions jointly accounted for 37% of the variance in hardiness scores. These results are discussed in relation to psychometric issues and relevant literature findings.