EXTROVERSION, NEUROTICISM AND APPRAISAL OF STRESSFUL ACADEMIC EVENTS

The present research was conducted to assess the relationship between personality and appraisal of stressful events as threats or as challenges. Appraisals are thought to arise from an evaluation of resources available to cope with events. Evaluation of resources as being relatively more inadequate or adequate should lead to relatively greater threat or challenge appraisals, respectively. Because high neurotic individuals' resources are taxed by negative cognitions, they should evaluate available resources to be inadequate, leading to a positive relationship between Neuroticism (N) and threat. Stable individuals should appraise stressors as challenges. Moreover, thinking of N as sensitivity to punishment and Extraversion (E) as sensitivity to reward suggests that Extraverts should appraise stressful events as challenges because these individuals should see situations as opportunities for reward, not for punishment. Thus, N should be positively related to threat appraisals and negatively related to challenge appraisals, while E should be positively related to challenge appraisals, but not related to threat appraisals. The hypotheses were supported. Future research should consider the process underlying the observed relationships. © 1990.