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Biomedical subjects

S C Kobasa

Publications and source records attributed to S C Kobasa.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Social environment and social support.

Research on the relevance of social support to cancer has been plentiful since the first American Cancer Society workshop on methodological issues in behavioral and psychosocial science. Nonetheless, critical shortcomings continue to characterize the attempt empirically to establish such things as the extent to which social support predicts adjustment to cancer diagnosis and treatment. Prominent among these is the failure to adequately address large elements of the social structure, such as social class and urbanization, and to investigate how they shape the well being of persons with or at risk for cancer and their caregivers. We recommend that more psychosocial research on the link between social support and cancer be conducted within populations beset by poverty and without adequate access to health care. Funding is needed for the training and maintenance of multidisciplinary and multicultural teams of researchers working within community-based organizations and hospitals serving the underserved.

Humans↗
PubMed1990

AIDS and volunteer associations: perspectives on social and individual change.

In dealing with AIDS, American volunteer associations exemplify Tocqueville's classic analysis of their function: the call for government to address social needs, monitor government shortcomings, and serve those needs beyond the government's compass. Individual volunteers' experience in the epidemic have often empowered them to pursue further goals, rather than succumb to "burnout." AIDS organizations face many challenges, especially in tending to newly affected groups and in pressuring official bodies. They are meeting these challenges by recruiting female and minority group volunteers, and by devising effective tactics in confronting government and corporate groups.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1985

Effectiveness of hardiness, exercise and social support as resources against illness.

The effects of the resistance resources of personality hardiness, exercise, and social support, taken singly and in combination, on concurrent and prospective levels, and probability of illness were studied. In 1980, 85 male business executives identified as high in stressful events were tested for the three resistance resources. Predicting their illness scores in 1980 formed the concurrent aspect of the study. For the prospective aspect, illness scores in 1981 were available on 70 of the subjects. With regard to resistance resources, when there are none, one, two or three, the level and probability of both concurrent and prospective illness drop in a regular and marked fashion. These results highlight the importance of multiple resistance resources. Estimates of relative effectiveness indicate that hardiness is the most important of the resistance resources studied.

Disease↗
PubMed1983

Type A and hardiness.

The study examined the relationship between the Type A behavior pattern and personality hardiness and predicted an interaction between the two that would be influential for illness onset. Type A and hardiness were found to be conceptually different and empirically independent factors. Under high stressful life events, male executives who were high in Type A and low in hardiness tended toward higher general illness scores than any other executives. Type A and hardiness emerge from this study as bases for extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, respectively.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Personality and social resources in stress resistance.

This study examined personality, social assets, and perceived social support as moderators of the effects of stressful life events on illness onset. In a group of 170 middle and upper level executives, personality hardiness and stressful life events consistently influenced illness scores, the former serving to lower symptomatology, the latter to increase it. Perceived boss support had its predicted positive effect. Executives under high stress who perceived support from their supervisors had lower illness scores than those without support. Perceived family support, on the other hand, showed a negative effect on health when reported by those low in hardiness. Finally, social assets made no significant impact on health status. These results underscore the value of differentiating between kinds of social resources, and of monitoring the effects of two or more stress-resistance resources in a single study.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1982

Personality and exercise as buffers in the stress-illness relationship.

This study examined exercise and personality-based hardiness as independent buffers of the stressful event-illness relationship. Self-report measures of exercise, hardiness, stressful events and illness were obtained from 137 male business executives. Hardiness and exercise each interact with stressful events in decreasing illness. Further, subjects high in both hardiness and exercise remain more healthy than those high in one or the other only. These additive effects are consistent with the view that hardiness buffers by transforming the events themselves so as to decrease their stressfulness, whereas exercise buffers by decreasing the organismic strain resulting from experiencing stressful events.

Disease Susceptibility↗
PubMed1981

Drug preference and mood in humans: preference for d-amphetamine and subject characteristics.

Forty-five normal, young, adult volunteers participated in a nine-session experiment. During the first four sessions, they received alternately 5 mg d-amphetamine or placebo. During the next five sessions, they chose between amphetamine and placebo. On the basis of the choice results, subjects retrospectively were divided into the following three groups: (1) five of five drug choices (N = 16); (2) four of five drug choices (N = 12); and (3) 0--3 of five drug choices (N = 17). There was an overall average of 3.76 drug choices per subject. These groups were compared by demographic characteristics, drug use history, and several personality measures, but none predicted drug choice. However, subjects who chose drug on every occasion had significantly higher predrug scores on the anxiety, depression, and confusion subscales of the Profile of Mood States (POMS). The functional relationship between initial dysphoria and consistent amphetamine choosing remains an intriguing question.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Personality and resistance to illness.

Personality was found significantly to mitigate the illness-provoking effects of stressful life events. Two groups of executives had comparably high degrees of stress over a 3-year interval, as measured by the Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Life Events. One group (n = 86) suffered high stress without falling ill, while the other (n = 75) reported becoming sick after their encounter with stressful life events. Illness was measured by the Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes Seriousness of Illness Survey. Discriminant function analysis supported the prediction that high stress/low illness executives show, by comparison with high stress/high illness executives, more control, commitment, and interest in change as a challenge.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1979

Stressful life events, personality, and health: an inquiry into hardiness.

Personality was studied as a conditioner of the effects of stressful life events on illness onset. Two groups of middle and upper level executives had comparably high degrees of stressful life events in the previous 3 years, as measured by the Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Life Events. One group (n = 86) suffered high stress without falling ill, whereas the other (n = 75) reported becoming sick after their encounter with stressful life events. Illness was measured by the Wyler, Masuda, and Holmes Seriousness of Illness Survey. Discriminant function analysis, run on half of the subjects in each group and cross-validated on the remaining cases, supported the prediction that high stress/low illness executives show, by comparison with high stress/high illness executives, more hardiness, that is, have a stronger commitment to self, an attitude of vigorousness toward the environment, a sense of meaningfulness, and an internal locus of control.

Adult↗