Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1995

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

William A. Poppen

Committee Members

Kathleen L. Davis, P. Gary Klukken, M. Vey Nordquist

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship among the commitment and control dimensions of hardiness, negative life events, and explanatory style in undergraduate college students. Attempts were made to clarify the relationship between two widely, but predominantly separately, researched theories of cognitive coping styles--hardiness (Kobasa, 1979) and reformulated learned helplessness (Abramson, et al., 1978). Hardiness influences how people appraise events, and is related to psychological health. According to the learned helplessness reformulation. one's style of explanation can reflect optimism or pessimism. and influences psychological health when people experience adversity. But there have been inconsistent findings across the rare studies that have examined whether hardiness and reformulated learned helplessness measure overlapping constructs。

A second purpose of the study was to examine whether the method of assessing stressful life events influences the relationship between the commitment and control dimensions of hardiness and explanatory style. Because hardiness and explanatory style each describe how people appraise potentially stressful situations, confounding was expected with appraisal-based measure of negative life events.Participants completed the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982), and two other self-report instruments: the Short Form of the Hardiness Scale (Kobasa & Maddi, 1982) and the Life Experiences Survey (Sarason et al., 1978). The Life Experiences Survey was used to measure both the perceived impact and frequency of negative life events.

Hierarchical and simultaneous multiple regression analyses showed that only commitment significantly increased the variance accounted for in explanatory style. The finding that commitment was correlated with explanatory style but control was not provides support for the idea that the hardiness and reformulated learned helplessness theories describe overlapping, but also distinct, constructs.

Pearson correlation analysis was also conducted. The two life events measures were correlated with each other and with commitment, providing support for the notion that they both may be influenced by individual appraisals. Neither life events measure was related to explanatory style or control. The findings provided support for the buffering effect of optimistic explanatory style, but questions remain regarding potential protective mechanisms of hardiness.

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