Hardiness as a Resource of Personality’s Coping Behaviour in Difficult Situations

Abstract

Coping behaviour plays a great role in solving a difficult, conflict situation. Hardiness cand be considered as a personality resource of coping behaviour in a conflict. In our research we use the following methods: S. Maddi’s questionnaire (hardiness) and A. Heim’s technique (coping strategies). 227 people, 108 men and 119 women, participated in the research. The correlation analysis has shown that strongly pronounced hardiness is connected with the choice of adaptive coping strategies, and feebly pronounced hardiness is a predictor of the choice of non-adaptive emotional strategies. Hardiness and its components - commitment and control, have a positive correlation with adaptive and relatively adaptive variants of cognitive, emotional and behavioural strategies and a negative correlation with the choice of non-adaptive strategies. Challenge has a negative correlation with adaptive behavioural strategies. In the conclusion, we show that studying the influence of hardiness on a person’s choice of coping strategies in conflict situations can help to prevent similar conflicts in the future. As such, the findings of our research can be considered as a good prognostic and diagnostic tool.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p225