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Hardiness Enhances Effectiveness and Fulfillment
Hardiness Enhances Effectiveness and Fulfillment SR Maddi, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA r 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary Happiness The emphasis on happiness has tended to be that if you can somehow stay happy, this will help you live better and interact better with others. This approach tends to suggest that happiness is based in religious and other beliefs that calm you under stress. Lately, approaches like hardiness have deemphasized that the main aim of living should be to be just happy. Instead, these new approaches emphasize that the aspects of happiness that help are those that result from dealing effectively with stresses and growing in the process. Hardy attitudes This involves the 3Cs of commitment, control, and challenge, which together provide the courage and motivation to do the hard work that is involved in turning potentially undermining circumstances into growth opportunities instead.
Hardy strategies The hard work of turning potentially undermining circumstances into growth opportunities involves the hardy strategies of problem-solving (rather than avoidance) coping, socially supportive (rather than conflictful) interactions, and beneficial (rather than overindulgent) self-care. Positive psychology This is a recently developing emphasis on understanding and studying aspects of personality that can enhance development and fulfillment, despite ongoing stressful circumstances. Resilience Resilience emphasizes continuing to function well despite stressful and potentially undermining circumstances. A few users of this term also add to it the notion that for some people, stress can actually enhance performance and health by how one grows from dealing effectively in these circumstances.
Introduction
Hardiness Attitudes and Strategies
As elaborated in existential psychology (e.g., Frankl, 1963), life is by its nature stressful. In this, consider the various stages of living that involve change and unpredictability (Maddi, 2002). It all begins when you are pushed out of your mother’s womb, into the light, noise, interaction with others, and change. Then, as soon as you have begun to make sense out of your home environment, you have to begin schooling, where new requirements are imposed on you, and you keep meeting strangers. Even if you learn to accept all these, things keep changing as you go to high school, decide whether or not to go to college and beyond. As you get older, you interact more fully with others that you meet, and need to make decisions as to who should be your friends and lovers. What kind of career should you have? Should you start a family and, if so, how should you parent the youngsters who are born? And, then, as you get older, you begin looking back at your life, trying to determine whether it was worthwhile, and how you should be approaching inevitable death. In all this, life emerges as an ongoing and changing developmental pressure, in which you continually have to make new decisions to try to make the best of it all. In all this interaction with ongoing life stresses, it is not true that all people get undermined. Indeed, some people have personality features that help them not only survive, but actually thrive under life’s stresses. Elaborating on these helpful personality features, Maddi (2002) and his collaborators have conceptualized hardiness as the pattern of attitudes and strategies that helps people to turn life’s ongoing stressful circumstances from potential disasters into growth opportunities instead.
Specifically, the Hardy Attitudes are the 3Cs of commitment, control, and challenge (Maddi, 2002). The stronger the commitment attitude, the more the person will try, no matter how stressful things get, to remain involved with others and situations, rather than retreat into isolation and alienation. The stronger the control attitude, the more the person will keep trying to influence outcomes, no matter how stressful things get, rather than give up and become passive and powerless. And, the stronger the challenge attitude, the more the person will consider life stresses as natural and normal, and as providing an opportunity to grow in wisdom through what one learns in trying to turn them to advantage. Together, the 3Cs provide the existential courage and motivation needed to do the hard work of turning life’s stresses into resilient growth opportunities. That hard work involves the Hardy Strategies whereby one can turn stresses into advantages (Maddi, 2002). These strategies constitute problem-solving (rather than denial and avoidance) coping, socially-supportive (rather than conflictful) interactions, and beneficial (rather than undermining) selfcare. Problem-solving coping emphasizes seeing the stresses for what they are, thinking through how they may be resolved or turned to advantage, and taking the actions that are likely to result in this. This is in contrast to denial and avoidance coping, which tries to defend against the stresses in the attempt to keep happy all the time. Socially-supportive coping involves trying to deepen one’s relationships with significant others, despite ongoing stresses and conflicts with them. The emphasis in these interactions is on resolving conflicts and giving and getting assistance and encouragement in facing the
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ongoing life stresses. This is in contrast to conflictful interacting, in which self-protection is considered more important than helping others and encouraging them to do likewise. And, beneficial self-care involves the careful eating patterns and relaxation efforts that are all the more necessary as one engages in problem-solving and socially-supportive interactions. This is in contrast to overeating sweet and fatty foods, and engaging in excessive alcohol and/or drug use, as a quick effort to deny and avoid stresses. Through engaging consistently in the Hardy Strategies, you will grow in wisdom, enhanced performance, health, and fulfillment, whereas if one engages against the Hardy Strategies, life heads toward downfall, emptiness, and hopelessness. It is conceptualized that the Hardy Attitudes and Strategies can be learned. In this regard, there is not only an assessment procedure, but a training procedure as well (Maddi, 2002; Khoshaba and Maddi, 2004). These approaches and the research supporting them will appear later in this article.
Hardiness Research at Illinois Bell Telephone There is much research by now showing empirical support for the hardiness approach. This research began with a 12-year natural experiment at Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) that started in 1975 (Maddi and Kobasa, 1984). At that point, the telephone industry was still a federally-regulated monopoly, the aim of which was to provide cheap and reliable service for all. But, federal deregulation of the industry was looming in order to have ensuing competition, speed, the development of the internet and cell-phone possibilities. Indeed, the federal deregulation took place in 1981, and the cataclysmically stressful circumstances that ensued are still regarded as one of the greatest upheavals in corporate history. Signs of this stressful disruption included the IBT workforce decreasing in size by almost one-half in just 1 year. Job roles changed dramatically, and most employees were confused as to what was happening, and how they should respond. The natural experiment continued through 6 years after the government’s deregulation (Maddi and Kobasa, 1984). In each of the 12 years of the study, the 450 managers in the sample were interviewed, medically examined, and given questionnaires regarding personality, performance, mood, and health. Also available were the IBT job evaluations and yearly medical examinations. These data showed that close to two-thirds of the sample fell apart following the deregulation. There were signs of performance impairment, mental and physical disorders, violence in the workplace, suicides, and divorces. But, the other third not only survived the deregulation, they actually thrived. The major function of this natural experiment involved determining the difference before the deregulation upheaval between the managers who fell apart and those who survived and thrived after the deregulation. The managers who survived and thrived after the deregulation had shown much higher levels of Hardy Attitudes and Hardy Strategies before the deregulation than did the managers who fell apart after the deregulation (Maddi and Kobasa, 1984). In particular, the resilient managers had all along shown high levels of the attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge, and had
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engaged in problem-solving (rather than denial and avoidance) coping, socially-supportive (rather than conflictful) interactions, and beneficial (rather than undermining) selfcare. The data from the IBT study were also used to study the early development of hardiness (Khoshaba and Maddi, 1999). A subsample of managers selected to be either very high or very low in the hardiness attitudes were interviewed blind concerning their early life experiences. Content analyses of their statements showed that by comparison with the others, the managers high in hardiness remembered not only a disruptive, stressful early family life, but also that they were selected by their parents to be successful nonetheless, accepted that role, and worked hard to justify being the family’s hope.
Additional Hardiness Research Since the IBT natural experiment, lots of other studies concerning adults have supported the importance of hardiness in effective performance and health under stress (cf., Maddi, 2002; Maddi and Khoshaba, 2005). As expected, evidence shows (Maddi, 1994; Sinclair and Tetrick, 2000) that commitment, control, and challenge are interrelated, but not redundant with each other. As to construct validity, participants in an experiential sampling study (Maddi, 1999) were measured for hardiness, and later paged at random in order to comment on the nature of their ongoing activities. Results showed a positive relationship between Hardiness Attitudes and (1) involvement with others and ongoing activities (this expresses the commitment attitude), (2) the sense that the ongoing activities had been chosen and could be influenced (this expresses the control attitude), and (3) the positive process of learning from the circumstances (this expresses the challenge attitude). There is also research evidence of the expected positive relationship between the Hardy Attitudes and the Hardy Strategies, suggesting that the former is the courage and motivation to carry out the hard work of the latter (cf., Maddi and Khoshaba, 2002). Specifically, positive relationships have been found between the hardy attitudes and (1) problem-solving (rather than denial and avoidance) coping (e.g., Maddi, 1999; Maddi et al., 2006b; Maddi and Hightower, 1999), (2) socially-supportive (rather than competitive or over-protective) interactions with others (e.g., Maddi and Kobasa, 1984; Maddi et al., 2006a,b), and (3) facilitative (rather than undermining) self-care (e.g., Allred and Smith, 1989; Contrada, 1989; Khoshaba and Maddi, 2004; Maddi et al., 1996; Weibe and McCallum, 1986). There are also accumulated findings indicating that hardiness renders positivity and resiliency to people experiencing stressful changes. For example, hardiness shows a buffering effect between stresses and both strain responses and illness symptoms (e.g., Bartone et al., 1989; Harvey, 2005; Kobasa et al., 1982; Kuo and Tsai, 1986). These studies concerned various stressful occupations, and culture shock in immigrants. Under stress, hardiness also has an enhancing effect on performance. For example, positive relationships have been found between hardiness and subsequent (1) basketball performance in varsity players (Maddi and Hess, 1992), (2) success rates in intentionally stressful officer training and
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firefighter training (e.g., Florian et al., 1995; Maddi et al., 2007, 2012; Westman, 1990), (3) retention rate, grade-point-average (GPA), and innovativeness in college students (Bartone and Snook, 1999; Maddi et al., 2006a,b, 2007, 2012), (4) leadership among officer training school students (Bartone and Snook, 1999), (5) speed of recovery of baseline functioning following the disruption of culture shock (Atella, 1989; Kuo and Tsai, 1986), and (6) protection against post-traumatic stress and depression disorders when military personnel encounter life threats while serving in combat missions abroad (Bartone, 1999). In some of the studies mentioned, hardiness was actually a more powerful predictor of the subsequent behavior studied than were other previous performance factors. For example, Lifton et al. (2000) found that hardiness is a better predictor of retention in college than were either SAT scores or high school academic achievement rank. Also, Bartone and Snook (1999) found that, in a cohort of West Point cadets, hardiness was a better predictor of leadership behavior over the 4 years of training than were other available performance measures.
Comparison of the Effect of Hardiness to That of Other Personality Variables There have been four studies as of now (Maddi and Khoshaba, 1994; Maddi et al., 2006a, 2012; Maddi and Hightower, 1999) that have compared the relative effectiveness of hardiness and other conceptually-relevant personality variables on functioning under stress. In these studies, hardiness was a better predictor of effective performance and positive emotionality than were negative affectivity (neuroticism), optimism (maintaining continual happiness), religiousness (belief that life is what God intends), grit (pursuit of unchanging goals), and emotional intelligence (avoiding painful emotions). These results are consistent with hardiness as the courage to do the hard work involved in turning life’s changes and stresses into growth opportunities.
Hardiness Assessment Much has been accomplished concerning hardiness assessment. The original questionnaire measure, that was begun in the IBT study, emphasized the Hardy Attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge. This measure has been improved and shortened over the years. Studies have shown that, as expected, the 3Cs are positively intercorrelated factors, leading to a second-order factor that is an overall index of Hardy Attitudes (e.g., Sinclair and Tetrick, 2000). Such findings are consistent with the conceptualization that all 3Cs, used together, are important in assessing hardiness. The latest and the best measure of the Hardy Attitudes is the Personal Views Survey III-R (PVS III-R), which includes 6 Likert items for each of the 3Cs (Maddi, 2002). Although this measure of Hardy Attitudes has been shown to be moderately correlated with the standard measure of each of the components of the Five Factor Model, those five factors together explain less than 25% of the variance of the PVS III-R measure (Maddi et al., 2002). This finding supports the conceptual and
empirical value of hardiness beyond the Five Factor Model. The PVS III-R is commonly used in research concerning the role of hardiness in performance and effectiveness. Also available is the HardiSurvey III-R, which is a 65-item measure of not only the Hardy Attitudes, but also the Hardy Strategies, as well as the opposites of these positive components of personality (e.g., denial and avoidance coping, conflictful interactions, and negative emotions). Additionally measured are stress and strain levels. Available for administration on the Hardiness Institute website, this test produces a comprehensive report of the test-taker’s resilience and vulnerability under stressful circumstances. In producing this comprehensive report, the test-taker’s responses are compared to those of thousands of others in the normative sample. This test is being used not only in research, but also in consulting and counseling work.
Hardiness Training If the test-taker’s HS III-R report shows vulnerability to being undermined by life’s stresses, that is a good reason to take the HardiTraining program. This program is covered in a workbook (Khoshaba and Maddi, 2004) that includes many relevant exercises (along with case study examples) that identify stressful circumstances, and put you through the various Hardy Strategies that can help in turning the stresses from potential disasters into growth opportunities instead. The workbook also shows how to use the feedback one gets from using the Hardy Strategies in order to deepen the Hardy Attitudes. So, going through the workbook not only shows how to do the hard work of turning stresses to advantage, but also enhances the courage and motivation that facilitates this ongoing process. There are several studies showing the effect of HardiTraining in enhancing subsequent performance, and fulfillment. Both studies utitilized HardiTraining as a course for college students. In the first study (Maddi et al., 2002), highrisk students who went through the HardiTraining course showed higher retention rates than did other high-risk students. In the other study (Maddi et al., 2012), students who went through the HardiTraining course were compared to a control group that did not go through this training, but did take another course taught by the same professor. Just before the course began, there were no differences in GPA or hardiness. When the course was over, the students who went through HardiTraining had higher levels of hardiness than did the control group. And, 6 to 24 months later, when the students who had gone through HardiTraining graduated, they had increased in GPA, both by comparison with their precourse performance, and the graduation performance of the control group students. HardiTraining is being used not only in research, but also in consulting and practice work with working adults, military personnel, and students.
Conclusion There is growing evidence that the personality pattern of Hardy Attitudes and Hardy Strategies is important in enhancing
Hardiness Enhances Effectiveness and Fulfillment
performance, effectiveness, health, and fulfillment in dealing with life’s ongoing stresses. In this regard, there is more than 35 years of relevant theorizing, research, consulting, and counseling that, together, indicate the importance of personality hardiness in growing through, rather than being undermined by, life’s ongoing stresses and changes.
See also: Childhood Stress. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Resilience. Stress. Stress-Related Growth
References Allred, K.D., Smith, T.W., 1989. The hardy personality: Cognitive and Physiological responses to evaluative threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56, 257–266. Atella, M., 1989. Crossing boundaries: Effectiveness and health among western managers living in China. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago. Bartone, P.T., 1999. Hardiness protects against war-related stress in army reserve forces. Consulting Psychology Journal 51, 72–82. Bartone, P.T., Snook, S.A., 1999. Cognitive and personality factors predict leader development in US Army cadets. Paper presented at 35th International Applied Military Psychology Symposium, May, Florence, Italy. Bartone, P.T., Ursano, R.J., Wright, K.M., Ingraham, L.H., 1989. The impact of a military air disaster on the health of assistance workers: A prospective study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 177, 317–328. Contrada, R.J., 1989. Type A behavior, personality hardiness, and cardiovascular responses to stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, 895–902. Florian, V., Milkulincer, M., Taubman, O., 1995. Does hardiness contribute to mental health during a stressful real life situation? The roles of appraisal and coping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68, 687–695. Frankl, V.E., 1963. Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (L. Lasch, Translation). New York, NY: Washington Square Press. Harvey, R.H., 2005. Hardiness at work: Psychophysiological indicators of every day courage under stress. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Irvine. Khoshaba, D.M., Maddi, S.R., 1999. Early experiences in hardiness development. Consulting Psychology Journal 51, 106–116. Khoshaba, D.M., Maddi, S.R., 2004. HardiTraining: Managing Stressful Change, fourth ed. Irvine, CA: Hardiness Institute. Kobasa, S.C., Maddi, S.R., Kahn, S., 1982. Hardiness and health: A prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, 1–11. Kuo, W.H., Tsai, Y., 1986. Social networking, hardiness, and immigrants’ mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 27, 133–149. Lifton, D.E., Seay, S., Bushke, A., 2000. Can student “hardiness” serve as an indicator of likely persistence to graduation? Baseline results of a longitudinal study. Academic Exchange Quarterly, Winter 4, 73–81.
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Maddi, S.R., 1994. The Hardiness Enhancing Lifestyle Program (HELP), for improving physical, mental, and social wellness. In: Hooper, C. (Ed.), Wellness Lecture Series. Oakland, CA: University of California/HealthNet, pp. 1–18. Maddi, S.R., 1999. The personality construct of hardiness, I: Effects on experiencing, coping, and strain. Consulting Psychology Journal 51, 83–94. Maddi, S.R., 2002. The story of hardiness: Twenty years of theorizing, research, and practice. Consulting Psychology Journal 54, 173–185. Maddi, S.R., Brow, M., Khoshaba, D.M., Vaitkus, M., 2006a. The relationship of hardiness and religiosity in depression and anger. Consulting Psychology Journal 58, 148–161. Maddi, S.R., Harvey, R.H.H., Khoshaba, D.M., et al., 2006b. The personality construct of hardiness,III: Relationships with repression, innovativeness, authoritarianism, and performance. Journal of Personality 74, 575–598. Maddi, S.R., Harvey, R.H., Khoshaba, D.M., Fazel, M., Resurreccion, N., 2012. The relationship of hardiness and some relevant variables to college perform-ance. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 52, 190–205. Maddi, S.R., Harvey, R.H., Resurreccion, R., Giatras, C.D., Raganold, S., 2007. Hardiness as a performance enhancer in firefighters. International Journal of Fire Service Leadership and Management 1, 3–9. Maddi, S.R., Hess, M., 1992. Hardiness and success in basketball. International Journal of Sports Psychology 23, 360–368. Maddi, S.R., Hightower, M., 1999. Hardiness and optimism as expressed in coping patterns. Consulting Psychology Journal 51, 95–105. Maddi, S.R., Khoshaba, D.M., 1994. Hardiness and mental health. Journal of Personality Assessment 63, 265–274. Maddi, S.R., Khoshaba, D.M., 2002. Hardiness training for resiliency and leadership. In: Paton, D., Violanti, J.M., Smith, L.M. (Eds.), Posttraumatic Psychological Stress: Individual, Group, and Organizational Strategies for Resiliency. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, pp. 43–58. Maddi, S.R., Khoshaba, D.M., 2005. Resilience at Work: How to Succeed No Matter What Life Throws At You. New York, NY: Amacom. Maddi, S.R., Khoshaba, D.M., Harvey, R.H., Lu, J., Persico, M., 2002. The personality construct of hardiness, II: Relationships with measures of psychopathology and personality. Journal of Research in Personality 36, 72–84. Maddi, S.R., Khoshaba, D.M., Jensen, K., et al., 2002. Hardiness training for highrisk undergraduates. NACADA Journal 22, 45–55. Maddi, S.R., Kobasa, S.C., 1984. The Hardy Executive: Health Under Stress. Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Erwin. Maddi, S.R., Matthews, M.D., Kelly, D., Villarreal, B., White, M., 2012. Hardiness and grit predict performance and retention of USMA cadets. Military Psychology 24, 19–28. Maddi, S.R., Wadhwa, P., Haier, R.J., 1996. Relationship of hardiness to alcohol and drug use in adolescents. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 22, 247–257. Sinclair, R.R., Tetrick, L.E., 2000. Implications of item wording for hardiness structure, relation with neuroticism, and stress buffering. Journal of Research in Personality 34, 1–25. Weibe, D.J., McCallum, D.M., 1986. Health practices and hardiness as mediators in the stress-illness relationship. Health Psychology 5, 435–438. Westman, M., 1990. The relationship between stress and performance: The moderating effect of hardiness. Human Performance 3, 141–155.
Glossary Happiness The emphasis on happiness has tended to be that if you can somehow stay happy, this will help you live better and interact better with others. This approach tends to suggest that happiness is based in religious and other beliefs that calm you under stress. Lately, approaches like hardiness have deemphasized that the main aim of living should be to be just happy. Instead, these new approaches emphasize that the aspects of happiness that help are those that result from dealing effectively with stresses and growing in the process. Hardy attitudes This involves the 3Cs of commitment, control, and challenge, which together provide the courage and motivation to do the hard work that is involved in turning potentially undermining circumstances into growth opportunities instead.
Hardy strategies The hard work of turning potentially undermining circumstances into growth opportunities involves the hardy strategies of problem-solving (rather than avoidance) coping, socially supportive (rather than conflictful) interactions, and beneficial (rather than overindulgent) self-care. Positive psychology This is a recently developing emphasis on understanding and studying aspects of personality that can enhance development and fulfillment, despite ongoing stressful circumstances. Resilience Resilience emphasizes continuing to function well despite stressful and potentially undermining circumstances. A few users of this term also add to it the notion that for some people, stress can actually enhance performance and health by how one grows from dealing effectively in these circumstances.
Introduction
Hardiness Attitudes and Strategies
As elaborated in existential psychology (e.g., Frankl, 1963), life is by its nature stressful. In this, consider the various stages of living that involve change and unpredictability (Maddi, 2002). It all begins when you are pushed out of your mother’s womb, into the light, noise, interaction with others, and change. Then, as soon as you have begun to make sense out of your home environment, you have to begin schooling, where new requirements are imposed on you, and you keep meeting strangers. Even if you learn to accept all these, things keep changing as you go to high school, decide whether or not to go to college and beyond. As you get older, you interact more fully with others that you meet, and need to make decisions as to who should be your friends and lovers. What kind of career should you have? Should you start a family and, if so, how should you parent the youngsters who are born? And, then, as you get older, you begin looking back at your life, trying to determine whether it was worthwhile, and how you should be approaching inevitable death. In all this, life emerges as an ongoing and changing developmental pressure, in which you continually have to make new decisions to try to make the best of it all. In all this interaction with ongoing life stresses, it is not true that all people get undermined. Indeed, some people have personality features that help them not only survive, but actually thrive under life’s stresses. Elaborating on these helpful personality features, Maddi (2002) and his collaborators have conceptualized hardiness as the pattern of attitudes and strategies that helps people to turn life’s ongoing stressful circumstances from potential disasters into growth opportunities instead.
Specifically, the Hardy Attitudes are the 3Cs of commitment, control, and challenge (Maddi, 2002). The stronger the commitment attitude, the more the person will try, no matter how stressful things get, to remain involved with others and situations, rather than retreat into isolation and alienation. The stronger the control attitude, the more the person will keep trying to influence outcomes, no matter how stressful things get, rather than give up and become passive and powerless. And, the stronger the challenge attitude, the more the person will consider life stresses as natural and normal, and as providing an opportunity to grow in wisdom through what one learns in trying to turn them to advantage. Together, the 3Cs provide the existential courage and motivation needed to do the hard work of turning life’s stresses into resilient growth opportunities. That hard work involves the Hardy Strategies whereby one can turn stresses into advantages (Maddi, 2002). These strategies constitute problem-solving (rather than denial and avoidance) coping, socially-supportive (rather than conflictful) interactions, and beneficial (rather than undermining) selfcare. Problem-solving coping emphasizes seeing the stresses for what they are, thinking through how they may be resolved or turned to advantage, and taking the actions that are likely to result in this. This is in contrast to denial and avoidance coping, which tries to defend against the stresses in the attempt to keep happy all the time. Socially-supportive coping involves trying to deepen one’s relationships with significant others, despite ongoing stresses and conflicts with them. The emphasis in these interactions is on resolving conflicts and giving and getting assistance and encouragement in facing the
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ongoing life stresses. This is in contrast to conflictful interacting, in which self-protection is considered more important than helping others and encouraging them to do likewise. And, beneficial self-care involves the careful eating patterns and relaxation efforts that are all the more necessary as one engages in problem-solving and socially-supportive interactions. This is in contrast to overeating sweet and fatty foods, and engaging in excessive alcohol and/or drug use, as a quick effort to deny and avoid stresses. Through engaging consistently in the Hardy Strategies, you will grow in wisdom, enhanced performance, health, and fulfillment, whereas if one engages against the Hardy Strategies, life heads toward downfall, emptiness, and hopelessness. It is conceptualized that the Hardy Attitudes and Strategies can be learned. In this regard, there is not only an assessment procedure, but a training procedure as well (Maddi, 2002; Khoshaba and Maddi, 2004). These approaches and the research supporting them will appear later in this article.
Hardiness Research at Illinois Bell Telephone There is much research by now showing empirical support for the hardiness approach. This research began with a 12-year natural experiment at Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) that started in 1975 (Maddi and Kobasa, 1984). At that point, the telephone industry was still a federally-regulated monopoly, the aim of which was to provide cheap and reliable service for all. But, federal deregulation of the industry was looming in order to have ensuing competition, speed, the development of the internet and cell-phone possibilities. Indeed, the federal deregulation took place in 1981, and the cataclysmically stressful circumstances that ensued are still regarded as one of the greatest upheavals in corporate history. Signs of this stressful disruption included the IBT workforce decreasing in size by almost one-half in just 1 year. Job roles changed dramatically, and most employees were confused as to what was happening, and how they should respond. The natural experiment continued through 6 years after the government’s deregulation (Maddi and Kobasa, 1984). In each of the 12 years of the study, the 450 managers in the sample were interviewed, medically examined, and given questionnaires regarding personality, performance, mood, and health. Also available were the IBT job evaluations and yearly medical examinations. These data showed that close to two-thirds of the sample fell apart following the deregulation. There were signs of performance impairment, mental and physical disorders, violence in the workplace, suicides, and divorces. But, the other third not only survived the deregulation, they actually thrived. The major function of this natural experiment involved determining the difference before the deregulation upheaval between the managers who fell apart and those who survived and thrived after the deregulation. The managers who survived and thrived after the deregulation had shown much higher levels of Hardy Attitudes and Hardy Strategies before the deregulation than did the managers who fell apart after the deregulation (Maddi and Kobasa, 1984). In particular, the resilient managers had all along shown high levels of the attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge, and had
295
engaged in problem-solving (rather than denial and avoidance) coping, socially-supportive (rather than conflictful) interactions, and beneficial (rather than undermining) selfcare. The data from the IBT study were also used to study the early development of hardiness (Khoshaba and Maddi, 1999). A subsample of managers selected to be either very high or very low in the hardiness attitudes were interviewed blind concerning their early life experiences. Content analyses of their statements showed that by comparison with the others, the managers high in hardiness remembered not only a disruptive, stressful early family life, but also that they were selected by their parents to be successful nonetheless, accepted that role, and worked hard to justify being the family’s hope.
Additional Hardiness Research Since the IBT natural experiment, lots of other studies concerning adults have supported the importance of hardiness in effective performance and health under stress (cf., Maddi, 2002; Maddi and Khoshaba, 2005). As expected, evidence shows (Maddi, 1994; Sinclair and Tetrick, 2000) that commitment, control, and challenge are interrelated, but not redundant with each other. As to construct validity, participants in an experiential sampling study (Maddi, 1999) were measured for hardiness, and later paged at random in order to comment on the nature of their ongoing activities. Results showed a positive relationship between Hardiness Attitudes and (1) involvement with others and ongoing activities (this expresses the commitment attitude), (2) the sense that the ongoing activities had been chosen and could be influenced (this expresses the control attitude), and (3) the positive process of learning from the circumstances (this expresses the challenge attitude). There is also research evidence of the expected positive relationship between the Hardy Attitudes and the Hardy Strategies, suggesting that the former is the courage and motivation to carry out the hard work of the latter (cf., Maddi and Khoshaba, 2002). Specifically, positive relationships have been found between the hardy attitudes and (1) problem-solving (rather than denial and avoidance) coping (e.g., Maddi, 1999; Maddi et al., 2006b; Maddi and Hightower, 1999), (2) socially-supportive (rather than competitive or over-protective) interactions with others (e.g., Maddi and Kobasa, 1984; Maddi et al., 2006a,b), and (3) facilitative (rather than undermining) self-care (e.g., Allred and Smith, 1989; Contrada, 1989; Khoshaba and Maddi, 2004; Maddi et al., 1996; Weibe and McCallum, 1986). There are also accumulated findings indicating that hardiness renders positivity and resiliency to people experiencing stressful changes. For example, hardiness shows a buffering effect between stresses and both strain responses and illness symptoms (e.g., Bartone et al., 1989; Harvey, 2005; Kobasa et al., 1982; Kuo and Tsai, 1986). These studies concerned various stressful occupations, and culture shock in immigrants. Under stress, hardiness also has an enhancing effect on performance. For example, positive relationships have been found between hardiness and subsequent (1) basketball performance in varsity players (Maddi and Hess, 1992), (2) success rates in intentionally stressful officer training and
296
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firefighter training (e.g., Florian et al., 1995; Maddi et al., 2007, 2012; Westman, 1990), (3) retention rate, grade-point-average (GPA), and innovativeness in college students (Bartone and Snook, 1999; Maddi et al., 2006a,b, 2007, 2012), (4) leadership among officer training school students (Bartone and Snook, 1999), (5) speed of recovery of baseline functioning following the disruption of culture shock (Atella, 1989; Kuo and Tsai, 1986), and (6) protection against post-traumatic stress and depression disorders when military personnel encounter life threats while serving in combat missions abroad (Bartone, 1999). In some of the studies mentioned, hardiness was actually a more powerful predictor of the subsequent behavior studied than were other previous performance factors. For example, Lifton et al. (2000) found that hardiness is a better predictor of retention in college than were either SAT scores or high school academic achievement rank. Also, Bartone and Snook (1999) found that, in a cohort of West Point cadets, hardiness was a better predictor of leadership behavior over the 4 years of training than were other available performance measures.
Comparison of the Effect of Hardiness to That of Other Personality Variables There have been four studies as of now (Maddi and Khoshaba, 1994; Maddi et al., 2006a, 2012; Maddi and Hightower, 1999) that have compared the relative effectiveness of hardiness and other conceptually-relevant personality variables on functioning under stress. In these studies, hardiness was a better predictor of effective performance and positive emotionality than were negative affectivity (neuroticism), optimism (maintaining continual happiness), religiousness (belief that life is what God intends), grit (pursuit of unchanging goals), and emotional intelligence (avoiding painful emotions). These results are consistent with hardiness as the courage to do the hard work involved in turning life’s changes and stresses into growth opportunities.
Hardiness Assessment Much has been accomplished concerning hardiness assessment. The original questionnaire measure, that was begun in the IBT study, emphasized the Hardy Attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge. This measure has been improved and shortened over the years. Studies have shown that, as expected, the 3Cs are positively intercorrelated factors, leading to a second-order factor that is an overall index of Hardy Attitudes (e.g., Sinclair and Tetrick, 2000). Such findings are consistent with the conceptualization that all 3Cs, used together, are important in assessing hardiness. The latest and the best measure of the Hardy Attitudes is the Personal Views Survey III-R (PVS III-R), which includes 6 Likert items for each of the 3Cs (Maddi, 2002). Although this measure of Hardy Attitudes has been shown to be moderately correlated with the standard measure of each of the components of the Five Factor Model, those five factors together explain less than 25% of the variance of the PVS III-R measure (Maddi et al., 2002). This finding supports the conceptual and
empirical value of hardiness beyond the Five Factor Model. The PVS III-R is commonly used in research concerning the role of hardiness in performance and effectiveness. Also available is the HardiSurvey III-R, which is a 65-item measure of not only the Hardy Attitudes, but also the Hardy Strategies, as well as the opposites of these positive components of personality (e.g., denial and avoidance coping, conflictful interactions, and negative emotions). Additionally measured are stress and strain levels. Available for administration on the Hardiness Institute website, this test produces a comprehensive report of the test-taker’s resilience and vulnerability under stressful circumstances. In producing this comprehensive report, the test-taker’s responses are compared to those of thousands of others in the normative sample. This test is being used not only in research, but also in consulting and counseling work.
Hardiness Training If the test-taker’s HS III-R report shows vulnerability to being undermined by life’s stresses, that is a good reason to take the HardiTraining program. This program is covered in a workbook (Khoshaba and Maddi, 2004) that includes many relevant exercises (along with case study examples) that identify stressful circumstances, and put you through the various Hardy Strategies that can help in turning the stresses from potential disasters into growth opportunities instead. The workbook also shows how to use the feedback one gets from using the Hardy Strategies in order to deepen the Hardy Attitudes. So, going through the workbook not only shows how to do the hard work of turning stresses to advantage, but also enhances the courage and motivation that facilitates this ongoing process. There are several studies showing the effect of HardiTraining in enhancing subsequent performance, and fulfillment. Both studies utitilized HardiTraining as a course for college students. In the first study (Maddi et al., 2002), highrisk students who went through the HardiTraining course showed higher retention rates than did other high-risk students. In the other study (Maddi et al., 2012), students who went through the HardiTraining course were compared to a control group that did not go through this training, but did take another course taught by the same professor. Just before the course began, there were no differences in GPA or hardiness. When the course was over, the students who went through HardiTraining had higher levels of hardiness than did the control group. And, 6 to 24 months later, when the students who had gone through HardiTraining graduated, they had increased in GPA, both by comparison with their precourse performance, and the graduation performance of the control group students. HardiTraining is being used not only in research, but also in consulting and practice work with working adults, military personnel, and students.
Conclusion There is growing evidence that the personality pattern of Hardy Attitudes and Hardy Strategies is important in enhancing
Hardiness Enhances Effectiveness and Fulfillment
performance, effectiveness, health, and fulfillment in dealing with life’s ongoing stresses. In this regard, there is more than 35 years of relevant theorizing, research, consulting, and counseling that, together, indicate the importance of personality hardiness in growing through, rather than being undermined by, life’s ongoing stresses and changes.
See also: Childhood Stress. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Resilience. Stress. Stress-Related Growth
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