Personality- Illness Connection - Essay Example

Five Models of the Personality-Illness Connection An individual, when sick, experiences stress and changes in its body. The illness of a person is actually caused by a complex framework involving several aspects of life, including the psychological component. There are even studies and literatures which try to create a connection between the personality of the person and the progression of illness, if ever those individuals acquire one. Many theories have been proposed which tries to discuss the connection between personality and health.

One of these theories includes the personality-illness connection. The personality-illness connection is actually one of the most interesting theories which explicate that the relationship between personality and health can be explained using five models. These models include the interactional model, the transactional model, the health behavior model, the predisposition model, and the illness behavior model. In the interactional model, a certain event may happen to a person, but it is the personality of that person which determines the impact of events by influencing a person’s ability to cope.

In short, it is the personality which directly regulates the association between the stress and illness. It is apparent that the coping strategy of the person affects the degree, duration, and the frequency of a stressful event. In the interactional model, the relevance of having many repetitions that can affect one’s life is greatly discerned. The manner in which an individual adjust with this repetitions can vary significantly. This variation determines the type of personality of the individual.

The personality which is difficult to cope with stress tends to suffer more frequently from the disease. In contrast to this, the personality easily copes with stress tends to experience stress less severely. The coping mechanism and response of an individual is indeed a major influence to the relative severity of the stress, the duration of its persistence and the frequency of its occurrence. This model is really fascinating but it also has some problems to some extent. For example, there are inconsistencies regarding the most advantageous types of personalities and coping responses which always deal with stress.

Also, there are no certain and consistent types of personality and coping responses that are least effective in dealing with stress. These problems with the interactional model make it unable to identify stable coping responses that are consistently adaptive or maladaptive. Another model, the transactional model, indicates that personality has specifically three potential effects to the health of the individual. One is that it might influence the coping strategy of the person. The personality might also influence the mechanism on how the person appraises events.

Some even indicates that the personality might affect the event itself. The appraisal of the person indicates that it is not only the event which causes stress, but rather the manner in which the event is interpreted by a person. Individuals do not simply respond to certain situation for situations can also be created by certain options and executions. The transactional model also infers that the personality can affect the manner in which an individual deals with stress. For example, a person learning that he has a chronic heart disease might interpret this event as either a punishment from his wrongdoings or a challenge which might make him a better person if he surpasses it.

He might have different behaviors with handling the situation. The attitude towards the disease or stress depends on the manner in which the individual deals with it. In the health behavior model, the personality is not the direct factor which influences the relation between stress and illness. However, this model explains that personality affects health indirectly, either through health promoting or health degrading behaviors. The outcome of the health of the individual depends on the health behavior of the individual, whether it will aggravate the illness or alleviate it.

For example, it is the behavior of the person to eat more when in stress. Learning that he has Diabetes mellitus will of course cause stress to that person. However, his behavior of eating a lot when in stress might aggravate the disease which is already detected on that individual. The associations between the personality and illness may also exist because of a third variable that is causing them both. This describes the predisposition model. There will be a relationship found between the personality and illness because of some predisposition that underlies them both.

For example, cancer is a disease which can be caused by several factors. One of the major risk factor for the development of cancer is the genetic predisposition of the individual, which means that the person has already the genes which have the tendency to transform normal cells into malignant ones. This genetic predisposition might also affect the behavior of an individual. Some of these genes are also believed to cause addictive behaviors to the individual, like abnormally strong craving to alcohol and cigarettes, which also increases the risk of developing cancers.

Having the genetic predisposition increases the risk of having cancer not only in its physical attributes, but also on the behavior of the individual. The last model, the illness behavior model, is described as having the personality as a major influence to the extent in which a person recognizes bodily sensations, and the degree in which a person interprets and labels these sensations as illness. Illness behavior is the manner in which an individual observe their own bodies, try to determine and understand the symptoms that they had, try to relieve the conditions present, and use health-care system or other options for help.

This model is very unpredictable because each individual has the unique interpretation and perception of sensations. Each individual also has a unique response to the perceived sensation. For example, the treatment of migraine depends on how the person perceives it as pain. Some individuals have a high tolerance to pain while others are not. This tolerance is a major factor for the management of disease of each individual. The management of the disease is dependent on how the individual usually strategize on dealing with its illness.

The illness-behavior model also considers the biological, psychological and social aspect to be equally important dimensions, because it believes that there should be no priority in determining human behavior in health and disease. These models which try to explain the relationship between personality of the individual and the illness are unique in its own way. It is important for us to determine which model is suitable for certain situation so that its understanding would be efficiently done.

Also, we must also take into account that each model is not fixed on its own and have the tendency to overlap with other models in trying to explain cases of personality-illness connection. These models have indicated that personality is really a major factor with the fate of the illness or disease of an individual. References: Ashton, M.C., Lee, K., & Goldberg, L.R. (2004). A hierarchical analysis of 1,710 English personality-descriptive adjectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 707-721.

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