Comparing Relationship Between Personality Traits and Ways of Coping in Samples of Pregnant Women and Students

Abstract

Previous studies showed that personality predicted coping with stress, especially in young samples and samples under stress. The goal of the study was to relate personality traits and ways of coping in a normal population, in two different samples in specific stressful situations: students and pregnant women, and to compare the patterns of these relations. Undergraduate and graduate students (N = 186) and pregnant women (N = 51) anonymously filled out the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI; measuring neu-roticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOC; consisting of 8 subscales: Confrontive Coping, Distancing, Self-Controlling, Seeking Social Support, Accepting Responsibility, Escape-Avoidance, Planful Problem Solving, Positive Reappraisal). Cor-relational and regression analyses were performed. The results showed that personality traits were related to ways of coping in the sample of both students and pregnant women, with somewhat different patterns. The consistent finding in both samples was that neuroticism was positively associated with Accepting Responsibility and Escape-Avoidance, while consciousness was positively associated with Planful Problem Solving and negatively associated with Escape-Avoidance. Extraversion had a different role in coping in the sample of students and pregnant women, while openness to experience and agreeableness were not related to ways of coping. To conclude, neuroticism was more related to disengagement coping styles, while consciousness and extraversion were more related to engagement coping styles.

Full text

Comparing Relaonship Between Personality
Traits and Ways of Coping in Samples of
Pregnant Women and Students
Krunoslav Matešić1, Sandra Nakić Radoš1, Krunoslav Kuna2
1Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Croaa, Zagreb, Croaa 2Department
of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University Hospital Centre Sestre milosrdnice,
Zagreb, Croaa
Original paper
Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164
DOI:10.20471/dec. 2019.55.02.04
Received September 10, 2019, accepted aer revision November 15, 2019
Correspondence to: Krunoslav Matešić, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Croaa
Ilica 242, 10 000 Zagreb, Croaa
Tel: +385 (1) 370 6636
E-mail: krunoslav.matesic@unicath.hr
Copyright © 2019 KBCSM, Zagreb
e-mail: alcoholism.kbcsm@gmail.com • www.hp://apr.kbcsm.hr
Abstract - Previous studies showed that personality predicted coping with stress, especially in young samples
and samples under stress. The goal of the study was to relate personality traits and ways of coping in a nor-
mal populaon, in two dierent samples in specic stressful situaons: students and pregnant women, and
to compare the paerns of these relaons. Undergraduate and graduate students (N = 186) and pregnant
women (N = 51) anonymously lled out the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI; measuring neu-
rocism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscienousness) and Ways of Coping
Quesonnaire (WOC; consisng of 8 subscales: Confronve Coping, Distancing, Self-Controlling, Seeking So-
cial Support, Accepng Responsibility, Escape-Avoidance, Planful Problem Solving, Posive Reappraisal). Cor-
relaonal and regression analyses were performed. The results showed that personality traits were related to
ways of coping in the sample of both students and pregnant women, with somewhat dierent paerns. The
consistent nding in both samples was that neurocism was posively associated with Accepng Responsi-
bility and Escape-Avoidance, while consciousness was posively associated with Planful Problem Solving and
negavely associated with Escape-Avoidance. Extraversion had a dierent role in coping in the sample of
students and pregnant women, while openness to experience and agreeableness were not related to ways of
coping. To conclude, neurocism was more related to disengagement coping styles, while consciousness and
extraversion were more related to engagement coping styles.
Keywords: personality traits, coping, pregnancy
Introducon
In the past several decades stress has been
a subject of numerous studies, due to its con-
nection to numerous psychological determi-
nants. There is ample evidence that stress can
have an impact on human physical, psycho-
logical and general health well-being [1-4].
Over time, the focus shifted from researching
stress on the research of the ways of coping
with stress. The reasons for this are numer-
ous, and among the more important is that

154
Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164 Matešić, Nakić Radoš, Kuna
the concept of stress is relatively difcult to
operationalize.
Ways of coping with stress related to the
process or strategies which people use to try
to ease or lessen stress [5]. Coping with stress
relates to handling stress and its consequenc-
es for the wellbeing of a person, and not nec-
essarily on overcoming stress. The advantage
of measuring coping versus stress levels is the
fact that ways of coping are relatively stable
characteristics, although set by the specicity
of the situation. They can change in accor-
dance with the stress situation, how complex
the situation is etc. [5].
Five-factor model of personality states
that all personality traits can be set on one of
ve big personality domains: neuroticism, ex-
traversion, openness to experience, conscien-
tiousness and agreeableness. Costa and Mc-
Crea developed the Revised NEO Personality
Inventory (NEO-PI-R) self-reporting ques-
tionnaire for the measurement of these ve
domains of personality. Those personality di-
mensions affect psychological functioning, as
it is proven, in many ways [6]. It is logical to
assume that personality traits will affect the
ways we are coping with stressful situations.
Costa and McCrae examined the relation-
ship between only three traits of personality:
neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to
experience [7]. Openness was positively asso-
ciated with the use of humour and negatively
with the feeling of faith or hope. The extra-
version was associated with positive thinking,
restraint and rational actions. Neuroticism
was in correlation with a number of inef-
cient or unhelpful mechanisms of confronta-
tion such as angry reactions, self-sacrice, a
fantasy about running, retreatment and inde-
termination.
McCormick, Dowd, Quirk and Zegarra,
in their research, used NEO-PI and Ways
of Coping (WOC) questionnaire on a clini-
cal sample of 2,672 substance abusers [8].
The correlations between the NEO-PI do-
mains and the Ways of Coping scale were
calculated and the strongest relationships
were observed between the WOC scales and
Neuroticism and Extroversion. Neuroticism
was in moderate positive correlation with es-
cape-avoidance, low positive correlation with
confrontive coping and distancing, and low
negative correlation with positive reapprais-
al. Extroversion was, on the other hand, in
low negative correlations with seeking social
support, and low positive correlations with
problem-solving, and positive reappraisal.
Agreeableness demonstrated low negative
correlations with confrontive coping and es-
cape-avoidance. Conscientiousness was posi-
tively correlated with problem-solving and
positive reappraisal and negatively related to
escape-avoidance coping.
As stated before, the literature on rela-
tions between personality traits and ways of
coping with stress are still needed, especially
the patterns of these relations in different
samples need to be examined. A meta-anal-
ysis showed that personality predicted cop-
ing with stress, especially in young samples
and samples under stress [9]. Therefore, the
goal of the study was to relate personal-
ity traits and ways of coping in a normal
population, but in two different samples in
specic stressful situations: in students and
pregnant women. Students are exposed to
many different stressors, such as adapta-
tion to a new environment, academic du-
ties, nancial strain, peer relations and close
relations, and specic challenges of grow-
ing up. Previous studies have been focused
on personality traits in relation to academ-
ic achievement in high-school and college
students, especially consciousness [10, 11].

155
Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164Personality traits and coping
However, traits have been less studied in re-
lation to ways of coping with stress in the
student population.
On the other hand, women are in a spe-
cic situation during pregnancy when they
experience a wide range of hormonal and
bodily changes, as well as psychosocial chal-
lenges. Although they are experiencing a
normative event in most women’s lives,
they are preoccupied with specic stressors,
such as the health and the progress of their
foetus, their own health, prenatal care, ex-
pecting childbirth, and preparing for moth-
erhood [12]. One in four pregnant women
have elevated anxiety and stress level [13,
14], with the strong indication that stress
and anxiety during pregnancy predicts pre-
term delivery which makes the stress very
important issue during pregnancy [15]. A
meta-analysis of studies on coping during
pregnancy showed that the avoidant coping
predicted preterm delivery and postpartum
depression [16]. However, relations between
personality traits and coping styles have
been less studied. Recent studies show that
extraversion, agreeableness, and conscious-
ness were positively associated with prob-
lem-oriented coping, while higher levels of
neuroticism were associated with lower level
of problem-oriented coping and higher lev-
el of emotion-oriented coping in pregnant
women [17, 18].
Considering all the above, the goal of the
study was to relate personality traits and ways
of coping in students and pregnant women
and to compare the patterns of these rela-
tions. We expected that neuroticism will be
associated with avoidance, while extraver-
sion, agreeableness, and consciousness will
be associated with more active ways of cop-
ing.
Method and Materials
Parcipants
The sample of students from Catholic
University of Croatia (N=186) and preg-
nant women from University Hospital Cen-
tre Sisters of Mercy (N=51) participated in
the study. Students’ sample included psychol-
ogy, sociology, and history undergraduate
and graduate students who were on average
21.7 years old (Sd = 1.8; range 19-33). There
were mainly female participants (82.3%).
Their self-reported socioeconomic status
was below average for 12.9%, the average
for 65.1%, and above average for 22% of the
sample. They were mainly from urban areas:
47.8% lived in a city with up to 1,000,000 in-
habitants, 32.9% lived in a town with up to
100,000 inhabitants, and 19.3% lived in a
village. More than half of them were single
(58.1%), 37.6% were in a relationship, and
4.3% were married or cohabiting.
Pregnant women were on average 30.0
years old (Sd = 4.1, range: 22-43). Their self-
reported socioeconomic status was below
average for 9.8%, the average for 72.6%,
and above average for 17.6% of the sam-
ple. They were mainly from urban areas:
45.1% lived in a city with up to 1,000,000
inhabitants, 29.4% lived in a town with up
to 100,000 inhabitants, and 25.5% lived in a
village. All of them were married or cohab-
iting. Half of them graduated from high-
school (49.0%) or from university (51.0%),
and a majority was employed (74.5%). In re-
spect to parity, 43.1% were expecting their
rst baby and 56.9% were already mothers.
They were on average at 35.2 weeks of ges-
tation (Sd=5.7).

156
Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164 Matešić, Nakić Radoš, Kuna
Procedure
Ethical approval was obtained by the Eth-
ical Committee of the Catholic University of
Croatia where the study with students took
place. The data collection was not organised
during the (mid)term exams. All participants
gave their informed consent and group ad-
ministration of anonymous questionnaires
was 20 minutes long and was performed at
the beginning of the lectures upon previous
arrangement with the professor.
Ethical Committee of the University Clin-
ical Hospital Sisters of Mercy gave additional
ethical approval for conducting research at
the prenatal clinic at Department of Obstet-
rics and Gynaecology. Pregnant women were
approached while waiting for the regular pre-
natal check-ups. After giving the informed
consent, they lled out questionnaires anon-
ymously.
Instruments
NEO-FFI [19] is a 60-item questionnaire
that measures big ve personality traits and
is a shorter version of the Revised NEO
Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). Each
item is rated on a scale from 0 (“completely
disagree”) to 4 (“completely agree”) where
some items are reversely coded. The NEO-
FFI comprises ve domains: Neuroticism
(Cronbach α = .84), Extraversion (Cron-
bach α = .72), Openness (Cronbach α = .58),
Agreeableness (Cronbach α = .66), and Con-
scientiousness (Cronbach α = .80). The score
is calculated as a composite score of 12 items
on each scale. Test-retest reliability of the
scales is between .75 and .83. In the current
study, Cronbach α was in a range from .64
to .85, both in the sample of students and
pregnant women, as shown at the bottom of
Table 1.
Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WOC, 5) is
a 66-item questionnaire that measures cop-
ing as a process, in contrast to measuring
dispositions or stable coping styles. WOC
can be applied in different situations and re-
spondents’ task is to report the frequency
of their cognitive and behavioural strategies
used when confronting a stressful situation
in the previous week on a 4-point scale from
0 (“Not used”) to 3 (“used a great deal”). It
comprises eight different ways of coping in-
cluding Confrontive Coping (6 items, Cron-
bach α = .70), Distancing (6 items, Cron-
bach α = .61), Self-Controlling (7 items,
Cronbach α = .70), Seeking Social Sup-
port (6 items, Cronbach α = .76), Accept-
ing Responsibility (4 items, Cronbach α =
.66), Escape-Avoidance (8 items, Cronbach
α = .72), Planful Problem Solving (6 items,
Cronbach α = .68), and Positive Reappraisal
(7 items, Cronbach α = .79). Score on each
scale is calculated as a composite score of
specic items. Internal consistency coef-
cient Cronbach α of the scales in the cur-
rent study was in a range from .51 to .78 in a
sample of students and pregnant women, as
shown at the bottom of Table 1.
Demographic Quesonnaire Sheet
Demographic Questionnaire Sheet com-
prised questions on age, marital status, so-
cioeconomic status, and place of residence.
In students’ sample, the sheet also included a
question on gender, while in pregnant wom-
en included questions on education level,
working status, and obstetrical data, such as
parity, weeks of gestation, complications dur-
ing pregnancy etc.

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164Personality traits and coping
Table 1. Correlations between coping, demographics and personality traits in a sample of students and pregnant women
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
1. Confrontive Coping - 0.20 0.50** 0.39** 0.27 0.20 0.37** 0.49** 0.07 -0.02 -0.06 -0.14 0.08
2. Distancing 0.08 - 0.51** 0.36** 0.35* 0.33* 0.50** 0.59** 0.10 0.09 -0.08 -0.08 0.21
3. Self-Controlling 0.24** 0.37** - 0.58** 0.36* 0.49** 0.58** 0.61** 0.15 -0.04 0.01 -0.04 0.03
4. Seeking Social
Support 0.27** 0.00 0.12 - 0.17 0.30* 0.46** 0.46** -0.04 -0.06 -0.10 0.12 0.22
5. Accepting
Responsibility 0.30** 0.24** 0.24* 0.22** - 0.42** 0.18 0.30* 0.35* -0.12 -0.15 -0.27 -0.07
6. Escape-Avoidance 0.33** 0.39** 0.34** 0.12 0.35** - 0.19 0.40** 0.50** -0.41** 0.01 -0.21 -0.31*
7. Planful Problem
Solving 0.34** 0.04 0.40** 0.17* 0.31** 0.09 - 0.61** -0.32* 0.28* -0.09 -0.15 0.45**
8. Positive Reappraisal 0.41** 0.16* 0.41** 0.26** 0.42** 0.33** 0.42** - 0.06 0.22 -0.02 0.03 0.09
9. Neuroticism 0.12 0.21** 0.18* 0.13 0.28** 0.43** -0.07 0.02 - -0.45** -0.00 -0.26 -0.57**
10. Extraversion 0.03 0.13 0.11 0.16* 0.07 -0.12 0.10 0.16* -0.40** - -0.04 0.05 0.36**
11. Openness -0.01 0.02 0.12 0.06 -0.01 -0.02 0.03 0.10 -0.07 0.09 - 0.20 -0.18
12. Agreeableness -0.12 -0.09 -0.10 0.06 0.01 -0.11 -0.12 0.13 -0.17* 0.24** 0.02 - 0.25
13. Conscientiousness 0.14* -0.21** 0.16* 0.12 -0.14 -0.18* 0.34** 0.17* -0.39** 0.14 0.00 0.08 -
Mean (Students) 7.15 6.81 1.03 8.72 5.58 7.51 9.35 8.27 21.80 28.58 27.69 28.78 33.83
Sd (Students) 3.39 3.28 3.53 4.09 3.10 4.66 3.63 3.93 8.10 6.40 5.82 5.61 6.34
Cronbach α (Students) 0.60 0.59 0.51 0.78 0.66 0.73 0.68 0.58 0.85 0.78 0.65 0.70 0.83
Mean (Pregnant women) 7.53 7.20 9.22 8.41 4.14 6.92 8.78 7.39 21.45 27.27 23.76 28.73 34.76
Sd (Pregnant women) 3.14 3.28 4.00 2.99 2.28 4.53 3.34 3.45 7.63 6.31 5.49 5.98 5.24
Cronbach α (Pregnant
women) 0.58 0.63 0.66 0.52 0.51 0.74 0.67 0.65 0.82 0.77 0.64 0.73 0.73
Note: *p<.05, *p<.01, *p<.001. Correlations in sample of students are presented below the diagonal and correlations in a sample of preg-
nant women are presented above the diagonal.

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164 Matešić, Nakić Radoš, Kuna
Results
First, Pearson’s correlation coefcients
between coping and demographics were ex-
amined, but only a few of these were signi-
cant. In a sample of students, Seeking Social
Support was related to sex (r=.24, p=.002)
so that women were seeking social support
more than men. In a sample of pregnant
women, age was negatively related to both
Accepting Responsibility (r=-.30, p=.03)
and Escape-Avoidance (r=-.40, p=.004), so
that younger age was related to higher lev-
els of Accepting Responsibility and Escape-
Avoidance.
Furthermore, the correlations between
coping and personality traits were analysed
(Table 1). In a sample of students, low, but
signicant correlations between coping and
personality traits were found. Of the ve
personality traits, neuroticism and consci-
entiousness were mainly associated with al-
most all ways of coping. Similar to that, in
a sample of pregnant women, neuroticism,
consciousness, and extraversion were in me-
dium correlations with coping, but with Es-
cape-Avoidance and Planful Problem Solv-
ing only. Other ways of coping were not
related to these traits.
Next, a series of regression analyses were
performed in order to examine how much
of the coping variance can be explained by
personality traits. Only traits that were in
signicant correlations with coping were en-
tered in the regression. In a student sample,
the best predictor of different ways of cop-
ing was consciousness. It was a signicant
positive predictor in explaining Confrontive
Coping, Planful Problem Solving, and Posi-
tive Reappraisals, and a negative predictor
of Distancing (Table 2). In other words, the
higher score on consciousness was predic-
tive for higher levels of confrontive coping,
planful problem solving, and positive reap-
praisals and to lower levels of distancing.
Also, consciousness combined with neu-
roticism was a signicant predictor of Self-
Controlling. Furthermore, neuroticism was
a signicant positive predictor of Accept-
ing Responsibility and Escape-Avoidance,
meaning that higher scores on neuroticism
were predictive of higher scores of respon-
sibility and escape-avoidance. Extraversion,
together with sex, was a signicant predic-
tor of Seeking Social support, where female
gender and a higher score on extraversion
was predictive of higher levels of seeking
social support when confronted with stress.
However, for all ways of coping, these per-
sonality traits explained up to 10% of the
variance, except for neuroticism which ex-
plained almost 20% of the Escape-Avoid-
ance variance.
In pregnant women, personality traits
were signicant predictors for only three
ways of coping and explained between
16.5% and 37.4% of the coping variance.
Similar as in student sample, neuroticism was
a signicant positive predictor of Accepting
Responsibility and consciousness was a sig-
nicant positive predictor of Planful Prob-
lem Solving. However, in pregnant women,
signicant predictors of Escape-Avoidance
were age and extraversion, but not neuroti-
cism as in student sample. Younger age of
pregnant women together with the lower
level of extraversion were predictive for the
higher level of Escape-Avoidance.

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164Personality traits and coping
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investi-
gate how different personality traits were re-
lated to different strategies of coping, in the
sample of students and pregnant women. The
results showed that personality traits were
Table 2. The results of regression analysis for prediction of ways of coping in students
b SE b βR2
Confrontive Coping
Constant 4.54 1.34 0.021*
Consciousness 0.08 0.04 0.14*
Distancing
Constant 8.26 1.76
0.065** Neuroticism 0.06 0.03 0.15
Consciousness -0.08 0.04 -0.16*
Self-controlling
Constant 2.16 1.86
0.010*** Neuroticism 0.12 0.03 0.29***
Consciousness 0.15 0.04 0.27***
Seeking Social Support
Constant 1.78 1.89
0.071** Sex 2.22 0.76 0.21**
Extraversion 0.10 0.05 0.16*
Accepting Responsibility
Constant 3.23 0.63 0.080***
Neuroticism 0.11 0.03 0.28***
Escape-Avoidance
Constant 2.68 2.33
0.182*** Neuroticism 0.24 0.04 0.42***
Consciousness -0.01 0.05 -0.02
Planful Problem Solving
Constant 2.85 1.37 0.113***
Consciousness 0.19 0.04 0.34***
Positive Reappraisals
Constant 2.76 1.87
0.046* Extraversion 0.09 0.05 0.14
Consciousness 0.09 0.05 0.15*
Notes: * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164 Matešić, Nakić Radoš, Kuna
related to ways of coping in both samples.
However, in the students’ sample, all ways
of coping could be predicted by personality
traits, while in the pregnant women sample,
only a few ways of coping could be predict-
ed by personality traits. The consistent nd-
ing in both samples was that neuroticism
was positively associated with Accepting Re-
sponsibility and Escape-Avoidance. Anoth-
er consistent nding in both samples was
that consciousness was positively associated
with Planful Problem Solving and negative-
ly associated with Escape-Avoidance, while
openness to experience and agreeableness
were not related to ways of coping at all.
These ndings are only partially in line with
previous studies, which will be discussed
further.
Namely, the higher levels of neuroticism
were related to higher levels of accepting
responsibility and escape-avoidance. Neu-
roticism was also a signicant predictor for
Accepting Responsibility in both samples.
People who score higher on neuroticism are
more prone to acknowledge their own role
in the existing problem. An emotionally sta-
ble person will more likely reect the cause
of problems from self to another person or
situation, while a person who scores high on
neuroticism will blame herself. Accepting Re-
sponsibility looks like a healthy or functional
way of dealing with stress at rst glance, but
when we analyse items on that subscale, we
can see that the items describe excessive tak-
ing fault. Furthermore, neuroticism was the
strongest predictor of Escape-Avoidance
Table 3. The results of regression analysis for predicting ways of coping in pregnant women
Criterion b SE b β
Accepting Responsibility
Constant 5.96 2.71
R2 = 0.165* Age -0.12 0.08 -0.22
Neuroticism 0.08 0.04 0.28*
Escape-Avoidance
Constant 17.43 7.63
R2 = 0.374***
Age -0.33 0.13 -0.30*
Neuroticism 0.18 0.09 0.30
Extraversion -0.19 0.09 -0.27*
Consciousness 0.02 0.02 0.02
Planful Problem Solving
Constant -0.54 4.98
R2 = 0.216**
Neuroticism -0.03 0.07 -0.06
Extraversion 0.06 0.08 0.12
Consciousness 0.23 0.10 0.37*
Notes: * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164Personality traits and coping
scale in students. People who score high
on neuroticism are more prone to wishing
that the problem would disappear or avoid
it completely. This nding is consistent with
previous ndings that neuroticism is associ-
ated with avoidance behaviour [20, 21].
In both students and pregnant women,
consciousness was a positive predictor of
Planful Problem Solving. In other words,
people who score high results on the con-
sciousness scale are trying to invest effort in
changing the situation, are more organized
and reliable and have an analytical approach
to solving the problem. Consciousness is
high in people who are determined, persis-
tent, accurate and well organized, so it was
expected that this personality trait would
be related to analytical approach in stress-
ful situations. Consciousness was also pre-
dictive of most other ways of coping, but
in student sample only. More specically,
consciousness was a positive predictor of
Confrontive Coping, Self-Controlling, and
Positive Reappraisals. It was also a negative
predictor of Distancing, which describes
cognitive effort to evaluate the situation as
meaningless. Therefore, people who score
low on the consciousness scale will try to
ignore the stressful situation as nothing im-
portant happened.
It is interesting to point out that higher
levels of Self-Controlling, a tendency to con-
trol one’s feelings and actions, could be pre-
dicted by higher levels of both neuroticism
and consciousness. In other words, people
who score high on both consciousness and
neuroticism scale prefer to have a complete
control of their own behaviour, that is, they
have a hard time relaxing in the stressful situ-
ations.
To sum up these nding, we can say that
the neuroticism was more related to disen-
gagement coping styles like Accepting Re-
sponsibility and Escape-Avoidance, while
consciousness and extraversion were related
to engagement coping styles. These results
are consistent with previous studies and me-
ta-analysis that showed the associations be-
tween extraversion and consciousness and
greater use of engagement coping [9, 22, 23].
However, openness to experience and agree-
ableness were not associated with ways of
coping in students nor in pregnant women,
which was not expected. Namely, the previ-
ous study in pregnant women showed that
agreeableness was positively correlated with
problem-solving and positive reappraisal and
negatively correlated with overt emotional
expression and negative self-focused coping
[18].
In respect to the demographic variables,
it is interesting to point out that sex was a
signicant predictor of Seeking Social Sup-
port in students, while age was a predictor of
Escape-Avoidance in pregnant women. More
specically, sex and extraversion were signif-
icant predictors of Seeking Social Support,
which describes the efforts to seek informa-
tional, emotional or material support from
one’s environment. Therefore, women were
more prone to searching social support from
men, which has been well documented in the
literature [24-26]. Also, those individuals who
were more extroverted persons were seeking
more social support, which is understandable
given that extraverted people are by deni-
tion more prone to others and assertive when
needed [27]. Age and extraversion were both
negative predictors for Escape-Avoidance in
the pregnant women sample. Women who
were younger and women who were more in-
troverted were more likely to fantasize that
the problem would disappear or completely
avoid the problem.

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164 Matešić, Nakić Radoš, Kuna
Several limitations of the study should be
noted. We used a convenience sample of stu-
dents and pregnant women, so the generaliz-
ability of the results is limited. Also, reliability
in terms of internal consistency Cronbach’s α
was below .70 for the majority of the WOC
subscale. Although it can be acceptable to use
it for research purpose, it would be advisable
to use some other measure for assessment
purpose. Future studies should apply longitu-
dinal design, especially in pregnant women in
different stages of pregnancy and relate per-
sonality, coping styles.
To conclude, the results showed that per-
sonality traits were related to ways of coping
in the sample of students and pregnant wom-
en. The consistent nding in both samples
was that neuroticism was positively associ-
ated with Accepting Responsibility and Es-
cape-Avoidance, while higher levels of con-
sciousness were associated with higher level
of Planful Problem Solving and the lower
level of Escape-Avoidance.
Acknowledgements
None.
Conicts of interest
None to declare.
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Usporedba odnosa između značajki ličnos i načina suočavanja
sa stresom u trudnica i studenata
Sažetak - Prethodne studije su pokazale da ličnost može predvidje način suočavanja sa stresom, pogotovo u
mladih ispitanika i ispitanika izloženih stresu. Cilj studije bio je poveza značajke ličnos i načine suočavanja sa
stresom u prosječnom pučanstvu, u dva različita uzorka ispitanika: studenma i trudnicama, te u specičnim
stresnim situacijama usporedi obrasce h odnosa. Studen preddiplomskog i diplomskog studija (N = 186)
i trudnice (N = 51) anonimno su ispunili Revidirani NEO inventar ličnos (Revised NEO Personality Inventory
, NEO-FFI; kojim se mjeri neurocizam, ekstraverzija, otvorenost, ugodnost i savjesnost) i Upitnik o načini
suočavanja sa stresom (Ways of Coping Quesonnaire - WOC), koji se sastoji od 8 podskupina: konfronrajuće
suočavanje, distanciranje, samokontrola, traženje socijalne podrške, prihvaćanje odgovornos, izbjegavanje,
plansko rješavanje problema, pozivna ponovna procjena). Provedene su korelacijske i regresijske analize.
Rezulta su pokazali da su značajke ličnos povezane s načinima suočavanja sa stresom u skupini studenata i
skupini trudnica, s donekle različim obrascima ponašanja. Dosljedan nalaz u oba uzorka bio je da je neuro-
cizam pozivno povezan s prihvaćanjem odgovornos i izbjegavanjem, dok je savjesnost pozivno povezana s
planskim rješavanjem problema i negavno povezana s izbjegavanjem. Ekstraverzija je imala drugačiju ulogu
u suočavanju sa stresom uzorku studenata i trudnica, dok otvorenost i ugodnost nisu bili povezani s načinima
suočavanja sa stresom. U konačnici, neurocizam je bio više povezan s izbjegavajućim pristupom suočavanja
sa stresom, dok su savjesnost i ektraverzija više povezani s angažiranim pristupom suočavanja sa stresom.
Ključne riječi: značajke ličnos, suočavanje sa stresom, trudnoća

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Archives of Psychiatry Research 2019;55:153-164 Matešić, Nakić Radoš, Kuna