In their article entitled ‘Academic Stress and Health: Exploring the Moderating Role of

Personality Hardiness’ and published on October 5 th, 2009, in Routledge, Hystad, Eid,
Laberg, Johnsen, and Bartone investigate how personality hardiness is associated with stress
experienced at university and student’s health. The authors start by explaining that people
react to stress differently, and factors such as personality traits, motivation, and coping
mechanisms all have an impact on the stress reaction. Moreover, the authors present the
definition of personality hardiness. As the authors explain personality hardiness is linked with
how people react to challenges in life rather than people’s academic abilities. To see the
connection between health, academic stress and personality hardiness the authors of the
article conducted a study. The hypothesis of the study was that hardiness will be associated
with stress felt in the academic environment. Furthermore, the authors introduce participants
of the study and how personality hardiness, academic stress, neuroticism, and health
complaints were measured. As for the procedure, all participants were provided instructions
of the research and were informed about their anonymity. The results of the study confirmed
the hypothesis. The authors draw attention to the fact that academic stress is associated with
personality hardiness. For instance, people who worried about the effects of their grades on
their future performance were reported having more health problems in comparison to people
who felt more stress-free about their grades. The authors conclude their article by asserting
that the findings of the study could have value for programs associated with freshmen’s
transition to universities.

References:
Hystad, S. W., & Eid, J., & Laberg, J. C., & Johnsen, B. H., & Bartone, P. T. 2009.
‘Academic Stress and Health: Exploring the Moderating Role of Personality Hardiness’,
Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 53/3: 421-429.

Response
Hystad’s, Eid’s, Laberg’s, Johnsen’s and Bartone’s article made me realize that my
personality hardiness is connected with the stress I feel at the university. Whenever I get a
low mark on a task which I studied for and put my time into, I immediately get stressed out
and start to think about my average. In reality, I should think about what I have done wrong
and what I have missed to meet such consequences. I strongly believe that the authors of the
article make a great point stating that certain characteristics of how students react to stress are
associated with student’s later adaption at the universities. It seems that the authors stand on
the issue that they are talking about. This article made me realize two things that I should do
to achieve high academic performance. Firstly, I should take control of the events that are
happening in order not to get affected by them. Secondly, I should see tasks at the university
as challenges so I could have an opportunity for development. To conclude, the authors of the
article made sense and I think the article is credible as it gave me food for thought.