Individual differences in self-assessed health: Gender, neuroticism and physical symptom reports

Personality and Individual Differences

Volumn 28, Issue 5, 2000, Pages 823-835

  Williams, Paula G ^a   Wiebe, Deborah J ^b  

^a LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF UTAH   (United States)

Author keywords

Gender; Negative affect; Neuroticism; Physical symptoms; Self focused attention

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034178642     PISSN: 01918869     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00140-3     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Alexander, C. S. (1989). Gender differences in adolescent health concerns and self-assessed health. Journal of Early Adolescence, 9, 467-477.
2. Annandale, E., & Hunt, K. (1990). Masculinity, femininity and sex: An exploration of their relative contribution to explaining gender differences in health. Sociology of Health and Illness, 12, 24-46.
3. Baum, A., & Grunberg, N. E. (1991). Gender, stress and health. Health Psychology, 10, 80-85.
4. Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162.
5. Bem, S. L. (1981). Bem Sex Role Inventory: Professional manual. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
6. Bentler, P. M. (1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 238-246.
7. Blaney, P. H. (1986). Affect and memory: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 229-246.
8. Brown, K. W., & Moskowitz, D. S. (1997). Does unhappiness make you sick? The role of affect and neuroticism in the experience of common physical symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 907-917.
9. Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1983). A control theory approach to human behavior and implications for problems of self-management. In P. C. Kendall, Advances in cognitive-behavioral research and therapy, Vol. 2 (pp. 127-194). New York: Springer-Verlag.
10. Clark, L. A., & Watson, D. (1988). Mood and the mundane: Relations between daily life events and self-reported mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 958-964.
11. Cohen, S., Doyle, W. J., Skoner, D. P., Fireman, P., Gwaltney, J. M., & Newsom, J. T. (1995). State and trait negative affect as predictors of objective and subjective symptoms of respiratory viral infections. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 159-169.
12. Costa Jr, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1987). Neuroticism, somatic complaints, and disease: Is the bark worse than the bite? Journal of Personality, 55, 299-316.
13. Costa Jr, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1988). Personality in adulthood: A six-year longitudinal study of self-reports and spouse ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 853-863.
14. Costa Jr., P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
15. Croyle, R. T., & Uretsky, M. B. (1987). Effects of mood on self-appraisal of health status. Health Psychology, 6, 239-253.
16. Ellington, L. & Wiebe, D. J. (in press). Neuroticism, symptom presentations and medical decision-making. Health Psychology.
17. Eysenck, H. J. (1967). The biological basis of personality. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
18. Eysenck, H. J. (1981). A model for personality. New York: Springer.
19. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, M. (1985). Personality and individual differences: A natural science approach. New York: Plenum Press.
20. Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522-527.
21. Frankenhaeuser, M. (1991). The psychophysiology of workload, stress, and health: Comparison between the sexes. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 13, 197-204.
22. Gallucci, W. T., Baum, A., Laue, L., Rabin, D. S., Chrousos, G. P., Gold, P. W., & Kling, M. A. (1993). Sex differences in sensitivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Health Psychology, 12, 420-425.
23. Gijsbers van Wijk, C. M. T., & Kolk, A. M. (1996). Psychometric evaluation of symptom perception related measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 55-70.
24. Gijsbers van Wijk, C. M. T., & Kolk, A. M. (1997). Sex differences in physical symptoms: The contribution of symptom perception theory. Social Science and Medicine, 45, 231-246.
25. Hansell, S. & Mechanic, D. (1985). Introspectiveness and adolescent symptom reporting. Journal of Human Stress, 11, 165-176.
26. Heaven, P. C. L., & Shochet, I. M. (1995). Dimensions of neuroticism: Relationships with gender and personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 33-37.
27. Hull, J. G., Van Treuren, R. R., Ashford, S. J., Propsom, P., & Andrus, B. W. (1988). Self-consciousness and the processing of self-relevant information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 452-465.
28. Ingram, R. E. (1990). Self-focused attention in clinical disorders: Review and a conceptual model. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 156-176.
29. Ingram, R. E., Cruet, D., Johnson, B. R., & Wisnicki, K. S. (1988). Self-focused attention, gender, gender role, and vulnerability to negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 967-978.
30. Kaplan, G. A., & Comacho, T. (1983). Perceived health and mortality: A 9-year follow-up of the Human Population Laboratory Cohort. American Journal of Epidemiology, 117, 292-304.
31. Klonoff, E. A., & Landrine, H. (1992). Sex roles, occupational roles, and symptom-reporting: A test of competing hypotheses on sex differences. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15, 355-364.
32. Larsen, R. J. (1992). Neuroticism and selective encoding and recall of symptoms: Evidence from a combined concurrent-retrospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 480-488.
33. Leventhal, E. A. (1994). Gender and aging: Women and their aging. In V. J. Adesso, D. M. Reddy, & R. Fleming, Psychological perspectives on women's health (pp. 11-35). Washington, DC: Taylor, Francis.
34. Leventhal, E. A., Hansell, S., Diefenbach, M., Leventhal, H., & Glass, D. C. (1996). Negative affect and self-report of physical symptoms: Two longitudinal studies in older adults. Health Psychology, 15, 193-199.
35. Lynn, R., & Martin, T. (1997). Gender differences in extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism in 37 nations. Journal of Social Psychology, 137, 369-373.
36. MacLeod, C., & Mathews, A. (1988). Anxiety and the allocation of attention to threat. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 40, 653-670.
37. Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.
38. Martin, T., & Kirkcaldy, B. (1998). Gender differences on the EPQ-R and attitudes to work. Personality and Individual Differences, 24, 1-5.
39. Marusic, I., & Bratko, D. (1998). Relations of masculinity and femininity with personality dimensions of the five-factor model. Sex Roles, 38, 29-44.
40. McCrae, R. R., & Costa Jr, P. T. (1983). Joint factors in self-reports and ratings: Neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience. Personality and Individual Differences, 4, 245-255.
41. Mechanic, D., & Hansell, S. (1987). Adolescent competence, psychological well-being and self-assessed health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 28, 364-374.
42. Miller, L. C., Murphy, R., & Buss, A. H. (1981). Consciousness of body: Private and public. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 397-406.
43. Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is happy? Psychological Science, 6, 10-19.
44. Nasby, W. (1989). Private and public self-consciousness and articulation of the self-schema. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 117-123.
45. National Center for Health Statistics (1994). Vital and health statistics: Current estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 1992. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office (Series 10, No. 189).
46. Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1990). Sex differences in depression. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
47. Pennebaker, J. W. (1982). The psychology of physical symptoms. New York: Springer-Verlag.
48. Popay, J., Bartley, M., & Owen, C. (1993). Gender inequalities in health: Social position, affective disorders and minor physical morbidity. Social Science and Medicine, 36, 21-32.
49. Reed, M. A., & Derryberry, D. (1995). Temperament and attention to positive and negative trait information. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 135-147.
50. Roberts, J. E., & Gotlib, I. H. (1997). Lifetime episodes of dysphoria: Gender, early childhood loss and personality. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 36, 195-208.
51. Rothkopf, J. S., & Blaney, P. H. (1991). Mood congruent memory: The role of affective focus and gender. Cognition and Emotion, 5, 53-64.
52. Rusting, C. L. (1998). Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of emotional information: Three conceptual frameworks. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 165-196.
53. Salovey, P., & Birnbaum, D. (1989). Influence of mood on health relevant cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 539-551.
54. Shields, S. A. (1991). Gender in the psychology of emotion: A selective research review. In K. T. Strongman, International review of studies on emotion (pp. 227-245). Chichester, England: Wiley.
55. Shields, S. A. (1989). The Body Awareness Questionnaire: Reliability and validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 53, 802-815.
56. Skelton, J. A., & Strohmetz, D. B. (1990). Priming symptom reports with health-related cognitive activity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 449-464.
57. Smith, T. W., Pope, M. K., Rhodewalt, F., & Poulton, J. L. (1989). Optimism, neuroticism, coping and symptom reports: An alternative interpretation of the life orientation test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 640-648.
58. Sobel, M. E. (1988). Direct and indirect effects in linear structural equation models. In J. S. Long, Common problems/proper solutions (pp. 46-64). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
59. Verbrugge, L. M. (1985). Gender and health: An update on hypotheses and evidence. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 26, 156-182.
60. Verbrugge, L. M. (1989). The twain meet: Empirical explanations of sex differences in health and mortality. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 30, 282-304.
61. Waldron, I. (1997). Changing gender roles and gender differences in health behavior. In D. Gochman, Handbook of health behavior research, Vol. 1: Personal and social determinants (pp. 303-328). New York, NY: Plenum.
62. Wallace, J. F., & Newman, J. P. (1997). Neuroticism and the attentional mediation of dysregulatory psychopathology. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 21, 135-156.
63. Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1984). Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 465-490.
64. Watson, D., & Pennebaker, J. (1989). Health complaints, stress, and distress: Exploring the central role of Negative Affectivity. Psychological Review, 96, 234-254.
65. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures on positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
66. Williams, P. G., Wiebe, D. J., & Rozanas, D. (1995). Empirically validating the process of gender differences in physical symptom reporting. Poster presented at the sixteenth annual meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, San Diego, CA.