Hardiness (psychological)

Hardiness (psychological), alternatively referred to as psychological hardiness, personality hardiness, or cognitive hardiness in the literature, is a personality style first introduced by Suzanne C. Kobasa in 1979. Kobasa described a pattern of personality characteristics that distinguished managers and executives who remained healthy under life stress, as compared to those who developed health problems. In the following years, the concept of hardiness was further elaborated in a book and a series of research reports by Salvatore Maddi, Kobasa and their graduate students at the University of Chicago.

In the early days of hardiness research, it was usually defined as a personality structure comprising the three related general dispositions of commitment, control, and challenge that functions as a resistance resource in the encounter with stressful conditions. The commitment disposition was defined as a tendency to involve oneself in the activities in life and having a genuine interest in and curiosity about the surrounding world (activities, things, other people). The control disposition was defined as a tendency to believe and act as if one can influence the events taking place around oneself through one’s own effort. Finally, the challenge disposition was defined as the belief that change, rather than stability, is the normal mode of life and constitutes motivating opportunities for personal growth rather than threats to security.

Lately, Maddi has characterized hardiness as a combination of three attitudes (commitment, control, and challenge) that together provide the courage and motivation needed to turn stressful circumstances from potential calamities into opportunities for personal growth. While acknowledging the importance of the three core dimensions, Bartone considers hardiness as something more global than mere attitudes. He conceives of hardiness as a broad personality style or generalized mode of functioning that includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioural qualities. This generalized style of functioning, which incorporates commitment, control, and challenge, is believed to affect how one views oneself and interacts with the world around.

Early conceptualizations of hardiness are evident in Maddi's work, most notably in his descriptions of the ideal identity and premorbid personality. In his 1967 article, Maddi argued that chronic states of meaninglessness and alienation from existence were becoming more and more typical features of modern life. Like other existential psychologists before him, Maddi believed that the feelings of apathy and boredom and inability to believe in the interest value of the things one is engaged in that characterised modern living were caused by upheavals in culture and society, increased industrialization and technological power, and to more rigidly differentiated social structures in which people had their identities defined in terms of their social roles.

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