Lesson
03
PERSONALITY AND STRESS
There is a deep relationship between “personality and stress”. In the present world these two concepts
have attained a very important role. Stress plays a very important role in every day life of an individual and is
present in one form or another. Stress affects the personality as well as the performance of a person. If we
understand the relation between stress and the personality, how they affect each other we will be able to
channalize and manage stress in a better way. Stress won’t affect individual’s personality in a negative way.
Due to the relationship between personality and stress you come to know that how personality affects the
stress and how stress affects the personality, how it affects your work, your relationship with other people,
personal life, peace of mind, are influenced. If you will understand this dynamic relationship you will lead a
successful life. You will be able to perform better and would receive appreciation and should give a boost to
your self esteem, by dynamic, it is meant that personality affects stress and stress affects personality.
Personality:
Personality is the product of a culture to do different things in different situations; it is affected by the environment,
family, norms and values, society. The society produces different types of people or individuals. These
individuals perform different tasks at different times under different situations. In other words the
culture/society/environment produces a different person in an army man, in a teacher, in a student and in a
sweeper etc. these individuals have to perform different tasks in the society.
This aspect of personality is linked with stress. Stress is situation where there are demands on a person.
1. Social demands:
To act or, perform in a certain way, if the person is unable to perform according to the demands of a
situation, the pressure emerges. If that pressure is chanalized and the person is able to perform the task then
that pressure is normal stress, positive stress or u-stress, or we may say it is something good that out of the
pressure or stress the person is able to perform better. There is so much demand on the individual to do
few things that if a person is not capable of doing, then the person starts feeling the stress or the pressure.
If this pressure is prolonged it may transform into stress. If a stress is putting some thing positive on you to
do something in a given period of time it is called u-stress and u-stress is some thing good because it makes
you able to achieve something. And if you achieve some thing you feel good about it. But if the stress is too
much you will have negative consequences on your health, on your person as a whole, and on your work
performance. The same situation may be stressful for one person but may not be stressful for the other
person, depending on the personality type. People handle stress differently. This leads to two types of stress.
Two types of stress
a. Positive stress-it is called u-stress; you perform well due to this stress.e.g. Stress in exams makes you
achieve better marks in the examination.
b. Negative stress: if you can’t adjust to the demands of the situation then the stress is prolonged then this
negative stress affects on your performance, your health and your over all personality.
2. Organizational demands:
The organizations have certain expectations; they require their employees to fulfill certain tasks. This also
puts stress on the employees and the workers. If the organization demands some sort of work from the
employee which he knows he will not be able to perform well. The person should say no rather than putting
extra stress on himself for something he can not do, or if some one has to do some thing too challenging
for them then they should first attempt to divide the work into smaller tasks, do the first part of it. If he
succeeds then go on to the next part. In this way he will be able to manage the tasks.
3. Situational demands:
Stress emerges out of expectations, situational expectations, cultural expectations, organizational
expectations, and family expectations all these expectations make you work. If you work according to the
situation there should be no stress. Suppose if a person from Pakistani culture travels to Europe, there are
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