Personality, Stress, and Disease: An Interactionist Perspective

Abstract

It is argued that there is now sufficient evidence to regard psychosocial variables, in particular personality and stress, as important risk factors for cancer and coronary heart disease (CHD), equal in importance to smoking, heredity, cholesterol level, blood pressure, and other physical variables. Furthermore, it is now clear that both types offactors act synergistically; that is, each by itself is relatively benign, but their effects multiply to produce high levels of disease. Last but not least, it is argued that there is now good evidence to show that psychological treatment can modify a person's reaction to stress, so that risk of cancer and CHD can be greatly diminished, and duration of survival significantly increased in those terminally ill with cancer. Psychological influences on physical diseases are much greater than suspected in the past; we are only now beginning to trace the causal pathways. There is a long history of belief in the existence of a cancer-prone personality, characterized by a tendency to suppress the expression of emotions, and an inability to deal with stress, leading to feelings of hopelessness/helplessness, and finally of depression (Eysenck, 1985). There is also a long history of belief in the existence of a coronary heart disease (CHD)-prone personality, characterized by strong, easily aroused feelings of anger, hostility, and aggression (Eysenck, 1990). Most of the published studies have followed the example of Kissen and Eysenck (1962) in studying the personality of patients already ill, comparing them with patients suffering from more benign forms of disease, a methodology that opens the door to arguments that perhaps the disease process has led to cancer-prone or CHD-prone