Personality, Appraisal and Cognitive Coping Processes, and Performance During Various Conditions of Stress

Abstract

This article reports the relationships between personality factors, situation- specific appraisal and coping processes, and psychomotor performance during calm and stressful conditions. Eighty-nine Swedish male conscripts (M age = 19.6 years) constituted the sample. The performance task was to shoot down 10 enemy aircraft on an anti-aircraft artillery simulator. The task was carried out three times-in calm conditions, noisy conditions, and noisy conditions with sleep deprivation (27 hr). Performance deteriorated as suc- cessive stressors were added. Personality factors showed weaker relationships with performance than situation-specific appraisal and cognitive coping in- dicators. The relative importance of personality factors increased when stres- sors were added. Appraising the performance situation as a challenge was associated with positive thinking and good performance; appraising the sit- uation as a threat was associated with negative thinking and poor perform- ance. A considerable cross-situational, intraindividual performance stability was found, and a subgroup of consistently well-performing subjects was iden- tified. These individuals had low scores on trait anxiety and high scores on achievement, order, and intraception.