Personality Traits and Pain Perception
The personality type of a person has a huge impact on their health. One’s personality can determine their general well-being, in that; it might make them live longer or draw them closer to the grave (Moodie and Hulme, 2004, p. 23). Personality can prevent heart diseases or increase chances of getting them. It can determine how fast one recovers from an illness due to one’s attitude towards the illness. Under health behaviors, we are going to focus on how personality types affect pain perception and health choices that individually makes. This paper focuses on issues surrounding health advancement and promotion.
Most, if not all, of us, have experienced painful moments in one form or another. It could be an injection, a headache, broken bone, or any form of physical accident, including an electric shock. The way we respond to any kind of pain differs among individuals. There are some who will help, while others will barely show it and might react with just wincing. The personality type of a person is among the factors that determine an individual’s tolerance towards pain.
Studies indicate that individuals with a high score in neuroticism are more sensitive to pain and thus less tolerant (Moodie and Hulme, 2004, p. 30). Personality traits also determine how people respond to pain relief. According to Dorit Pud, individuals with a high score on ‘harm avoidance,’ are more responsive to morphine when used as a cold presser.
Personality is not only restricted to determining peoples’ sensitivity to acute pain. It also helps to determine the conditions of chronic pain in older adults. Youths who score high on hysteria, femininity (for male only) and paranoia (female only) are more likely to experience conditions of chronic pain in their middle age. Studies show that patients with a chronic pain score high on ‘harm avoidance’ and low on ‘self-directedness’ as well as ‘cooperativeness.’ The patients also scored high on state anxiety and depression, with 41% personality disorder.
After an injury, it is expected that one would take relax and take a rest. However, people who score high in ‘harm avoidance’ tend to extend the resting period, even after healing. Chronic pain patients have also been identified to have a sense of lower self-efficacy. They tend to feel helpless about their condition and are not convinced that they can overcome it. When it comes to treating chronic pain patients, it is important to incorporate both pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic measures so as to control the condition.
Personality Traits and Health Choices
Personality traits form the basis of individual choices when it comes to choices to do with healthy ways of living (Lawton, 2008, p.23). It is hard to change one’s personality; therefore, personality largely determines one’s health behaviors. There are five major personality types, and we are going to use them to determine the relationship between personality and health choices.
- Neuroticism- people with this trait are likely to eat foods with high calories so as to manage their negative emotions.
- Extroversion- individuals with this trait are more likely to take alcohol, possess multiple partners of sex and smoke cigars. These individuals are liked to eat out with varieties of people, hence consuming unhealthy foods.
- Conscientiousness- individuals with this kind of personality are more likely to eat more vegetables and fruits, exercise often, put on safety belts, avoid any harm caused by alcohol and sleep enough. Such individuals are less likely binge drink, smoke cigarettes and take alcohol. Lack of conscientiousness may cause people to lose control over what they eat and how they eat. They may thus be easily tempted with smell and taste.
- Openness- people who are more open tend to stick to a specific lifestyle, mostly a healthy one.
- Agreeableness- people with this kind of personality are quick to please others and thus not consistent with a specific health behavior.
It is important for individuals to understand their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses so as to avoid unhealthy behaviors. People will be more focused on being healthy not just to impress but so as to feel their worth. Moreover, individuals will understand the extent of tolerating pain so as not to be a burden to other people.
There are different causes of stress. There are short-term causes of attending a job interview or having an exam (Lawton, 2008, p.40). Such kinds are normal and elapse once the ordeal is over. However, the long-term causes can cause serious health issues, if not managed properly.
Stress due to personal issues
- Health- chronic diseases like diabetes and heart diseases can cause stress.
- Relationships- lack of support or proper friendship can cause stress
- Family- taking care of an elderly person with health issues and misunderstandings in the family can lead to stress.
- Emotional problems- guilt, depression, low self-esteem, grief and anger that can’t be expressed can cause stress.
- Changes in life- losing a job, the death of a loved one, moving to a new place and getting married, can all contribute to stress.
- Conflicting values and beliefs- you may have certain values like exercising, but may not get the time to do it.
Stress due to job and social matters
- Environment- living in an area with unfavorable conditions like pollution, crime, and noise.
- Job- demanding jobs and doing a job that you do not like.
- Social situation- loneliness, facing discrimination and financial problems can lead to stress.
- Unemployment- lacking a job or losing one’s job can cause stress.
- Stress due to traumatic situations
- Traumatic experiences like war or rape can cause acute stress disorder.
Each individual is unique and has a different kind of personality. Each of us goes through experiences in life that vary from one person to the other. Life experiences largely determine how individuals respond to stress. Self-efficacy, the personality of a person and hardiness, also determine response to stress by individuals.
Personality
There are two basic personality types: Type A and B. Type A behavior tend to desire for development, is competitive, loves attention, desires to achieve goals and thus is likely to rush so as to complete their tasks. Such people are alert and active physically and mentally. Type B, on the other hand, lacks urgency, drive, motivation, ambition, and competitiveness. Such a person is usually non-competitive, calm and relaxed. Type C combines both Type A and B, in that a person is ambitious and hardworking, but apathetic when dealing with stress. Research shows that Type B personality deals with stress better as compared to Type A personality.
ii) Self efficacy
This refers to how people perceive themselves when handling stress. Research shows that individuals with high self-efficacy have less negative stress feelings as they feel they control the stressful situation (Heidenreich, Pru?ter, 2009, p.7). Low self efficacy increases the inability to deal with stress due to strong feelings of negativity towards stress.
iii) Hardiness
Hardy people have the 3 Cs: Challenge, Control, and Commitment. They perceive themselves to be managers of their kind of environment and not vice versa. Such people view change as a challenge, and not a threat. They are determined to find resolutions to problems, instead of whining about them. Research shows that hardy individuals rarely fall sick and this can be attributed to their positive stress management.
Causes of Stress
Coping strategies are ways in which stress is acted on, managed or adapted to. Some coping mechanisms are maladaptive and thus regarded as non-coping as they do not deal with the stress but simply copes with it (Heidenreich, Pru?ter,2009, p.20). Some of the coping strategies are as follows:
- Adaptive- refers to tolerating stress, i.e., altruism
- Attack- diverting a person’s attention to people instead of the stressor. i.e., emotionality and displacement.
- Defense- coping with stress unconsciously, i.e., regression and reaction.
- Avoidance- staying away from the stress, i.e., denial, fantasy, and dissociation.
- Cognitive- changes the way of thinking so as to reduce stress, e.g., repression and intellectualization
- Conversion- changes an emotion or thought into another, e.g., somatization.
- Behavioral- changes our actions so as to reduce stress, i.e., undoing and compensation.
- Self-harm- responding to stress by harming yourself, i.e., introjections.
According to research, people are living longer everywhere (WHO, 2014). For instance, a female child born in 2012 can be expected to live up to 73 years, and 68 years for a male child. The result indicates six years longer than the life expectancy of a child who was born in 1990.Low-income countries have also progressed and thus increased life expectancy by a margin of 9 years in 2012 when compared to the year 1990. Comparing the year 1990 and 2012, some of the countries that experienced a high increase in life expectancy include Liberia (42-62 years), Ethiopia (45-64), Maldives (58-77 years), Cambodia (54-72 years), Timor-Leste (50-66 years) and Rwanda (48-65 years).
One of the main reasons why there is an increase in life expectancy is the fact that there is a reduction in the death of children below five years of age (Guo, 2016, p.5). However, the gap between the rich and poor still has an impact on the life chances of people. The rich are likely to live longer than the poor.
A male child born in a rich country in 2012 has the chance of living 16 years longer compared to his counterpart in a poor country (76 years and 60 years). For female children, the gap is even greater (19 years), that’s, 82 years in comparison to 63 years. Women usually live longer than men. In rich countries, the gap is six years, while in poor countries, it is three years. Lower life chances in low-income countries are attributed to handling non-communicable diseases. High-income countries have been successful in handling the diseases. Moreover, there has been a success in handling stroke heart-related diseases, in rich countries. Reduction in tobacco use also increases the life chances of people.
- Major causes of death are attributed to stroke, coronary heart diseases, and pneumonia.
- Low-income countries experience more death cases due to infectious diseases (70%). Cases of death high-income countries are mainly caused by injuries and noncommunicable diseases (90%).
- In 2012, about 44 million (6.7%) of children below five years were obese, worldwide.
- Premature births contribute to high cases of death in children below five years (17.3%). Pneumonia comes second with 15.2% of cases.
- Between years 1995 and 2012, 22 million lives were saved from tuberculosis, after treating 56 million cases. However, 450 000 people developed tuberculosis that was drug-resistant, in 2012.
Life chances refer to the opportunities that a person has to improve his/her life. Such opportunities include access to tangible goods (basic needs) and intangible goods (health care and education). The idea of life chances revolves around inner satisfaction. Factors such as ethnicity, social mobility, gender, social equity, and race determine a person’s future (Guo, 2016, p.14). A person’s origin to a great extent determines the kind of neighborhood they will live in, their class and the kind of people they will interact with. An unkempt neighborhood will affect the health of the people, issues of crime and the kind of facilities that are available. A rich family enhances one’s chances in life.
Individual Responses to Stress and Coping Mechanisms
The major factor that can enable one to overcome issues to do with life chances is education. A good education enables one to get a job and thus earn an income. Higher education increases one’s chances of getting a high income and gaining occupational prestige, hence gain access to more resources. Early intervention is key to promoting children’s life chances Blackstone, Prest and Stern, 2016, p. 8). Groups like Save the Children promote the rights of the children born in underdeveloped countries. One of the ways that they do that is by empowering parents of lower classes with necessary skills and knowledge so that they can guide their children properly before they join the school.
Such children are able to be on almost the same level like those from high-class families by the time they join the school. Early intervention enables the children to learn at the same pace hence safeguarding a high level of education. Consequently, they are able to improve their life chances.
Self-fulfilling prophecy also determines one’s life chances. A person’s social class may shape their way of thinking, actions, and self-esteem (Blackstone, Prest, and Stern, 2016, p.10). A person of a low social class may be less concerned about improving their lives by studying hard if they believe they belong to that class.
Apart from the personal efforts that one has to develop in order to improve life chances, the government has a bigger part to play. The government through the various ministries or departments will develop policies which will work in support of increasing life chances especially to the less disadvantaged in the society. For instance, there are various government policies which are already set that help boost life chances. Among them, we have Revised Education policy, housing policy, anti-poverty policy and the improved health policy.
The government education policy which supports education to all, provision of scholarship to the needy students and the freedom to learn from any of the states in the country or outside the country supports an increase in life chances (Berliner, 2013, pg. 23). When children from the poor families are sponsored to further their education, it gives them a brighter tomorrow that will increase their life chances. The health policy implemented in the US also boost the life chances of individuals. For instance, Affordable Care Act, which is a comprehensive care reform was imitated in 2010, it helps ensure affordable health insurance to the people, reduces the general cost of health care and to expand the Medicaid programs so that they can cover adults earning below 138% of the federal poverty level (Berliner, 2013, pg. 23). This will help improve life chances as most people will have access to health care services at affordable rates (Berliner, 2013, pg. 23).
Data on Life Chances and Health Issues
The government is also seen to fight against reduced life chances by improving employees’ national living wages (Gatti et al, 2016). Rising of the national wages will facilitate most of the families attaining economic stability and will be able to manage themselves. In support of this, the government has also put in place a policy that reduces the cost of living by regulating the cost in the private rented sectors, regulation of transport cost by ensuring buses are affordable to all and finally regulating the low-income people from experiencing higher pricing like in water and energy (Gatti et al, 2016).
Health promotion involves the process of empowering people to be able to control their health and other determinants so as to improve the status of their health (Alliston, Kluge and Fudge, 2009, p. 7-9). It includes having a public policy that can address factors like employment, housing, good working conditions, income and food security. Some of the methods that can be employed include:
- Intervention categories-Identify major categories for interventions on public health. Moreover, differentiate between strategies, interventions, and methods.
- Select the strategies and methods-Use factors such as effectiveness and evidence, various community needs, cost, evidence, political expediency and best practice to explain the principles that enable you to come up with methods of public health.
- Use media to promote awareness- use media to create awareness so as to influence the various stakeholders on the importance of public health (Alliston, Kluge and Fudge, 2009, p. 12).
- Involve and mobilize communities- come up with plans that involve members of the community and stakeholders in policy strategies, mobilization, and communication.
- Advocate for environmental change or some policies-find out strategies that can encourage policy change in the community and organization.
- Communication- enhances skills that can promote health practices.
The success of a health campaign depends on the method employed to carry out the campaign. Most of the time, a successful campaign employs more than one approach (Alliston, Kluge and Fudge, 2009, p.20). The campaign aims at using diverse strategies at various levels so as to influence the target group. For instance, you can employ use of media and advocacy for change of policies
A successful campaign should be able to meet the following:
- Educate people on health practices
- Change the behavior of an organization
- Change the physical and social environment
- Come up with policies that back up the changes
- Employ a number of strategies like posters, television advertisements, events, and leaflets.
- Motivation
- Skills to cause change
- Increase in knowledge
- A conducive environment that can favor the changes needed
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Motivation
- Previous experience
- Self-concept requirements to initiate change, i.e., self-efficacy
- The right attitude for change
- Understanding of the threat emanating from the unhealthy behavior
- Belief in better change
- Benefits of preventing the threat
- Factors that can arise from their decisions
There are various campaigns that have been done in order to help in increasing life chances among individuals. Life chances mostly are reduced by the increased poverty, lack of education, poor health services among many. The campaigns being done are able to help eliminate this factors and thus increasing life chances. One of the major campaigns done in America is the Community fatherhood Initiative. It is a non- profit organization that helps to improve the well- being of children, mothers and family as a whole by the promotion of responsible fatherhood (Pearlstein, 2011, pg. 142-144). The campaign helps to identify the policies which prevent the male from attaining fatherhood in their families, to help men understand their role in their families and finally to unite children with their fathers (Pearlstein, 2011, pg. 142-144). Fathers are very critical in shaping the future of children and improving their life chances. The life chances can be increased by the fathers improving children’s behavioral and emotional problems, reducing infant mortality in families, reducing poverty levels in families, reducing early parenthood from teens, reducing alcoholism and drug abuse, giving quality education to the children and finally ensuring proper access to health care services by the family (Pearlstein, 2011, pg. 142-144). All these factors are seen to boost the life chance of children and their mothers.
Different Methods Used in Health Promotion
The effectiveness and success of these campaign in America are seen with the reduced levels of poor families, reduced number of unschooled children, low number of drug addicts and teen pregnancies. This campaign has generally increased the life chances in most of the families in America.
Conclusion:
Personality as a trait has a bigger role as far as health is concerned. Every individual should work on their negativity towards health in order to achieve the best results. Poverty, poor education, fragmented families are part of the factors that contribute to reduced life chances. Richer families have increased life chances as compared to the poor families. The government plays a critical role in ensuring that life chances are equal to each and every citizen and setting policies that can enhance equality in life chances.
Reference:
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