Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / Literature identified Psychology students to be vulnerable to the stress associated with
professional postgraduate studies and the nature of multiple processes. Less research has been
conducted on Honours students as a cohort. The present study attempted to examine the
associations between personality traits, perceived stress and coping styles in a sample of
Honours students and post-Honours interns enrolled at a historically disadvantaged university.
The present study was a cross-sectional internet survey including four instruments: the Brief
COPE questionnaire (coping styles), the Perceived Stress Scale (subjective stress), the Big 5
Personality Survey (BFI-10) (personality traits) and a demographic questionnaire. All
participation was voluntary and general principles of ethics were adhered to. The data was
analysed using frequencies, correlation matrices, coefficients of determination and and
regression. Findings indicated medium levels of perceived stress in this sample including
contextual factors like gender, age and race. The B.Psych students reported reduced ranges on
perceived stress compared to Honours students. Personality profiles indicated the four highest
ranked traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness and extraversion) closely banded.
Neuroticism was ranked substantially lower in this sample. More adaptive coping styles like
(planning, religion, active coping, acceptance etc.) were used than maladaptive coping styles.
Associative relationships were indicated between demographic variables and coping, personality
traits and perceived stress respectively. Race, Gender, relationship status, registration status and
Age was found to correlate significantly with the three core constructs (perceived stress, coping
and personality traits). Findings indicated predictive relationships between combinations of
coping styles which could significantly predict perceived stress. Maladaptive coping
significantly predicted perceived stress controlling for adaptive coping (e.g. emotion-focused
coping and problem-focused coping).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/6611 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Nel, Sanche |
| Contributors | Smith, Mario |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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