Personality traits, life events and anxiety in adolescents

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to determine the contribution of dimensions of personality and life events in predicting symptoms of anxiety in adolescents. The research was conducted on a sample of 300 adolescents who belong non-clinical population. In the analysis were included indicators of five major personality dimensions- Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, the number, type and occurration period of stressful life events and experiences, and the severity of symptoms of anxiety in adolescents during the previous week. As a conceptual framework served lexical model of personality ‘’Big Five’’, the theories of life events, as well as theoretical considerations of negative emotional reactions in adolescence. Life events have proved to be the best predictors of anxiety symptoms in non-clinical population of adolescents. The most significant contribution to the occurence of the examined emotional reactions provided the total number of stressful events (b=.892; p=.000). In addition, chronical stressors have been shown to be unfavorable for affective functioning of the youth (b=.258; p=.001). Besides stressors related to the family context (b=.375; p=.010), to the predicting of anxiety symptoms significantly contributed school problems (b=.191; p=.001). Of the personality traits, only dimension Agreebleness was related with anxiety (b=.247; p=.000). It has been shown that higher scores on this dimension contribute to more frequent occurrence of symptoms of anxiety.