Jason Taller

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Counseling Psychology, Ph.D.

First Advisor

Rudolph Bailey

Second Advisor

Jimmy Kijai

Third Advisor

Carole Woolford-Hunt

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine if the 6 personality Types, as measured by Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck’s (1990) Short Interpersonal Reactions Inventory (SIRI), were present in a sample of cancer and cancer-free individuals and to examine if the Type 1 personality category (cancer-prone personality) could significantly differentiate cancer from cancer-free subjects. Using an ex post facto research design and a sample of 648 English speaking adults selected from North America, overall findings from a confirmatory factor analysis suggested that contrary to results from some prior studies which validated the 6-personality factor structure of the SIRI, the six personality Types were not sufficiently present and confirmed in the current sample. This observation was attributed to the uniqueness of the current sample and differences in the operationalization of the SIRI across studies. Accordingly, an exploratory factor analysis led to the extraction of two new factors that underlie the factor structure of the current sample. These factors were consequently described as Unhealthy and Healthy personality types. Results from discriminant analyses suggest that the Unhealthy personality type demonstrated good descriptive and predictive discriminant ability and significantly differentiated individuals with a current diagnosis of cancer from their counterparts who do not have cancer. A further analysis using logistic regression modeling techniques also revealed that the ability of the Unhealthy personality type to predict cancer status is quite robust even after controlling for the effects of other theoretically relevant demographic factors. Age and ethnicity were also found to have predicted higher odds of having a cancer diagnosis in the multivariate context. These findings are discussed in light of existing research and directions for future research are noted.

Subject Area

Type A behavior; Personality--Health aspects; Cancer; Short Interpersonal Reactions Inventory (SIRI)

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/dissertations/1669

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