As a high risk, physically demanding, and stressful profession, fire-fighting presents an ideal context for the study of hardiness. Hardiness of professional Spanish firefighters was assessed. Participants (53 firefighters; M age = 36.1 yr., SD = 8.2) volunteered to complete the adapted Spanish version of the Personal Views Survey. Results showed that participants' mean Hardiness score was slightly high. Hardiness was influenced by years of service. Spanish firefighters present a homogenous set of personal characteristics related to managing stressful working circumstances. The effect of experience on Hardiness levels is discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BartoneP. T.EidJ.JohnsenB. H.LabergJ. C.SnookS. A. (2009) Big Five personality factors, hardiness, and social judgment as predictors of leader performance. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 30(6), 498–521.
2.
BosJ.MolE.VisserB.Frings-DresenM. (2004) The physical demands upon (Dutch) fire-fighters in relation to the maximum acceptable energetic workload. Ergonomics, 47(4), 446–460.
3.
BrownJ.MulhernG.JosephS. (2002) Incident-related stressors, locus of control, coping and psychological distress among firefighters and in Northern Ireland. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 15(2), 161–168.
4.
CloughP. J.EarleK.SewellD. (2002) Mental toughness: the concept and its measurement. In CockerillI. (Ed.), Solutions in sport psychology. London, UK: Thomson Publishing. Pp. 32–43.
5.
de la VegaR.RiveraO.RuizR. (2011) Personalidad resistente en carreras de fondo: comparativa entre ultra fondo y diez kilómetros [Hardiness in endurance races: a comparison between skyrunning and ten kilometers]. Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 20,(2), 445–454.
6.
FordI. W.EklundR. C.GordonS. (2000) An examination of psychosocial variables moderating the relationship between life stress and injury time-loss among athletes of a high standard. Journal of Sports Sciences, 18, 301–312.
7.
GolbyJ.SheardM. (2004) Mental toughness and hardiness at different levels of rugby league. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 933–942.
8.
JaenesJ. C.GodoyD.RománF. J. (2008) Elaboración y validación psicométrica de la escala de Personalidad Resistente en Maratonianos (EPRM) [Psychometric elaboration and validation of the hardy personality scale in marathon runners]. Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte, 8(2), 59–81.
9.
JaenesJ. C.GodoyD.RománF. J. (2009) Personalidad resistente en maratonianos: un estudio sobre el control, compromiso y desafío de corredoras y corredores de maratón [Hardy personality in marathon runners: a study of male and female runners' control, commitment and challenges]. Revista de Psicología del Deporte, 18(2), 217–234.
10.
KhoshabaD. M.MaddiS. R. (2001) HardiTraining. Newport Beach, CA: Hardiness Institute.
11.
KobasaS. C. (1979) Stressful life events, personality, and health: an inquiry into hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1–10.
12.
KobasaS. C.MaddiS. R.KahnS. (1982) Hardiness and health: a prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 168–177.
13.
MaddiS. R. (2006) Hardiness: the courage to grow from stresses. Journal of Positive Psychology, 1, 160–168.
14.
MaddiS. R.HessM. J. (1992) Personality hardiness and success in basketball. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 23, 360–368.
15.
MaddiS.MatthewsM.KellyR.VillarealB.WhiteM. (2012) The role of hardiness and grit in predicting performance and retention of USMA cadets. Military Psychology, 24, 19–28.
16.
MorenoB.MorettN. I.RodríguezA.MoranteM. E. (2006) La personalidad resistente como variable moduladora del síndrome de burnout en una muestra de bomberos [Hardiness as moderator variable of burnout syndrome in firefighters]. Psicothema, 18(3), 413–418.
17.
R Development Core Team. (2011) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from http://www.R-project.org.
18.
RogersT. J.AldermanB. L.LandersD. M. (2003) Effects of life-event stress and hardiness on peripheral vision in a real-life stress situation. Behavioral Medicine, 29, 2126.
19.
SezginF. (2009) Relationships between teacher organizational commitment, psychological hardiness and some demographic variables in Turkish primary schools. Journal of Educational Administration, 47(5), 630–651.
20.
SkomorovskyA.SudomK. (2011) Psychological well-being of Canadian forces officer candidates: the unique roles of hardiness and personality. Military Medicine, 176(4), 389–396.
21.
SheardM. (2009) A cross-national analysis of mental toughness and hardiness in elite university rugby league teams. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 109(1), 213–223.
22.
SheardM.GolbyJ. (2010) Personality hardiness differentiates elite-level sport performance. International Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 8, 160–169.
23.
SubramanianS.VinothkumarM. (2011) Hardiness and adjustment as predictors of psychological well-being and distress of military school students. Amity Journal of Applied Psychology, 2(1), 11–17.
