What helps buffering the psychological effects of the economic crisis?

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What helps buffering the psychological effects
of the economic crisis?
Tatiana Ivanova Dmitry Leontiev
Tatiana.Y.Ivanova_at_gmail.com
dleon_at_smysl.ru

• THE PROBLEM
• Recent global economic crisis produced much
  stress thus providing an opportunity for a study
  on the ways different people cope with this
  challenge. We supposed that the impact of the
  perceived influence of the economic crisis on
  peoples life and its quality is moderated by
  their personality strengths and resources. Those
  lacking the resources of this kind will suffer
  from the unfavorable economic and psychological
  effects of the crisis, including distress,
  anxiety, decrease of vitality, satisfaction with
  life and purpose in life. Those better
  psychologically equipped would experience
  eustress rather than distress and would not
  suffer from the crisis.

THE MAIN RESULTS The factor analysis of the T1
data revealed 4 main factors (accounting for 54
of variance) that seem to be associated with
varied strategies of handling stressful
situations.
THE AIM To identify particular personality
structures that would buffer the unfavorable
impact of the experienced economic crisis on the
quality of life..
Seeking harmony with life Purpose in life,
satisfaction with life, lack of
alienation, social support seeking, belief in
reasonable and peaceful world.
Rationalisation Self-control planning coping
styles.
Rigid coping responses Intolerance to
ambiguity. Coping styles distancing,
confrontation, problem avoidance, accepting the
blame, social support seeking.
Active accepting the challenge Hardiness,
vitality, optimism, purpose in life, tolerance to
ambiguity, self-efficacy, positive appraisal
coping, high self-esteem, belief in
controllability and success
Personal Resources
The stressful event
Satisfaction with life
Basing on the personality variables indicative
of personality strength that made the first
factor, we calculated the Integrated Personal
Potential Index (IPPI). All the respondents
were divided by their IPPI into 2 roughly equal
groups. The respondents were also divided into 2
groups by their answer whether they were affected
by the economic crisis (70 - "yes, 30 -
no). Then we used ANOVA for checking the
differences between the level of satisfaction
with life depending on both IPPI and crisis
perception.
PARTICIPANTS 127 Moscow residents, of varied
age, gender and social class were initially asked
to respond to a set of direct self-report
questions and psychological inventories in May
2009 (T1). A modified battery was sent to all of
them in October 2010 (T2) 86 were returned
completed. The third section is planned for
October 2011.

Of the 2 groups with high IPPI, (both affected
and unaffected by the crisis) the level of
satisfaction with life did not differ, whereas
the respondents with low IPPI affected by the
crisis revealed a lower satisfaction with life
that those unaffected by the crisis. IPPI thus
seem to moderate the self-reported influence of
economic crisis on satisfaction with life.

• METHODS
• We offered a set of direct questions on the
  appraised influence of the economic crisis and
  corresponding changes in life (losing a job,
  income decrease etc.) and a set of Russian
  versions of psychological inventories, measuring
  3 groups of variables (1) quality of life
  measures (2) personal potential measures
  (personal resources of self-regulation) (3)
  coping styles (stereotyped responses to minor
  challenges), in particular
• - Hardiness Survey (Maddi / Russian version by
  Leontiev Rasskazova),
• - Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance
  Scale (McLain / Lukovitskaya)
• - Life Orientation Test (Carver Scheier / Osin
  Gordeeva)
• - Noetic Orientations Test (Leontiev)
• - Alienation Test (Maddi a.o. / Osin)
• - General Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer
  Jerusalem / Romek)
• Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener a.o. /
  Leontiev Osin)
• Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) Lasarus
  Folkman / Vasserman a.o.)
• Subjective Vitality Scale (Ryan Frederick /
  Aleksandrova Leontiev)-
• Basic Assumptions Questionnaire (Janoff-Bulman /
  Padun Kotelnikova).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The reported results
present only a piece of a large longitudinal
study. They give an important insight of the
personality resources (strengths) that moderate
the influence of stressful obstacles like global
economic crisis on quality of life and help
individuals buffering the impact of the crisis.
Many important data stayed outside this poster.
In particular, cluster analysis by participants
proves that there are truly different individual
types exemplifying varied individual strategies
of dealing with the experience of the global
crisis based on different groups of personal
resources. The aggregate of personality
variables indicative of personality strength
(hardiness, optimism, purpose in life, tolerance
for ambiguity, self-efficacy), labeled here
Personal Potential, seems especially interesting.
It moderates the influence of self-reported
impact of economic crisis upon satisfaction with
life. The data on the dynamics of satisfaction
with life between T1 and T2, not presented here,
indicate that the higher level of personal
potential makes a person less vulnerable and the
lower level of personal potential more vulnerable
to the adverse effects of crisis throughout a
18-month interval. These data are in good
correspondence with the predictions of Personal
Potential theory (Leontiev, 2006, 2011)  
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