Browsing by Author "Laitinen, Jenni"

Objectives. Previous studies have shown that some personality characteristics are associated with better coping than others. Knowledge concerning temperament characteristics and coping methods among primary school teachers is so far limited. The aim of this study was to examine the association between primary school teachers' temperament characteristics and coping methods. The hypotheses were that, 1) high harm avoidance is associated with the use of the emotion focused coping, 2) low harm avoidance is associated with problem focused coping, 3) high reward dependence is associated with seeking for social support, 4) persistence is associated with problem focused coping, and 5) high novelty seeking is associated with problem focused coping. Methods. The participants were 55 primary school teachers in the metropolitan area. Temperament was measured using Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). The temperament characteristics were harm avoidance, novelty seeking, reward dependence and persistence. Coping was measured using The COPE Inventory. The questions were combined into 15 coping strategies. The data were analysed using Pearson correlation and linear regression. Socio-economic background was controlled in the first model and the other temperament characteristics in the second model. Results and conclusions. Different temperament characteristics have differential associations with the used coping strategies. High harm avoidance was associated with the use of the emotion-focused coping methods and with the problem-focused coping methods. High novelty seeking was associated with the decreased use of avoidant coping and increased use of the emotion-focused coping methods. High reward dependence was associated with seeking of both instrumental and emotional social support and emotion-focused coping methods. Persistence was associated with decreased use of the problem-focused coping methods. The results of this study should be confirmed and repeated with the use of larger and more representative sample of classroom teachers. Also the future research should study if coping methods work as mediating factors between teachers' personality traits and well-being at work and associations of Cloninger's personality theory's character traits and different personality profiles to coping methods.