Personality (in)coherence and protective/vulnerability factors in the context of prolonged stress

Our study examined (a) how latent personality profiles based on temperament, anxiety, and depression types and (b) related stress-protective (higher well-being and lower psychological inflexibility) and stress-vulnerability (lower well-being and higher psychological inflexibility) factors (c) are associated with experienced COVID-19 stressors. Participants (N = 1278, 840 women and 437 men, aged 18–71) completed the short form of Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire (ADQ-SF), the Formal Characteristics of Behavior − Temperament Markers Inventory (FCB-TMI), the Positive Mental Health scale (PMH), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II), and a questionnaire assessing stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. An 8-profile solution was chosen when constructing latent personality profiles. Our results indicate that the sanguine temperament (within coherent/incoherent personality structures, associated or not with affective types) is a protective factor under prolonged stress. A cumulative effect related to the occurrence of two or more affective types in incoherent melancholics and incoherent phlegmatics made them the most vulnerable to experiencing a low level of well-being, a high level of psychological inflexibility, and a high level of prolonged stress. Differences and similarities in the identified types were explained by the dominating elements in their structures and their functions in stimulation processing.