ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1613000
This article is part of the Research TopicStress-induced Psychopathology: From Mechanisms to InterventionsView all 5 articles
Temperament and personality: Preliminary evidence of possible relationships with multifactorial stress reactivity in healthy adolescents
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
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Objective: It is hypothesized that personality and temperament influence the stress response.However, no study has thoroughly investigated the impact of these factors during adolescence, a critical stage of development and consolidation. In this study, we aimed to explore this relationship, both for personality and temperament aspects, in a sample of adolescents.Therefore, an experimental stress induction, combined with multifactorial stress assessment, incorporating both biological and subjective measures, was conducted.Method: An acute psychosocial stress reaction was induced in 73 healthy adolescents (11-17 years of age, 63.0% female). Features of the stress response were recorded, including salivary cortisol, salivary alpha-amylase, heart rate, heart rate variability, and subjective stress.We investigated relationships between these factors and control variables (e.g., stress vulnerability and traumatic life experiences), specific trait facets, personality profiles according to the Big Five, and temperament dimensions according to Cloninger.Extraversion. Regarding bivariate correlations with temperament, Harm Avoidance was particularly associated with cortisol response and with the subjective stress response. Only stress vulnerability was significantly related to effectively predicted the subjective stress response.In conclusion, the associations between personality/temperament profiles with the stress response are already evident during adolescence, highlighting the developmental aspect and the early emergence of these relationships. These findings suggest that personality and temperament profiles relate to individual differences in adolescent stress sensitivity.Identifying profiles linked to heightened or prolonged stress responses-such as high harm avoidance-may inform early interventions to support at-risk youth.
Keywords: Adolescents, Stress, Personality, Temperament, Cortisol, alpha-Amylase, Subjective Stress KID 6.0, Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, 6th version, CTQ-SF, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-short form, PDS, Pubertal Development Scale, BFI-10, Big Five Inventory, JTCI 12-18 R, Junior Temperament and Character Inventory, AQC-G, Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children, German version, BIS-15, Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-short version, STADI, State-Trait Anxiety-Depression Inventory
Received: 16 Apr 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ecker, Jarvers, Jacob, Kandsperger, Brunner and Schleicher. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Angelika Ecker, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
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