I.

Background/Objectives and Goals

Personality is an individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling according to
Schacter, Gilbert, and Wegner (2009) as cited by Salehinezhad (2012). And in Cheng Kai-Wen’s
study in 2011, he stated Robbins’ views in 2001 that personality is the sum total of ways in which
an individual reacts and gives interaction with others. Hence, The Big Five; Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience are a set of broad
and bipolar trait dimensions that constitute the most widely used model of personality structure
(Soto, C. J, 2018). Though this present study is only going to focus on two personality traits, the
extraversion and neuroticism or introversion.
Extraversion is often defined as a stable personality dimension characterized primarily by
the tendency to experience positive affect. This personality trait also includes the tendencies
toward being sociable, talkative, assertive, energetic, and warm as stated by John (1989), McCrae
& John (1992), and Watson & Clark (1997) found in Nayyar Raza Zaidi, Rana Abdul Wajid,
FarheenBatul Zaidi, Ghazala Batul Zaidi, and Mohammad Taqi Zaidi’s study in 2012. Extrovert
characters tend to be gregarious, while the introverted tend to be private, in other words, introverts
are less likely to talk and have a lower self-confidence in their second language (Zafar &
Meenakshi, 2011). As originally stated by Canli et. al., (2001), Amin (ND), Constable &Canli
(2004), and Jeffrey &Jaak (2006), studies have shown that high extraversion and positive emotion
correlated with each other. Hence, outgoing individuals are sensitive to positive stimulation (Yuan
et al, 2007). Thus, extraversion has a positive effect on stress response (Chu et al, 2015; Schneider,
2012). On the other hand, introversion was found to withdraw socially after an increase in stress
(Peters, 1996) as in a recent study of Posella (ND). Consequently, the differences of extroverts and
introverts manage situations in a different manner.
Moreover, stress represents a normal, necessary and unavoidable life phenomenon which
can generate temporary discomfort as well as long-term consequences as cited by (Dumitru
&Cozman, 2012). The term stress pertains to a tension state that bursts out the individual’s internal
homeostasis, psychic reactions, and psychological wherein it forces the organism to respond in
some way (Bedin e.t al). In this perspective, the phase stress is perceived by means of symptomatic
issues of an individual and according to (Bedine.t. al) in his article title, “The Relationship
between Personality Traits and Stress Levels in Children” that Di Pascuale et. al., (2011)
highlighted when the personality traits are very rigid and inflexible, they can begin to affect and
compromise the health of the individual that brings a series psychological manifestations. In
addition to Motoko (2006) said that personality trait dimensions influenced mental health
accordingly to one’s lifestyle and our unique individuality has a significant contribution in our
mental health in terms of the way we think, feel and behave (Hampson & Friedman, 2008). Thus,
some individuals are prone to mental health problems because of their personality traits and
individual characters. Regarding the psychological health and symptoms, most of people are
experience with physiological complaints that is affected from life stress or to their stressors
(Health, 1999; Middleton & Shaw, 2000). In this study the researchers will only cover the four
dimensions of the entire range of psychological scales namely the anxiety, depression, distress and
somatization. According to B. Terluin et. al., (2004), it is important to differentiate the general
distress on other words the psychological symptoms to address such mental health issue and
problems especially to the person who has a psychological complaints affected by the stressor and
suffers from illness.
Looking at this problem, the researchers read a number of school mental health issues that
pertains to how to effectively improve and apply the mental health programs to the 21st century
students on how the school made changes of their mental health programs among students to
address mental health issues. The researchers found out that there has been a gap between
addressing mental health programs in school contexts and the reason why students did not
effectively apply. In this study, it made use of Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire or
4SDQ in order to measure these four dimensions of psychological symptoms and Greg (2006)
personality test. The purpose of this study is to identify which of the two personality traits is more
prone to stress namely anxiety, depression, distress and somatization or experience psychological
symptoms. Also, the researcher will identify if there is significant relationship between to two
personality trait and their stressor. Through this, it can benefit everyone to know about the study
where in fact it talks about an individual’s state which can help and enable them to apply it in real
life through identifying an extrovert and an introvert’s stressors. Among the content area,
personality traits are important factors in determining stress; thus, it is capable of explaining how
certain people manage to function while handling huge amounts of stress (Cooper 2005).