Stress & Your Personality Type

People deal with stressful situations every day, but how a person deals with stress has a lot to do with personality type. Some people overreact, some don't know what to do and some are calm. Psychologists believe this has to do with the personality a person is born with. Noted marriage and family therapist Virginia Satir devised five different personality types and observed how they react to stressful situations.

Placater

• A placater does everything she can to avoid stress. It makes her very uncomfortable to be in a stressful situation. She will apologize for things that are not her fault and try to avoid confrontation. She will agree with a person causing the stress and will do whatever it takes to make the stressful situation go away. A placater wants to please above all. Stressful situations make her even more stressed than other personality types because it upsets her sense of well-being and security.

Blamer

• Blamers operate from a base of powerlessness. They attempt to use strong-arm tactics to get out of stressful situations by blaming the problem on others. They attempt to take charge but in a dominating way that is usually not appreciated or helpful. Blamers do not look at how they are causing the problem themselves and often will ignore any attempt to get them to recognize this fact. A blamer self-righteously believes that he is the only one in the situation that is in the right.

Computer

• A computer type resorts to logic and hyperreasoning, totally ignoring emotion whenever stressful situations occur. She deals with stress by remaining cold on the outside, not showing even the slightest hint of emotion. She works through things with cold calculation and is rigid in her thinking. Often, she will not be swayed from her assumptions because of her rigid and logical thought patterns. By detaching from emotions, a computer type deals with stress by pushing it away.

Distracter

• The distracter gets so overwhelmed by stressful situations that he cannot figure out what to do. He may shift between the other personality types, but he does not have any real way of dealing with the stress. He may ignore the stress entirely and not deal with it. He may try to solve it, but not have any real strategy for dealing with the stress that is crashing down on him. Distracters try to do many different things, but end up getting nothing done.

Leveler

• A leveler is someone who takes stress in stride and can deal with it in a healthy way. She recognizes it as a normal part of life and knows that it is something she has to deal with. Instead of struggling against conflict, she embraces it and works through it. A leveler knows her feelings in a stressful situation and is comfortable expressing them. This is the ideal personality type for dealing with stressful situations in a calm and healthy manner.