Relationship between perceived stress and life meaningfulness. Personality traits as moderators

Objectives. The goal of the study was to analyse the relationship between perceived stress and life meaningfulness in two samples: young adults and the elderly, and to analyse moderation role of the personality traits in this relationship. Sample and setting. The research sample included two subsamples: 303 young adults with mean age 21,56 years and 47% of males, and the 190 elderly with mean age 63,91 years and 27% of males. Methods. To measure perceived stress, Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1983) was used. Level of meaning in life was measured by Life Meaningfulness Scale (Halama, 2002a, 2008) and big five personality traits by NEO Five Factor Inventory originally authored by Costa and McCrae (1992) and Slovak version by Ruisel and Halama (2007). Statistical analysis. The statistics used in the study included t-tests for comparisons score across two samples, Pearson correlations for identification of the relationships between measured variables and multiple hierarchical regression analysis for moderation analysis. Results. The comparison analysis showed that the elderly scored higher in agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lower in perceived stress, extraversion and openness. Correlational analysis shows medium correlation between meaningfulness in life and perceived stress in both subsamples. Concerning the big five traits, meaningfulness correlated in both subsamples modestly with neuroticism, extraversion and conscientiousness. Moderation analysis in young adults revealed that extraversion and agreeableness acted as moderators of the relationship between stress and meaningfulness. In the subsample of the elderly, neuroticism was identified as moderator. Study limitation. The limitations of the study are its non-longitudinal design and the predominance of females in the sample of the elderly.