Associations of Taking Conflict Personally with Mental and Physical Health: An Allostatic Load Perspective

ABSTRACT

Building from an allostatic load perspective, this study tested mental and physical health outcomes associated with taking conflict personally. Four hundred and thirty-seven students completed measures assessing direct personalization, persecution feelings, stress reactions, positive relational effects, negative relational effects, and like/dislike valence; mental health; and physical health. Persecution feelings and like/dislike valence were negatively associated with mental health; negative relational effects were positively associated with mental health; direct personalization and persecution feelings were negatively associated with physical health; and like/dislike valence was positively associated with physical health. Results indicated partial support for a model in which mental health mediated associations between taking conflict personally and physical health.

KEYWORDS:

• Allostatic load
• conflict
• mental health
• physical health
• taking conflict personally

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An anonymous reviewer inquired whether the observed mental health outcomes of TCP might simply be indications that TCP is a proxy for an underlying global anxiety factor. Although the TCP dimensions of direct personalization, persecution feelings, and stress reactions have modest positive associations with the anxiety-related personality trait of neuroticism (r = .33, .27, and .28, respectively; Hample & Cionea, 2010), these associations are small enough to suggest TCP is not simply a proxy for neuroticism. Similarly, the mean bivariate correlation of TCP subscales with attachment anxiety is only r = .08 (D. Hample, personal communication, February 1, 2018), suggesting the associations of TCP with mental health are unlikely to be a reflection simply of attachment anxiety. Thus, TCP seems sufficiently distinct from generalized anxiety as to render it unlikely that the mental health outcomes of TCP observed in past research are simply spurious.