Female students’ personality and stress response to an academic examination

ABSTRACT

Background

Women are vulnerable to stress-related disorders. Examinations are a source of stress, triggering emotional, cognitive, and hormonal responses. We examined women’s psychological and hormonal stress responses and academic performance according to personality during a real-life examination.

Methods

Female students (N = 66) were divided into two groups based on hierarchical cluster analysis: one cluster characterized by high neuroticism and moderate extraversion (HN-ME; n = 42) and the other by low neuroticism and high extraversion (LN-HE; n = 24). Academic performance, perceived stress, and emotional dysregulation were analyzed. State anxiety, affect, and cortisol release were measured before and on the examination day.

Results

The HN-ME cluster was high in perceived stress, emotional dysregulation, and negative affect. This cluster also had higher state anxiety levels two days before and shortly after the examination compared to the LN-HE cluster. Students’ cortisol levels were higher on the examination day, and there was a marginal significance of the Cluster factor in the cortisol release regardless of the day of measurement.

Conclusions

Women with high neuroticism and moderate extraversion may be more vulnerable to psychological stress in academic settings but similar to other women in their cortisol response.

KEYWORDS:

• Women
• academic performance
• neuroticism
• psychological response
• cortisol

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research study was supported by the Government of Aragon (Department of Science, University and Knowledge Society) under Grant (research group: S31_23R); Department of Psychology and Sociology of University of Zaragoza; Antonio Gargallo University Foundation under Grant (2019/B002); and Ibercaja Foundation and University of Zaragoza under Grant (JIUZ-2019-SOC-01). The contribution of VH has been supported by the Ministry of Universities and the European Union (European Union-NextGenerationEU grant for the requalification of the Spanish University System).