Cynical hostility and the psychosocial vulnerability model of disease risk: confounding effects of neuroticism (negative affectivity) bias

Results obtained from a sample of young adults showed that, independent of the effects of neuroticism/negative affectivity (NA), Cook–Medley hostility (Ho) scores were significantly associated with life stress, trait anger, loneliness and irrational beliefs but not social support. The strength of relationships linking Ho scores to these risk and protective factors was noticeably stronger when the confounding effects of neuroticism-stability were not statistically controlled. When neuroticism was covaried, there was a 67.7% relative reduction in mean effect size. We tentatively conclude that self-report bias associated with dispositional neuroticism/NA may represent a serious threat to the internal validity of self-report studies that test the psychosocial vulnerability model of disease risk associated with cynical hostility. Results from our partial correlations provide only partial support for the theory that Ho scores confer increased health risk through a negative psychosocial ‘profileʹ characterised by the relative imbalance between factors that are stressors and factors that are coping resources.