Validity of the Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck personality-stress model of disease: An empirical prospective cohort study

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Highlights

  • 2197 women and 919 men completed the combined short interpersonal reactions inventory with nine subscores calculated.

  • After 23.4 years, protocols were matched against dates and causes of death from the Australian National Death Index (1108 out of 3027 individuals with useable SIRI scores had died).

  • Type 2 (CHD-prone) and Type 4 (healthy) SIRI scores were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality but not with any-cancer mortality.

  • Despite criticisms of the Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck personality-stress model, our study found empirical support for some SIRI subtypes.

  • Consistent with two previous studies, inverse associations of Type 4 (healthy) scores with all-cause mortality were found, and Type 2 scores predicted CHD mortality.

  • No significant relationship was found between Type 1 scores and cancer mortality.

Abstract

Personality-stress subtypes measured via the Short Interpersonal Reactions Inventory (SIRI) have been claimed to predispose to cancer, cardiovascular disease, or overall good health. We examined such associations in a 1993–1996 study on health risk factors in Australians aged over 50 years. 2197 women and 919 men completed the questionnaire, with nine subscores calculated. After a median 23.4 years, protocols were matched against dates/causes of death (1108 out of 3027 respondents with useable SIRI scores had died). Survival analysis tested for associations between subscores and mortality from all causes, mortality from cancers (30% of deaths), cardiovascular disease (23% of deaths), and other known causes (35% of deaths). Type 2 (CHD-prone) and Type 4 (healthy) scores were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality but not with any-cancer mortality. Despite criticisms of the Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck data, we found empirical support for some SIRI subtypes. In accord with the Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck personality-stress model, and consistent with two previous SIRI studies, inverse associations of Type 4 (healthy) scores with all-cause mortality were found and also Type 2 scores predicted CVD mortality. However, no significant relationship was found between Type 1 scores and cancer mortality.

Section snippets

Background

The Short Interpersonal Reactions Inventory (SIRI) – a shortened version of the Personality-Stress Inventory (PSI) constructed by Grossarth-Maticek, Eysenck, Vetter, and Schmidt (1988), and further developed by Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck (1990, 1991) measures a disease-prone personality typology. Beyond introversion-related stress (Saklofske & Eysenck. 2004), the personality-stress model proposes six disease-prone personality subtypes (measured via the SIRI/PSI), each having a characteristic

Older Australians’ study

A self-report study into health status among older people was carried out between 1993 and 1996 (Kirk & Martin, 1998; Mosing, Medland & McRae, 2012). Participants gave informed consent to the data collection and storage. This project was approved in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council's National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct-human-research-2007-updated-2018) by both

Results and discussion

The distributions of scores are shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1, with all subtype pairs being significantly correlated (Table 2).

Results of survival analysis, adjusted for sex, are in shown in Table 3, and results after additional adjustment for body mass index (BMI), alcohol intake and smoking status in Table 4. Some 99% of deaths during the follow-up period took place more than one year, and 97% more than five years, after the initial questionnaire survey.

The survival analysis reveals that SIRI

Ethical statement

The study was granted ethical clearance by the Queensland Institute of Medical Research NHMRC Human Research Ethics Committee. The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the important contributions of Richard Parker in organizing the NDI search and Judith Symmons in checking the matched results from the search. We also acknowledge and appreciate the willingness of study participants to complete the questionnaire. Participants were contacted originally through the Australian Twin Registry. The original questionnaire study and the more recent NDI searches were funded by donations from J. George Landers, independent researcher, Melbourne and Souda

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