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Defensive style: state or trait?

S Juni, D S Yanishefsky

Journal of Personality Assessment

|October 1, 1983

Summary

The Defense Mechanism Inventory's composite score is stable under stress, but specific defense styles vary by situation, especially in men. This suggests defense styles are a mix of stable traits and situational states.

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Personality Psychology
Stress and Coping

Background:

The Defense Mechanism Inventory (DMI) measures psychological defense styles.
Understanding how situational stress impacts defense mechanisms is crucial for clinical and personality research.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the susceptibility of the Defense Mechanism Inventory (DMI) to situational stress.
To determine if the composite measure of defensive style and specific defense indices are affected by varying stress levels.

Main Methods:

An experiment was conducted with 54 men and 52 women.
Participants completed half the DMI, engaged in easy or difficult word puzzles (stress manipulation), and then completed the second half of the DMI.

Main Results:

The composite measure of defensive style remained unaffected by the stress manipulation.
Specific defense indices were significantly affected by situational stress in men, but not in women.

Conclusions:

The composite DMI measure appears to be a stable personality trait, resistant to situational stress.
Specific defense indices function more like situational states, influenced by external stressors, particularly in men.

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