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The literature on the association between psychopathy and anxiety is somewhat mixed, but it has been proposed that one possible advantage of psychopathy might be resiliency against anxiety. Another construct related to resiliency is psychological hardiness, and several studies have identified associations between psychological hardiness, anxiety responses, and physical and mental health effects of stress. The aim of the current study is to examine whether characteristics of psychological hardiness mediate the relationship between traits of psychopathy and experienced anxiety in a prison setting. The results showed a divergence in the psychopathy construct, since two underlying factors (the two-factor model of the PCL-R) had divergent relationships with anxiety. Through mediation analyses (PROCESS), we found this relationship to be partly mediated by the commitment dimension of psychological hardiness. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the possible mediating effect of psychological hardiness on the relationship between psychopathy and anxiety. The relative immunity to anxiety previously linked to psychopathy could thus be partly explained by higher levels of hardiness commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological hardiness characterizes people who remain healthy under psychosocial stress. The present exploratory study investigates possible links between hardiness and several immune and neuroendocrine markers: IL-6, IL-12, IL-4, IL-10, & neuropeptide-Y. A total of 21 Norwegian navy cadets were studied in the context of a highly stressful military field exercise. Blood samples were collected midway, and again late in the exercise when stress levels were highest. Psychological hardiness (including commitment, control, and challenge) was measured two days before the exercise. While all subjects scored high in hardiness, some were high only in commitment and control, but relatively low in challenge. These “unbalanced” hardiness subjects were also more stress reactive, showing suppressed proinflammatory cytokines (IL-12), increased anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-4, IL-10), and lower neuropeptide-Y levels as compared to the hardiness-balanced group. This study thus shows that being high in hardiness with a balanced profile is linked to more moderate and healthy immune and neuroendocrine responses to stress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]