people who experience severe stress can expect to fall victim to stress? The answer is not so cut and dry. Evidence suggests that other factors such as perception of the stressful event and personality type may also play a role in the stress-illness connection. Persons who perceive they are under more stress may react to it more strongly than persons who do not necessarily perceive the same situation stressful. The perception of stress is what causes the body to prepare for an emergency by producing certain hormones such as adrenaline, which has an effect on a broad rage body systems (DeVito, 1994). IMethods/Materials Students in the Writing for Agriculture and Natural Resources class were needed to complete a questionnaire to initiate this project. The survey examined 21 subjects of a variety of ages gathering specific information about the relationships between actual stress (as defined by life events that have occurred over the past year), perceived stress (how stressed you actually feel), physical illness, and the personality dimension of extroversion-introversion. The survey began by asking demographic information such as age and sex. The next series of questions consisted of 11 personality-type questions to which the subjects were to respond with a yes/no answer. A total score of 11 points were possible. A high score indicated an extroverted personality, and a low score indicated an introverted personality. Subjects were to also indicate how stressed they perceived themselves as being in the past six months by choosing a number from a one to ten scale. An answer of ten would indicate extreme stress and therefore a high level of perceived stress. An answer of zero would indicate that the subject has experienced no stress over the past six months. Subjects answering the questionnaire were also asked how often they experience physical illness and how often they have had to miss work or school because of it.After collect...
