Examining the Prevalence of Type‐D Personality in an Australian Population

ObjectiveType‐D personality is a construct that describes a tendency to simultaneously experience negative emotions and inhibit self‐expression for fear of negative social judgement. The link between type‐D and poor health outcomes may be partly mediated by two prominent psychosocial mechanisms, poor‐quality health‐related behaviour and poor perceived‐social support.MethodThe present study replicated and extended a 2008 UK and Irish prevalence study, utilising a sample from the Australian general population. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between type‐D personality and subjective levels of social support, health‐related behaviours and neuroticism, as well as examining the estimated prevalence rate of type‐D in the general Australian population. Nine hundred and fifty five Australian participants over the age of 18 (194 male and 761 female) completed four measures assessing levels of type‐D personality, quality of health‐related behaviours, perceived‐social support and neuroticism.ResultsAs hypothesised, the estimated prevalence rate was not found to be significantly different from the rate obtained by Williams et al. (2008). In addition, type‐D individuals reported significantly lower perceived‐social support and poorer‐quality health behaviours than non‐type‐D individuals.ConclusionsThe results of this study provide further support for the association of type‐D personality with poor health‐related behaviours and poor perceived‐social support, as well as demonstrating the applicability of the type‐D construct to the Australian general population for the first time. General healthcare applications are discussed, as well as the potential for type‐D personality research to influence public illness prevention in general.