Abstract:
Seventy-five principals and vice-.wincipals from public elementary and secondary
schools in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada participated in this study. Participants
provided ,information concerning their thinking styles, motivations, and the
physical effects of stress. This information was examined to find out how
satisfaction-oriented, and how security-oriented the thinking styles of the
participants were. Second, the data were analysed to see how the thinking style
orientations related to life style habits and the effects of stress. The
satisfaction-oriented thinking styles scored higher than all of the security-oriented
thinking styles by a wide margin with a small preference for the
satisfaction-people-oriented styles labelled humanistic-helpful, and affiliative as
opposed to the satisfaction-task-oriented styles labeled achievement, and
self-actualizing. Although all eight of the security-oriented thinking styles scored
well below all of the satisfaction-oriented thinking styles on the Life Styles
Inventory, the perfectionistic style scored higher than all of the security-oriented
styles by an impressive margin. The next highest scores were recorded by a cluster
of three passive-defensive people-oriented thinking styles labeled approval,
conventional, and dependent. The competitive style scored lower, and the styles
labeled avoidance, oppositional, and power scored the lowest of all the
defensive-security-oriented styles. These findings suggest that principals and
vice-principals see themselves as relaxed, flexible, and satisfied with their ability to
adapt to the stress levels they experience in their lives; however, there was some
support for medical research findings that suggest that specific security-oriented
thinking styles are associated with emotional stresses that contribute to the
development of specific lifestyle habits, physical symptoms, and illnesses. Although
the number of females in this study provides very limited generalizability, the
findings of this study suggest that high achieving females tend to develop
satisfaction-growth styles to a higher level than males, and they tend to use
security-oriented styles to a lesser degree than males.
