Stress, satisfaction with life and general health in a relationship to health behaviors: the moderating role of temperament structures

The main goal of this study is to check if the relationship between the perceived stress and life satisfaction or the general health is mediated by health behaviors and whether this mediated relationship is moderated by temperament structures: sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic and choleric. A total of 254 people from local community sample, aged 18-93, took part in the study and filled a set of questionnaires. The results show that there are significant differences in the level of perceived stress, life satisfaction and the level of general health between different temperament structures. The relationship between perceived stress and life satisfaction is partially mediated by health behaviors only in the group of people with melancholic temperament structure. The higher level of stress turned out to be only directly and negatively related to the life satisfaction in all other structures. Among all temperament structures the perceived stress is only directly related to general health, and health behaviors do not serve as a mediator for this relationship. The obtained results suggest that incorporating more health behaviors may have a specifically beneficial effect on people with a melancholic temperament structure. Subsequent studies of experimental design are needed to directly test this hypothesis.