Cognitive and behavioral coping strategies in the reappraisal of stressful social situations.

Compared cognitive and behavioral coping strategies for eliciting reappraisal of stressful social situations in 22 male and 27 female 7th and 8th graders. In the cognitive coping condition Ss were trained to attend objectively to the aversive cues in the stimulus person and were encouraged to reconsider their aversiveness. In the behavioral coping condition Ss were trained to develop more adequate behaviors for coping with the stressful situation. These 2 strategies were tested alone and in combination against an identification-control condition. The coping strategies were more effective in eliciting positive reappraisal of the stressful situation than was the control condition. The behavioral coping strategy resulted in a greater reduction of cue aversiveness. Findings stress the importance of behavioral coping in the reappraisal of stressful stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping with stressful events in older children and young adolescents.

Both the capacity to generate alternative solutions to cope with stressful events and the strategies actually used to cope with interpersonal and academic stressors were examined in a sample of junior high school age youngsters. Subjects were moderately consistent in the generation and use of problem- and emotion-focused coping with the two types of events, and they adjusted the number of problem-focused alternative solutions they generated to match their appraisals of the controllability of the cause of interpersonal stressors. The number of alternative solutions generated and strategies used for interpersonal stressors was related to both self-reports and maternal reports of internalizing and externalizing emotional/behavioral problems. Specifically, the problem-focused alternatives generated and strategies used were negatively related to emotional/behavioral problems, whereas the emotion-focused alternatives generated and strategies used were positively related to emotional/behavioral problems. Coping with academic stress was not related to emotional/behavioral problems. Self-reported emotional/behavioral problems varied as a function of the match between perceived control and the generation of problem-focused alternatives for coping with social stressors but did not vary as a function of the match between perceived control and other coping strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping With Employment Uncertainty: A Comparison of Employed and Unemployed Workers.

This study examined coping with stress associated with employment uncertainty for comparable samples of laid-off and employed high-technology workers. It was expected that different coping strategies would be associated with perceived stress for employed vs. unemployed people. Although unemployed participants reported higher levels of stress compared with employed participants, employment uncertainty mediated the association between employment status and perceived stress. Emotion-focused coping strategies were related to higher perceived stress, whereas problem-focused coping strategies were related to lower perceived stress. The use of emotional avoidance as a strategy moderated the effect of employment uncertainty on perceived stress, such that a greater propensity to endorse avoidance coping strategies was associated with higher levels of stress particularly under low uncertainty conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does coping help? A reexamination of the relation between coping and mental health.

In a longitudinal community survey of 291 adults, we explored the relation between coping strategies and psychological symptoms. Respondents completed the revised Ways of Coping Scale (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985) for a self-named stressful episode. Factor analysis produced eight coping factors: three problem focused, four emotion focused, and one (support mobilization) that contained elements of both. Multiple regression analyses indicated bidirectionality in the relation between coping and psychological symptoms. Those in poorer mental health and under greater stress used less adaptive coping strategies, such as escapism, but coping efforts still affected mental health independent of prior symptom levels and degree of stress. We compared main versus interactive effects models of stress buffering. Main effects were confined primarily to the emotion-focused coping scales and showed little or negative impacts of coping on mental health; interactive effects, though small, were found with the problem-focused scales. The direction of the relation between problem-focused scales and symptoms may depend in part on perceived efficacy, or how the respondent thought he or she handled the problem. Implications for the measurement of adaptive coping mechanisms and their contextual appropriateness are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Effectiveness of Expatriate Coping Strategies: The Moderating Role of Cultural Distance, Position Level, and Time on the International Assignment.

On the basis of the stress and coping literature, the authors examined the diverse coping strategies used by expatriate managers in response to the problems encountered while on international assignments. It was hypothesized that although problem-focused coping strategies may be more effective than are emotion-focused coping strategies in affecting cross-cultural adjustment and intention to remain on the international assignment, the relationship is moderated by contextual factors such as hierarchical level in the organization, time on the assignment, and cultural distance. Coded semistructured interview responses from 116 German expatriates on assignment in either Japan or the United States were analyzed with moderated regression analyses. The results suggest that the effectiveness of problem-focused coping strategies in predicting cross-cultural adjustment is moderated by cultural distance and position level but not by time on the assignment. The use of problem-focused coping strategies was not related to expatriates' intention to remain on the assignment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and coping in stressful episodes.

15 depressed and 72 nondepressed middle-aged persons were repeatedly assessed over a 1-yr period with respect to the thoughts and actions they used in coping in specific stressful episodes. Depressed persons tended to appraise situations as requiring more information in order for them to act, but they were less likely to appraise situations as requiring their acceptance. Overall, the coping of depressed persons was characterized by seeking emotional and informational support and by wishful thinking, but they did not differ from nondepressed persons in amount of problem-focused coping or self-blame. Results are generally inconsistent with the learned helplessness model of depression and highlight the need to examine interpersonal aspects of depression. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parenting behaviors and the occurrence and co-occurrence of adolescent depressive symptoms and conduct problems.

This study of 388 adolescents found a significant covariation between the elevated depressive symptoms and conduct problems. Observer ratings of family interaction indicate that (a) parents of 10th graders with and without later adjustment problems differed in their parenting behaviors when the adolescents were in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades; (b) parents of 10th graders with elevated conduct problems were more hostile than parents of 10th graders with elevated depressive symptoms when the adolescents were in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades; (c) parents of 10th graders with both elevated depressive symptoms and conduct problems were the most hostile and the least warm when these adolescents were in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Observed parenting behaviors predicted the occurrence and co-occurrence of these adjustment problems among 10th graders after controlling for 7th grade (Time 1) depressive symptoms and delinquent behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's methods of coping with stress: a twin study of genetic and environmental influences

The relative importance of environmental and hereditary factors in how children cope with stress was examined. Emotion-focused, problem-focused, and additional coping variables were assessed in 44 monozygotic (MZ) and 30 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, aged 9-16 years. The effects of heritability, shared environment, and unshared environment were examined in structural modelling analyses. Genetic factors accounted for a majority of the reliable variance in four of seven coping variables, while effects of twins' shared environment were negligible for all but one coping variable. Environmental factors important to individual differences in coping strategies were primarily unique to each child (unshared between the twins), highlighting the importance of individual experiences in shaping coping behaviors.     

Coping profiles associated with psychiatric, physical health, work, and family problems.

Examined coping profiles of 11 samples (identified in the stress literature) with a total of 1,298 individuals experiencing psychiatric, physical health, work, or family problems. Comparisons were made in Ss with and without anxiety and depression to control for the effects of distress. Coping was similar for Ss in similar problem categories, but different for Ss in different categories. Psychiatric Ss made more use of avoidance and less use of social supports. Ss with physical health problems were among the most frequent users of social supports. Ss with a family problem were among the most frequent users of problem-focused coping and the least frequent users of self-blame. Ss with work stress were the most frequent users of self-blame. Results support the hypothesis that persons with psychopathology cope in maladaptive ways involving dysfunctional strategies that constitute the behavioral disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress and coping in early adolescence: Relationships to substance use in urban school samples.

Obtained measures of stress and coping from 901 urban 7th and 8th graders and were related to indices of cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Stress was indexed by measures of subjective stress, recent events, and major life events; coping was assessed by behavior and intention-based methods. Concurrent and prospective analyses indicated that stress was positively related to substance use, and 4 coping mechanisms (behavioral coping, cognitive coping, adult social support, and relaxation) were inversely related to substance use. Measures indexing peer support, distraction coping, and aggressive coping were positively related to substance use, independent of other predictors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal problem solving and coping reactions of Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder.

In order to assess the relation between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and interpersonal problem solving and coping, 43 Vietnam veterans were assigned to the following four groups: (a) combat veterans with PTSD, (b) combat veterans with severe adjustment problems but not PTSD-diagnosable (AP), (c) combat veterans who were well adjusted (WA), and (d) veterans with little or no combat exposure who served during the Vietnam era (ERA). Multivariate analyses of variance indicated that both the PTSD and AP groups reported less effective coping reactions and poorer problem solving than both the WA and ERA groups. The PTSD subjects also reported less effective problem solving and less problem-focused coping reactions than the AP veterans. Implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Caring for an institutionalized parent: The role of coping strategies.

Extends knowledge about the stresses of caregiving by considering relationships between adult children and their institutionalized parents. Although previous studies have indicated that emotional strains experienced by adult children with institutionalized parents are of similar magnitude to those experienced by caregivers in the community, little attention has been paid to effects that may mediate the stressor–mental health relationship. Coping strategies were hypothesized as mediators of the stressor–mental health relationship. Data from 424 adult children with a parent living in a nursing home revealed that emotion-focused coping strategies mediate the relationship between stressors and mental health, whereas problem-focused coping strategies do not mediate this relationship. Findings emphasize the importance of examining coping strategies as multidimensional entities having differential effects on mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-Related Differences Among Adults Coping With Pain: Evaluation of a Developmental Life-Context Model.

The pain and coping literature is limited because of its almost exclusive focus on young adults. Our goal was to develop and evaluate a theoretically sound model of age-related differences in coping. Age-related increases in emotion-focused and avoidance-oriented coping and decreases in problem-focused coping were expected to arise from age-related differences in life-context (e.g., health status, stress levels) and in the pain experience. Questionnaire data were collected from 280 older and younger adults with pain. Increasing age was associated with lower pain severity/interference and greater perceived control over pain. Life-context partially mediated this relationship. As hypothesized, there were age-related declines in problem-focused coping. Contrary to expectations, however, older adults also used fewer emotion-focused coping strategies. The implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach.

We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotion-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measuring coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping strategies and collective efficacy as mediators between stress appraisal and quality of life among rescue workers.

Fire-fighters, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians routinely confront potentially traumatic events in the course of their jobs. The mediation role of coping strategies and collective efficacy in the relationship between stress appraisal and quality of life was examined (compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burnout) in a correlational study. Participants were 463 Italian rescue workers (fire fighters and different categories of emergency health care professionals). Participants filled out measures of stress appraisal, collective efficacy, coping strategies, and quality of life. The results showed that emotion and support coping, self-blame coping, and self-distraction mediated the relationship between stress appraisal and compassion fatigue. Moreover, collective efficacy, self-blame coping, and religious coping mediated the relationship between stress appraisal and burnout. Finally, collective efficacy, self-blame coping, and problem-focused coping mediated the relationship between stress appraisal and compassion satisfaction. Cognitive restructuring and denial did not mediate the relation between stress appraisal and any of the quality of life dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping styles and affect.

Most stress research has focused on testing the effects of coping strategies on negative outcomes such as distress, anxiety, and pathology. The present study focused on the effects of coping styles on the affective components of subjective well-being. Its main aim was to test differential associations between coping styles and positive and negative affect, using secondary analysis. The data were derived from 3 studies (n = 480) in which various samples—adolescents, university students, and a general population participants—completed trait version questionnaires of coping and affect. The main results, based on correlation and multiple regression analyses, showed that problem-focused coping was positively related to positive affect and negatively related to negative affect, whereas avoidance coping showed the opposite pattern of associations with positive and negative affect. Most important, problem-focused coping was found to be a moderator of avoidance coping effects on both positive and negative affective responses. The conclusions are that coping is an important factor in well-being during normal everyday life, and moreover, the interactive effects of coping styles merit further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental investigation of social aggression among children.

Social aggression consists of actions directed at damaging another's self-esteem, social status, or both, and includes behaviors such as facial expressions of disdain, cruel gossiping, and the manipulation of friendship patterns. In Study 1, 4th, 7th, and 10th graders completed the Social Behavior Questionnaire; only boys viewed physical aggression as more hurtful than social aggression, and girls rated social aggression as more hurtful than did boys. In the 1st phase of Study 2, girls participated in a laboratory task in which elements of social aggression were elicited and reliably coded. In the 2nd phase of Study 2, another sample of participants (elementary, middle, and high school boys and girls) viewed samples of socially aggressive behaviors from these sessions. Girls rated the aggressor as more angry than boys, and middle school and high school participants viewed the socially aggressive behaviors as indicating more dislike than elementary school children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-critical perfectionism and daily affect: Dispositional and situational influences on stress and coping.

This study of university students (64 men and 99 women) examined both dispositional and situational influences of self-critical (SC) perfectionism on stress and coping, which explain its association with high negative affect and low positive affect. Participants completed questionnaires at the end of the day for 7 consecutive days. Structural equation modeling indicated that the relation between SC perfectionism and daily affect could be explained by several maladaptive tendencies associated with SC perfectionism (e.g., hassles, avoidant coping, low perceived social support). Multilevel modeling indicated that SC perfectionists were emotionally reactive to stressors that imply possible failure, loss of control, and criticism from others. As well, certain coping strategies (e.g., problem-focused coping) were ineffective for high-SC perfectionists relative to low-SC perfectionists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of clinical practice on psychologists: Treating depressed clients, perceived stress, and ways of coping.

Do psychologists become depressed themselves from working with depressed clients, as J. C. Coyne's ( 1976) dysphoric mood induction would predict? An assessment of psychologists' moods before and after sessions with depressed clients over a 3-week period showed no such effect. Rather, it appeared that the use of specific coping strategies by these psychologists in dealing with the stress of working with depressed clients (mainly planful problem solving and self-controlling) prevented the therapists from becoming depressed. Clinical practice is frequently stressful, and it is recommended that psychotherapists engage in problem-focused coping strategies to lessen the effect of this stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping behaviors as intervening mechanisms in the inverted-U stress-performance relationship.

Examined relationships among stress, coping behaviors, and performance for 93 owner-managers of small businesses damaged by hurricane floods. It was hypothesized that (a) perceived stress and performance display an inverted-U relationship, and (b) emotional coping mechanisms increase under higher stress. Ss were interviewed regarding their handling of critical incidents under stress and completed a subjective stress scale by H. H. Kerle and H. M. Bialek (1958). Type of recovery effort following the flood was recorded, organizational performance was rated on a 5-point scale, and final loss data were acquired. Perceived stress and organization performance displayed a curvilinear, nearly inverted-U relationship. Actual financial loss (or stress level) did not account for performance differences. Problem-solving coping behaviors revealed an inverted-U relationship with perceived stress, while emotional coping behaviors displayed a positive linear relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)