A study showed the occurrence and characteristics of counterfactual thinking (CT) in relation to sense of coherence (SOC), that expresses coping effectiveness, and in relation to anxiety and self-esteem. A configurable frequency analysis was used to determine types. The combination of high coping effectiveness (SOC) with CT (rarer, helpful in solving future problems, not saddening, not inhibiting future problem solving) was confirmed - as type 1, in which cognitive aspects of CT prevail. Type 2 represents lower SOC in combination with CT (frequent, saddening, not helpful, rather inhibiting the solving of future problems) - emotional aspects of CT prevail in this type. The combination of CT characteristics with anxiety introduced a single type: high anxiety, frequent CT, saddening CT and CT does not help future solutions, CT inhibits future solutions. Any distinct type regarding the relation between CT characteristics and self-esteem was observed. CT characteristics are also discussed in relation to Big Five factors describing personality.
This study shows that in a sample of 168 managers coping exhibited certain interesting characteristics but also some expected ones. Compared with men, women tended to prefer more social support seeking (measured by CSI) as did also managers scoring high in extraversion (measured by GPTP); managers preferring thinking used less avoidant coping. Besides situation, appraisal situational context seems to be an important factor in choosing a particular coping strategy. The work context seemed to favour more problem solving strategies of coping while interpersonal context as well as stressors appraised as loss were related to more avoidant coping. Taken together, personal and situational factors explained 20-30% of the variability of three studied coping strategies.
The study focuses on the question whether the level of meaning in life acts as a moderator in the relationship between perceived stress and coping. The 204 university students in Slovakia (mean age 21.81 years) filled out the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1983), Life Meaningfulness Scale (Halama, 2002) and COPE (Carver et al., 1989). Cluster analysis of coping strategies identified three clusters: adaptive, avoidant and emotion-based coping. Perceived stress correlated positively with avoidant and emotion-based coping. Meaning in life was found as a moderator between perceived stress and avoidant coping but not emotion-based coping. The authors concluded that meaning in life can serve as a buffer against negative consequences of stress for the ability to cope, especially through cognitive transformation of the stress situation in the process of appraisal.
After Erikson's (1963, 1964) conceptualization, a new theory of basic hope is proposed. Basic hope is considered a fundamental constituent of an individual's world view, mostly unconscious and learned very early. It consists of the belief in two characteristics of the world: its higher order and sense and its general positivity towards a human being. Basic Hope Inventory (BHI) was developed to measure the strength of basic hope. The first data indicates that basic hope correlates positively with adaptive reactions to personal loss and with constructive long-term consequences of it and that these correlations are independent from the impact of optimism and hope for success (Snyder, 1994). Basic hope seems to predict positive effects in psychotherapy, it correlates positively with well-being and negatively with anxiety, depression and psychosomatic symptoms.
The paper presents a part of a research project on co-addiction in mothers conducted in 2006-2007. The aim of the analysis is to present their strategy of coping with these difficult experiences. The analysis has revealed that manners in which the mothers handle this long-term, painful life situation are highly individual and can be described as remedial strategies. The authoress singles out some of them but presents in detail only one, called the attitude modification (after D.W. Johnson and R.P. Matrosse, 1995), defining it as a mental and emotional process that shows in many emotional and mental activities, as well as in actions undertaken by the mothers in question. This process concerns several areas of life at the same time, with the following three singled out in the analyzed interviews: 1) attitude to own motherhood, 2) sense of separateness and the degree of mental emancipation from her adult child and, 3) attaining life wisdom. The main subject of changes is the ongoing process of transition from the state of helplessness to regaining inner balance. This transition is related to undertaking detailed actions, presented and interpreted in the paper as the methods of coping that eventually help mothers to modify one (or all) of the presented attitudes.
Developmental research on coping assumes the observation not only of quantitative changes in the use of individual strategies or occurrence of various types of responses, but also the changes in the structure of coping. The present study focuses on the structure of coping and its changes during adolescence from a transactional approach; this is with a view to the interdependent relationship between stress and coping and to the mutual connections between the various responses to stress, given their parallel or sequential occurrence. The shifts that occur during adolescence are viewed in part from an analysis factor derived from a range of problems and responses, and in part through the help of structural models of the problems and the responses to them within two age groups. The data comes from 403 thirteen-year-old and 248 fifteen-year-old adolescents, longitudinally observed within the framework of the Czech part of the ELSPAC study.
The aim of the study was to establish relationships between perceived psychosocial resources and styles of coping with stress utilized by adolescents. A total of 1326 students (aged 15-20, mean age 17.0 years) of 16 randomly selected secondary schools were examined using a set of self-report questionnaires. Personal resources (sense of coherence and optimism), environmental resources (family affluence, family strengths, support from parents, teachers and peers), and styles of coping with stress were measured. Two groups differing significantly in their perceived resources were distinguished. The group with high resources (HR) consisted of 502, while the low-resource group (LR) - of 570 adolescents. The level of perceived resources (high vs. low) turned out to be associated with utilization of specific coping styles. High-resource adolescents as compared to their low-resource counterparts more often utilized task-oriented coping and seeking interpersonal contacts, at the same time less often using emotion- and distraction-oriented coping styles.
The aim of the study was to find relationships between resource loss treated as a stress indicator, coping, alcohol expectancies and drinking in college students. Results of a group of 125 first and second year students showed that there was a strong relationship between alcohol consumption and expectancies connected with alcohol. Some coping forms were also related to drinking but no relationship was found for resource loss.
The objective of this study was to assess the choice of coping strategies in relation to daily stress, taking into account the influence of the primary and secondary appraisals and the Big Five traits of personality. Over 10 days, a cohort of 122 individuals filled out an online diary in which they recorded the most important stressful event each day, their primary and secondary appraisals of this, and how they chose to cope with it. The results indicate that problem-focused coping depends on the strong primary and secondary appraisals, and on extraversion, whereas emotion-focused coping depends on a strong secondary appraisal and on extraversion. Social support seeking depends on strong primary and secondary appraisal, and on extraversion, openness and neuroticism. Refusal to seek support is associated with a strong primary appraisal, a weak secondary appraisal and a low level of conscientiousness. The conclusions are that momentary appraisals have a stronger predictive capacity than the personality traits, and that different coping strategies are not mutually incompatible.
The interrelated processes of finding meaning and making control attributions are examined among cancer patients (N = 168) for whom religion is either a non-central (a-schematics, n = 55) or central (schematics, n = 76) aspect in their self-definitions. Various quality of life indices display complex relations to the prediction of the individual’s level of reported experience of finding meaning and control attributions, depending upon schematicity. No single unifying factor is discerned concerning how the two groups experience meaning; initial perceptions of threat appear to be a common theme in relation to how they attribute control. Additionally, a-schematics, as opposed to schematics, report less improvement in their relationships with family and friends as well as less confidence in how they have personally coped with the cancer related experience.
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