Motiv Emot DOI 10.1007/s11031-015-9520-z
ORIGINAL PAPER
Emotion, controllability and orientation towards stress as correlates of children’s coping with interpersonal stress Melanie J. Zimmer-Gembeck1 • Stijn Van Petegem2 • Ellen A. Skinner3
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Guided by the motivational theory of coping (Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck in Ann Rev Psychol 58:119–144. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085705, 2007), we investigated children’s anticipated coping with three different stressful events (bullying, parental argument, parent–child verbal conflict), and examined whether their reliance on challenge coping responses versus threat coping responses could be accounted for by emotional reactions (including feelings of sadness, anger and fear), perceived controllability, and orientation or interest in the stressor. In addition, we examined parents’ reports of their children’s temperamental traits as correlates of coping. In random order followed by a positive stimulus, children (N = 206, age 8–12 years) watched each of the three stressful events, and reported their emotions, perceived control, orientation and coping after each one. As anticipated, results indicated that controllability was associated with more challenge coping (a composite of adaptive/approach coping responses such as problem solving and support seeking) and less threat coping (a composite of maladaptive/withdrawal coping responses such as helplessness and escape). In general, feelings of sadness were more strongly associated with challenge coping, whereas fear and anger especially related to more threat coping. Greater orientation towards the stressor was particularly
& Melanie J. Zimmer-Gembeck
[email protected] 1
School of Applied and Menzies Health Institute of Queensland, Griffith University, Southport, Queensland, Australia
2
Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
3
Department of Psychology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
predictive of more challenge coping, but also was associated with more threat coping in response to parent stressors. These associations were significant, even after controlling for temperament (negative reactivity, task persistence, withdrawal, and activity), which was generally unrelated to children’s coping. Other combinations of coping responses were also examined. Keywords Stress Coping Peer relationships Parent– child relationships
Introduction Stressors have been defined as ‘‘environmental events or chronic conditions that objectively threaten the physical and psychological health or well-being of individuals of a particular age in a particular society’’ (Grant et al. 2003, p. 449). When a child confronts a stressful event, such as school failure, peer conflict, or interpersonal rejection, a variety of emotional and motivational reactions shape the kinds of coping responses that are elicited. Chief among them are individuals’ emotional reactions, their appraisals of control, and their orientations toward the stressor. Emotions occur rapidly and are expected to come prior to identifying candidate coping responses and taking action. Indeed, according to classic theories of stress and coping (e.g., see Aldwin 2007; Lazarus 1991; Taylor and Stanton 2007), it is emotional reactions that partly signal whether coping responses are required to deal with one’s internal state, to manage the stressful situation, or both (Barrett 2006; Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2009). Equally central are perceptions of the controllability of the stressful event (Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Skinner and Wellborn 1994). In addition, the orientation towards or away from the
123
Motiv Emot
stressor, which involves a tendency to direct attention and interest toward the stressor, has been identified as another important aspect that could shape the stress-coping process (Roth and Cohen 1986; Skinner and Wellborn 1994). These three features of initial stress responses have been identified as salient for identifying and predicting coping responses, according to the motivational theory of coping (Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck 2007; Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2011, 2013) and other theories of stress and coping (e.g., Valentiner et al. 1994; Weinstein and Ryan 2010). Empirical research supports emotion and perceived control as important correlates of coping with stress (for reviews see Aldwin 2007; Taylor and Stanton 2007; Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck 2011), but few studies have been conducted with children or young adolescents, and no single study has examined both emotion and control simultaneously as correlates of coping with particular stressful events. Notably, also, no previous study has examined interest in the stressor (as a marker of orientation towards or away from the stressor) as a correlate of coping responses. Drawing from the motivational theory of coping (MTC) (Skinner et al. 2003; Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck 2007) and classic theories of stress-coping processes (e.g., Aldwin 2007; Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Murphy and Moriarity 1976; Rothbaum et al. 1982; Taylor and Stanton 2007), the aims of the present study were to extend previous research by examining a greater range of appraisals as correlates of a set of relatively more adaptive, challenge coping strategies, as well as examining appraisals as correlates of more maladaptive, threat coping responses. We examined how emotions, control appraisals, and orientation were connected to children’s coping responses, with a focus on three common interpersonal stressors (i.e., being bullied, parent–child conflict, and witnessing parents in an argument) that can be experienced as challenges or threats. Moreover, in order to examine these associations, we also controlled for children’s own temperamental traits as correlates of both emotion and coping, given the theoretical roles of individual tendencies in prompting coping responses (Rothbart et al. 1994), as well as empirical research supporting such associations (e.g., Lengua and Long 2002; Lengua and Sandler 1996). In this study we include children and early adolescents between the ages of 8 and 12 (to simplify we refer to this group as children). We focused on this transitional age period because youth typically understand a range of emotions by age 7 (Larsen et al. 2007), but the emotional understanding of children does not differ substantially between ages 8 and 12 (for a review see Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner 2011). Also, there are few age-related differences in coping in this early adolescent transitional period, though this age group differs in their pattern of coping responses when compared to both younger and older
123
children. Hence, between the ages of 8 and 12, there is little reason to expect much age-graded change in emotional reactions and coping, but there may be individual differences in stress reactions, emotions, and appraisals that yield different coping responses.
Motivational theory of coping and coping responses Guided by the MTC, we defined coping as ‘‘action regulation under stress’’ (Skinner and Wellborn 1994). In this theory, coping is further conceptualized as an integration of behaviors that combine to encompass ‘‘how people mobilize, guide, manage, energize, and direct behavior, emotion, and orientation, or how they fail to do so’’ (Skinner and Wellborn 1994, p. 113) under stressful conditions. Although there is a long history of research on stress and coping, such studies are notoriously difficult to conduct, given that stressors vary substantially and there are many methods available for identifying and measuring coping responses to these stressors (Pearlin and Schooler 1978; Skinner et al. 2003; Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner 2011). As for the stressors, most often researchers have relied on either allowing individuals to recall a recent stressor or they have focused on individuals all experiencing a similar form of stressor (e.g., divorce). In order to index possible coping responses, most researchers have formed categories. To measure coping, dual process models have been most common, such as problem-focused versus emotion-focused (e.g., Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Losoya et al. 1998), secondary versus primary control coping (e.g., Rothbaum et al. 1982), or active/approach coping versus avoidant coping (e.g., Lengua and Stormshak 2000; see also Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner in press). In the MTC it is argued that stress should be examined in terms of its associated emotions, appraisals and orientation to the stressor, and that understanding links between emotions, appraisals, orientation and coping is of utmost importance to understanding stress and coping processes. Because coping may encompass many strategies, thought processes, and behaviors, we focused on 12 coping ‘‘families’’ identified in the MTC. Six of these coping families have been shown to be adaptive under many circumstances (Compas et al. 2001; Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner in press), and are referred to as challenge coping responses in the MTC. These challenge coping responses include selfreliance, problem-solving, accommodation, support seeking, information seeking and negotiation. The other six coping families can be maladaptive under many circumstances (Compas et al. 2001; Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner in press), and are referred to as threat coping responses in the MTC. These threat coping responses involve escape, withdrawal, and aggression, which include
Motiv Emot
delegation, helplessness, submission, isolation, escape and opposition. Because children do not utilize just a single coping response to deal with a given stressor, but instead rely on a repertoire of strategies, it has become important to examine a profile of coping responses in order to tap coping flexibility (Cheng et al. 2014). We did this by forming composites of challenge and threat coping responses, based on theory that they are indicative of better adaptation or more maladaptive responses to stress, respectively, but that not all children would use all strategies in each group in response to each specific stress (Skinner and ZimmerGembeck 2007). We formed composites of challenge and threat coping to identify whether they were more globally associated with emotional reactions, controllability, and orientation. In addition to these global analyses, we also formed other composites or examined single coping responses, being guided by the results of our empirical analyses. Coping, emotional reactions to stress, controllability, and orientation Emotional reactions Subjective emotions should partly dictate coping responses. In particular, functionalist views of emotion argue that specific negative emotions prepare action tendencies that correspond to the specific emotion (e.g., Barrett and Campos 1987). When emotion has been studied as a correlate of coping among children, the emotions sadness, fear, and anger are measured most often because they are likely to be especially relevant (Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2013). For example, in one study, children who reported being more fearful were more likely to seek help following the stress of peer victimization; children who reacted with more anger were more likely to endorse opposition and revenge as a coping response (Kochenderfer-Ladd 2004). These findings are consistent with what would be expected when considering the specific functions of fear and anger. Sadness could predispose passivity and withdrawal, but could also yield social contact and support seeking. Fear could predispose avoidant reactions, but could also be associated with contact or support seeking. Anger could predispose a fight or active approach reaction to stress and be more likely to yield self-reliance rather than contact or support seeking. Thus, anger could also be associated with more a range of both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies. In line with this, previous research found specific associations between the type and intensity of emotional reactions and the anticipated coping responses to simulated interpersonal stressors. More intense emotional distress across multiple emotions was associated with using
a broader range of coping responses, both more adaptive and more maladaptive (Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2013; see also Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2009). In contrast, moderately intense or more specific emotional responses were associated with more adaptive coping responses (i.e., more active, approach coping). Although many stress-coping studies ask about stress or distress in general, there have been very few studies that have directly examined specific emotional reactions to stress. In one study of temperament and general distress as correlates of coping and adjustment problems, Lengua and Long (2002) found that greater distress (referred to as threat appraisals) in response to children’s identification of a recent stressor in their own lives was associated with a higher level of negative emotionality, and more use of maladaptive coping strategies, even after controlling for the overall number of stressful life events reported by children and their mothers. In the present study, we founded our expectations regarding associations of emotional responses and coping on such previous research, as well as on the MTC. Specifically, we expected challenge coping (because it includes support seeking coping strategies) to be associated with more sadness but less fear and anger, whereas threat coping especially would be associated with greater fear and anger. Perceived controllability Perceived personal control over a stressful event has been often studied as relevant to understanding adults’ coping responses (see e.g., Folkman and Moskowitz 2004; Skinner 1995). One meta-analysis of studies focusing on adults’ coping with illness reported that the perceptions of greater personal control was associated with more approach coping responses, whereas patients who appraised their illnesses as more uncontrollable used more avoidance coping (Roesch and Weiner 2001). Although there have been few studies of children or young adolescents, evidence on the development of attributions of cause and coping (Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner 2011) suggest that these relationships would exist by at least late childhood or early adolescence. Thus, in the present study, we expected a greater perception of control to be associated with more use of challenge coping, which includes approach and support seeking coping strategies. We also expected greater perceived controllability to be associated with less frequent use of threat coping responses given that these responses involve escape, withdrawal, and helplessness. Orientation We also investigated orientation towards the stressor as a correlate of coping, which has also been referred to as
123
Motiv Emot
‘‘outlook’’ on stress (Skinner and Wellborn 1997) and a motivational and attentional aspect of the stress-coping process (Skinner and Wellborn 1994). Orientation is argued to be an important response-regulatory mechanism, along with emotion, in the MTC (Skinner and Wellborn 1994, 1997) and in other theories (Ryan et al. 2006; Weinstein and Ryan 2010). To examine this stress-regulatory mechanism of orientation as a correlate of coping, we operationalized it as interest-taking, and expected that this would tap children’s attention toward, and monitoring of, the stressor. Although very limited, there is some emerging evidence that orientation may be relevant to coping with stress. For example, recent experimental research with university students showed that interest-taking (towards a fear-eliciting film and one’s own emotions associated with the film) was predictive of lower levels of experienced fear (as indexed by skin conductance, physical observation and self-report) and a more open and non-defensive way of processing these negative experiences (Roth et al. 2014). In addition, multiple theories of coping identify approach and monitoring as important elements in more adaptive stress and coping responses (Miller and Green 1990; Roth and Cohen 1986). Therefore, we hypothesized that children who report more orientation towards a stressor would also reported more adaptive coping. However, because we focused on children, we were concerned that focusing them on interest in their own emotional states would be difficult given their less advanced cognitive and emotional maturity levels compared to adults. Instead, we asked children how ‘‘interested’’ they would be in the stressor if it was happening to them, expecting that this might tap general interest-taking in both the stressor and one’s own reactions to it. Coping and temperament Temperament refers to individual differences in patterns of responding to environmental stimulation that are identified very early in life (such as novelty, restraint, or other people; Rothbart 2011). Reactivity refers to a set of dimensions particularly relevant to coping. Reactivity describes individual differences in the threshold of arousability or the amount of stimulation required to produce affective, motor, and attentional reactions (Rothbart et al. 1994). A second broad set of temperamental dimensions relevant to coping refers to regulatory processes, and describes constitutional differences in the ease with which infants can modulate their reactivity, either facilitating or inhibiting their affective, motor, and attentional responses. Empirical studies with children and adolescents (Carson and Bittner 1994; Lengua and Long 2002; Lengua and Sandler 1996; Lengua et al. 1999a, b) have shown that
123
temperament is associated with coping processes. For example, children’s high dispositional negative emotional intensity has been associated with higher levels of threat appraisal and avoidant coping (Lengua and Long 2002). Because these possible linkages may account for the connections between emotions, motivation, and coping, we also controlled for four temperamental traits in the current study, including negative reactivity, persistence, withdrawal, and activity level. Study objectives and hypotheses This was a multi-informant study incorporating an analogue method and questionnaires collected from children and their parents. The analogue procedure entailed the presentation of videotaped, interpersonally stressful scenarios followed by short questionnaires to gather appraisals and coping responses to each stressor. Our objective was to test key propositions of the MTC, which argues that emotional responses to stress, controllability, and orientation toward the stressor would account for coping responses. We hypothesized that all emotional reactions would be relevant to coping, but that sadness would be particularly salient for challenge (i.e. more adaptive) coping, and fear and anger would be particularly salient for threat (i.e., more maladaptive) coping. We also expected that a perception of greater controllability and greater orientation toward the stress (i.e. more interest) would be associated with children’s anticipated use of more challenge and less threat coping responses. Finally, parents reported on four aspects of the temperament of their children, which we also examined as potential correlates of children’s coping responses. We hypothesized that negative reactivity and withdrawal would be associated with more anticipated use of threat coping, and persistence would be associated with more anticipated use of challenge coping responses. These temperamental dimensions were utilized as controls, that is, as possible ‘‘third variables’’ that might account for the connection between stress reactions and coping.
Method Participants Participants were 206 Australian children in grades 3–7 (53 % boys) and their parents (92 % mothers). The potential sample included 242 children, but 12 parents actively denied their children’s participation, and 24 parents did not complete surveys reporting children’s temperament, age, and gender, and therefore were also excluded from the study. Children attended two public schools and had parental consent. The mean child age was
Motiv Emot
10.1 years (SD = 2.5 years) with a range from 8 to 12 years. Parents reported that their children were predominantly born in Australia (67.4 %), followed by New Zealand (10 %), Europe (6.5 %), Asia (3.5 %) or other countries (10.9 %). Just fewer than 2 % were Indigenous Australian. Most children were living with two parents who were married (67 %) or de facto (12 %). Others were separated/divorced (17 %), single or widowed (4 %). Income ranged from below $30,000 (21 %) to above $60,000 (39 %). Child video vignette assessment The stimuli for this study were three short (30-s) videotaped depictions of interpersonal stressors taken from children’s movies. This procedure was developed through a series of pilot studies and initial findings for its utility have been described elsewhere (Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2009). In the present study, we used one peer-related and two parent-related stressors (Mommy Market for peer victimization, Harriet the Spy for parent argument, and Rookie of the Year for parent–child conflict). These stressors were selected because they are common experiences of children and all involved interpersonal conflict. Anticipated coping After each segment, children were asked to ‘‘imagine you were the person being bullied (hearing your parents argue, having a conflict/fight with a parent)’’ and to ‘‘answer some questions about how you would feel and what you would do if this was happening to you.’’ Children completed items to assess their anticipated coping responses, with one item assessing children’s anticipated use of each of the 12 coping families described in the motivational theory of coping (MTC-12; Skinner et al. 2003; Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck 2007; see Appendix). The items were founded on existing measures, or new items were created when the family of coping was not addressed in existing measures. Items were also simplified for the age group. A pilot study was conducted with five 8-year-old and five 12-year-old children with parent and child consent. This study was conducted to ensure that the items on the MTC12 were clear. The items were also validated with the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (Ayers et al. 1996) in a previous study (Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2009). Children rated each coping response on a 5-point scale ranging from not at all to definitely for sure. For each vignette, separate scores were created for challenge (i.e., adaptive/approach coping) and threat (i.e., maladaptive/ withdrawal) coping. Challenge coping was the average of self-reliance, problem solving, accommodation, support
seeking, information seeking, and negotiation (a was .56 for bullying, .73 for parental arguing, and .69 for parent– child conflict). Threat coping was the average of delegation, helplessness, submission, isolation, escape, and opposition (a was .49 for bullying .57 for parental argument, and .61 for parent–child conflict). It was not anticipated that children would use all challenge or all threat strategies in response to each stressor, so the Cronbach’s a were lower than ideal in some cases (as was expected). However, we maintained the use of these theoreticallyderived global coping subscales in initial analyses to provide a gauge of the tendency to use some adaptive or maladaptive strategies more or less often, relative to other children. In follow-up analyses we also examined subsets of coping families based on empirical evidence of high intercorrelations between coping responses. We used factor analysis to provide some guidance regarding whether it would be appropriate to calculate other coping composites within or across stressful situations. This analysis revealed that coping reported in response to each single stressor tended to load together on about three factors each. Thus, we next conducted factor analyses with the 12 coping items within each situation. Each analysis extracted three clear factors. When the results of these three factor analyses were compared, four of the six adaptive coping families loaded highly on a single factor ([.65) for all three stressors. These items were problem solving, support-seeking, information-seeking, and negotiation. We formed a composite of these four items for each stressor (Cronbach’s a was .66 for bullying, .78 for parental argument, and .70 for parent–child conflict), and repeated all analyses with these composite scores. Results were quite similar to those reported for the total challenge coping score, so we do not report results in detail here. The other eight coping items loaded with different patterns across the three stressors, so we maintained these as single scores and conducted all of the analyses reported below for each of these eight items for each stressor. We report these findings below. Controllability Two items following each video were used to assess children’s perception of controllability. The first item asked, ‘‘how much do you think you could control or change the situation?’’, with five response options from not at all to extremely. The second item asked, ‘‘how much would you feel like you couldn’t do anything about the situation?’’, with five response options ranging from not at all to extremely. The second item was reversed before averaging the two items, so that higher scores indicated greater perception of control. The correlations between the two items for each situation ranged from r = .52 to .66.
123
Motiv Emot Table 1 Bivariate correlations between all variables, and Ms and SDs (N = 206) Variables
1
Cronbach’s a 1. Challenge copinga 2. Threat copinga 3. Sadness
a
2 .82
3 .77
4 .77
5 .67
6 .41
7 .47
.47
9 .53
10 .89
11
.78
12
.69
.80
– .36**
–
.42**
.45**
4. Feara
.37**
.48**
.72**
5. Angera
.31**
.35**
.32**
.30**
6. Perceived controla
.16*
-.46**
-.30**
-.34**
7. Orientation (interest)a
.56**
.31**
.35**
.26**
.25**
.07
8. Past experiencea
.20**
.28**
.19**
.16**
.26**
-.03
– – – -.08
–
9. Negative reactivity
-.01
.02
-.02
-.03
-.01
10. Task persistence 11. Withdrawal
.05 -.09
-.08 .05
-.01 .06
-.01 .02
.09 -.15*
12. Activity
-.04
-.11
-.10
-.08
.09
-.02
.06
-.02
M
2.86
2.94
3.75
3.25
SD
0.67
0.62
1.14
1.11
13. Age
8
– .24**
–
.08
.00
.24**
.03 -.09
-.05 -.04
-.20** .24**
-.37** .24**
–
.07
.09
.00
.19**
.47**
.21**
.02
.07
-.08
3.87
3.01
2.89
.88
.69
1.03
– -.06
–
-.30**
-.17*
–
.03
.02
-.06
-.28**
2.47
3.21
3.45
2.72
2.64
.78
.75
.61
.54
.77
* p \ .05, ** p \ .01 a
Composite score across three stressful stimuli. All measures ranged from 1 to 5, with the exception of past experience with a range of 1 to 4
Interest-taking One item assessed children’s interest-taking by asking ‘‘if you were in this situation…how interested would you feel?’’ There were five possible responses that ranged from not at all to extremely. Subjective emotional responses Children reported how sad, fearful and angry they would feel in response to each stressor (e.g., ‘‘if you were in this situation…how sad would you feel?’’). There were five possible responses that ranged from not at all to extremely. Past experience with stressors Children reported whether they had ever experienced a similar situation to that portrayed in each video segment. Responses options ranged from 1 (no, never) to 4 (yes, many times). Temperament Parents completed the School-Age Temperament Inventory (SATI; McClowry 1995) to provide a measure of their children’s temperament. The SATI is a 38-item measure that includes four subscales: negative reactivity (i.e., intensity and frequency with which the child expresses negative affect); task persistence (i.e., the degree of selfdirection the child exhibits in tasks); withdrawal/approach
123
(i.e., initial responses to new and unfamiliar people and situations); and activity (i.e., large motor activities). Items are rated from 1 (never) to 5 (always). After reverse coding some items, averaging the appropriate items formed a composite score for each subscale. A higher score indicated that the child was higher in negative reactivity, task persistence, withdrawal in new situations, and activity level. Cronbach’s a are reported in Table 1. Procedure Approval was obtained from the state education department and school principals. Parental information sheets and consent forms were provided and collected prior to children’s participation. Children also agreed to participate. Child assessment In groups of five in a designated room at each school, children watched the videotaped vignettes and completed questions following each video. All questions were read aloud. Children were allowed to ask questions about the meaning of words when needed. The testing period was approximately 30 min. Parent assessment Parent assessment packages were sent home with children. Questionnaires were returned to the school and held in a locked box in the school offices.
Motiv Emot
Data analysis We first examined simple correlations between coping responses and children’s appraisals of stress. We collapse measures across the stressors only for the correlations to simplify reporting (see Table 1). We report Cronbach’s a in Table 1 for these composite measures. We also examined intercorrelations between measures for each stressor, and these associations tended to be similar (or weaker) than those reported in Table 1. Next, to test the hypotheses, we estimated six hierarchical linear regression models with two steps each. Challenge or threat coping (for each stressor) was regressed on age, gender, temperament and past history of similar stress in Step 1. In Step 2, emotional reactions, perceived control and orientation were entered. Interactions of child age and sex with emotional reactions, perceived control, and orientation were also tested. No interaction was significant, so these results are not reported. Finally, we regressed an empirically-derived composite of four adaptive coping items, and each of the eight other coping items, on age, gender, temperament, past history of similar stressor in Step 1, and emotional reactions, perceived control and orientation in Step 2. This allowed us to compare these findings to those for composite scores for challenge and threat coping for each of the three different interpersonal stressors.
child sex, and parent-reported temperamental traits were not associated with challenge coping in any of the models. In Step 2 in all models, challenge coping was more frequent when children reported heightened perceptions of control (b ranged from .20 to .26), felt more sadness (b ranged from .14 to .29), and were more oriented toward the stressful event (b ranged from .21 to .45). Challenge coping was also more frequent when children reported more anger in response to witnessing parents in an argument, and when they reported more fear in response to the parent–child verbal conflict. We also derived a composite coping score based on factor analyses (see Method), which included problemsolving, support seeking, information seeking, and negotiations. The results were quite similar to those reported in Table 2. Threat coping
Unique correlates of challenge and threat coping
In Step 1 in all three models of threat coping (see Table 3), girls anticipated using more threat coping responses than boys. In addition, the temperamental traits of task persistence and activity were associated with less threat coping in response to the parent–child conflict. Moreover, adolescents who reported more past experience with parents’ arguing and with parent–child conflict anticipated using more threat coping responses. Age was not significantly associated with threat coping responses. After entering appraisals in Step 2, child sex and task persistence were no longer significantly associated with children’s anticipated use of threat coping responses. Instead, children’s threat coping response was negatively associated with perceived control (b ranged from -.31 to -.34). Also, more frequent threat coping was associated with more of all three emotional reactions, however not all three emotional reactions were associated with threat coping in each model. Rather, greater sadness and fear were associated with more threat coping in response to peer victimization, greater fear and anger were associated with more threat coping in response to witnessing parents’ argue, and great anger was associated with more threat coping in response to a parent–child verbal conflict. Threat coping was also associated with greater orientation toward the stressor in the parent stressor situations (b’s were .16 and .22).
Challenge coping
Follow-up analyses of specific coping responses
In Step 1 in the models of challenge coping for each stressor (see Table 2), children who reported similar experiences with peer victimization also reported more challenge coping responses, but experience was not associated with coping responses to the parent stressors. Age,
As described above, factor analyses showed that there were eight coping items, two adaptive (self-reliance, acceptance) and six maladaptive (delegation, isolation, helplessness, escape, submission, opposition) that showed different patterns of loadings across the three stressors. Therefore, we
Results Associations between all variables Pearson’s correlations between all measures (with some measures collapsed across all three stressors) are shown in Table 1. As expected, challenge coping was positively associated with perceived control, all emotional responses, and orientation toward the stressor, but unexpectedly, was not associated with any temperament subscale. Threat coping was positively associated with all emotional responses and with orientation toward the stressor, but was negatively associated with perceived control. Threat coping was not associated with any temperament subscale. Age was associated with greater anger in response to stress and less temperamental activity.
123
Motiv Emot Table 2 Results of regressing the global challenge coping composite on all measures (N = 206)
Independent variables
Peer victimization
Step 1, F(7, 198), R2
2.40, .08*
Age, b Gender, b
Parent argument
Parent–child conflict
.49, .02
.94, .03
.09
.05
.10 .04
.12
.03
-.02
.01
.08
.12
.01
.03
Withdrawal, b
-.07
-.05
-.11
Activity, b
-.04
.01
-.06
Negative reactivity, b Task persistence, b
Past experience, b Step 2, DF(5, 193), DR2 Age, b Gender, b
.20**
.11
8.06, .16**
19.54, .33**
.04 25.92, .39**
.07
-.03
.06
.04
-.02
-.01
-.01
-.01
.12
.11
.01
.07
Withdrawal, b
-.06
-.03
-.09
Activity, b Past experience, b
-.05 .13
.03 .01
-.06 -.01
Negative reactivity, b Task persistence, b
Perceived control, b
.26**
.22**
.20**
Sad, b
.29**
.21**
.14*
Fear, b
.01
.11
.14*
.17**
.09
.30**
.45**
Emotional reactions
Anger, b Orientation (interest), b
-.03 .21** 2
Peer victimization model F(12,193) = 5.01, p \ .01, R = .24. Parent argument model F(12,193) = 8.57, p \ .01, R2 = .35. Parent–child conflict model F(12,193) = 11.69, p \ .01, R2 = .42. Interactions of child age and sex with perceived control, emotional reactions, and orientation were also tested. No interaction was significantly associated with challenge coping responses * p \ .05, ** p \ .01
regressed each of these coping items on all expected correlates to identify when associations may diverge from those found for the composite scores. In general, different from the composite scores of challenge coping responses (see Table 2), we found that self-reliance and acceptance were not associated with any emotional reactions, controllability or orientation in response to the parent stressors. Yet, children who felt more control over the victimization stressor reported more anticipated use of self-reliance and children who reported more interest in the victimization stressor reporting that they would anticipate responding with more acceptance. For the six maladaptive coping items, it was delegation, isolation, helplessness, and submission that were associated with less controllability across one or more of the stressors (consistent with analyses of the composite threat coping score, see Table 3), but opposition was associated with more perceived controllability. Emotions were more rarely associated with individual maladaptive coping items, but sadness was associated with more escape from victimization and the parent–child conflict, and more isolation from parents’ arguing. Fear was associated with more delegation
123
and isolation from victimization, and more submission in response to the parent–child conflict. Anger and orientation were not significantly associated with any of the six maladaptive coping responses when examined individually.
Discussion Children’s coping responses are often described as an outcome of a complex set of appraisals of stressful events (Aldwin 2007; Lazarus 1991; Taylor and Stanton 2007; Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck 2007), which are constrained or supported by the particular type of stressor that is being encountered (Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner 2011). To investigate this, we presented children with videotaped clips depicting a standard set of stressful events (i.e., peer victimization, children’s witnessing of a parental argument, and a parent–child verbal conflict). Appraisals and coping responses were then assessed with reference to these stressors. Appraisals of controllability, threat (measured as emotional responses to each stressor), and orientation toward the stressor (measured as interest-taking)
Motiv Emot Table 3 Results of regressing the global threat coping composite on all measures (N = 206)
Independent variables Step 1, F(7, 198), R2 Age, b
Peer victimization
Parent argument
2.84, .09**
2.50, .08*
-.10
.02
Parent–child conflict 3.45, .11** -.06
Gender, b
.22**
Negative reactivity, b
.02
-.06
.11
-.06
-.08
-.15*
Task persistence, b Withdrawal, b Activity, b Past experience, b Step 2, DF(5, 193), DR2 Age, b
.17*
.16*
.08
-.02
-.05
-.14
-.04
-.24**
.09
.20**
.14*
17.86, .29**
15.42, .26**
13.69, .23**
-.11
-.05
-.08 .05
Gender, b
.01
.02
Negative reactivity, b
.04
-.04
.13
-.03
-.05
-.04
Task persistence, b Withdrawal, b
.02
-.06
-.08
Activity, b Past experience, b
-.11 .05
-.01 .12
-.22** .13*
Perceived control, b
-.31**
-.33**
-.34**
Emotional reactions Sad, b
.23**
.11
.08
Fear, b
.18*
.19*
.07
Anger, b
.08
.14*
.21**
Orientation (interest), b
.05
.22**
.16*
2
Peer victimization model F(12,193) = 9.80, p \ .01, R = .38. Parent argument model F(12,193) = 8.42, p \ .01, R2 = .34. Parent–child conflict model F(12,193) = 53.70 p \ .01, R2 = .34. Interactions of child age and sex with perceived control, emotional reactions, and orientation were also tested. No interaction was significantly associated with threat coping responses * p \ .05, ** p \ .01
were expected to be associated with coping responses across these different situations. In line with our hypotheses, challenge coping tended to be elevated when children reported greater perception of control, more feelings of sadness and more orientation toward the stressor, whereas threat coping tended to be elevated when children reported lower perceptions of control and more feelings of fear and anger. Perceptions of control and coping We found clear support for our hypothesis that children who appraised more controllability over each stressor would anticipate using more challenge, and less threat, coping. This is consistent with other studies, most conducted with adults, that find that perceived control over stress is associated with more active and approach coping responses (Clarke 2006; Mattlin et al. 1990). However, future research should determine whether perceived control and coping responses would or would not be of benefit for mental health and resolving the stressors, thereby also considering the objective controllability of the situation as
well (Jaser et al. 2007; Langrock et al. 2002; Park et al. 2004). For example, appraisals of high controllability are likely to be more adaptive when young people actually are ‘‘objectively’’ able to have some influence and control over the situation. Similarly, approach and active (which are part of challenge) coping probably only yields health benefits and stress reduction when the subjective perception of having control matches the objective controllability afforded by the environment (Sorgen and Manne 2002; however, see Park et al. 2004, for a discussion and an example of mixed findings). Emotional reactions and coping When we consider all of the associations between emotional reactions to the stressors with coping found in the present study, it appears that heightened emotions are associated with a range of coping responses—both challenge and threat coping. Thus, heightened emotionality, in general, is associated with global composite scores of coping, as has been suggested in previous reviews (Barrett 2006; Barrett et al. 2001; Saarni 1999; Sroufe 1996) and
123
Motiv Emot
found in previous research (Flynn and Rudolph 2010; Lengua and Long 2002). This was not as often the case when each threat coping strategy was examined individually, however. Our findings also provide some evidence of the more salient role of sadness for understanding when children will respond to interpersonal stress with challenge coping. Sadness in response to interpersonal stress was more often associated with challenge coping than with threat coping, and sadness had more numerous significant associations with challenge coping than did fear and anger. Given this, these findings suggest that sadness may move children towards ‘‘adaptive’’ coping responses such as support seeking, problem solving, information seeking, and negotiation. Yet, additional analyses of threat coping also suggest that sadness is associated with children’s anticipated responses that would move them away from stress, including escape and isolation. This is consistent with the existing evidence which links sadness with a desire for interactions with others and cognitive activity towards resolving the internalized distress, but also is an adverse emotional response to stress than can prompt avoidant behaviors. For example, previous research has found that social competence is associated with greater sadness, but not anger, in response to interpersonal stress and this helps to explain why children who react with sadness are more likely to respond with adaptive, challenge coping strategies (Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2011). As previous research has reported, there are associations between social competence and greater use of the coping strategies cognitive decisionmaking and avoidant actions (Kliewer 1991), future research could concentrate on identifying whether social competence, or other child characteristics (e.g., empathy), might provide a fuller account of when sadness is a correlate of more adaptive coping when children face interpersonal stress (see also Ebata and Moos 1994; Eisenberg et al. 1994; Lengua et al. 1999a, b; Lengua and Stormshak 2000; Mavroveli et al. 2007; Mikolajczak et al. 2008; Saklofske et al. 2007). Further, the current study provided evidence for the more salient roles of fear and anger for understanding when children respond to stress with elevated threat coping responses. Fear and anger may prompt children towards more ‘‘maladaptive’’ strategies when considered as a global score, and this was especially the case for fear and its associations with greater delegation, isolation, and submission. Indeed, fear is often an emotion that yields avoidance, escape, helplessness, and isolation (Barrett and Campos 1987; Buss 2011). Anger, on the other hand, can yield opposition and defiance (Buss and Goldsmith 1998; Carver and Harmon-Jones 2009). All of these coping responses may appear maladaptive because they may not alleviate the distress and may exacerbate stressful events.
123
However, future research should examine this explicitly, as for instance anger also may motivate one to restore a desired state or to take action (e.g., Mackie et al. 2000), and the zero-order correlations in this study show that opposition did not have a significant association with perceived control. Orientation and coping To our knowledge, this is the first study of orientation towards stress (measured as interest-taking) as a potential correlate of coping responses. We found strong support for our hypothesis that children who report more interest would anticipate using more challenge coping responses across all stressors. Yet, we unexpectedly found that more orientation toward stress was associated with greater use of threat coping when examined as a global composite (but not as individual coping responses) in response to each of the two parent stressors, as well. Orientation toward the stressor was expected to be an important aspect of the stress appraisal process, given that, as described in the MTC (Skinner and Wellborn 1994), orientation is part of the initial response to a stressor that should help to mobilize, energize, and direct coping. This would, in turn, change behavior, emotion and orientation to further direct coping responses over time. Heightened levels of attention and interest directed towards a stressful event should be functional and adaptive for helping one to identify candidate coping responses. Thus, although not initially expected, it is not completely surprising that interest is associated with more anticipated reliance on both challenge and threat coping in most situations, especially given that the use of challenge and threat coping responses can co-occur. In other words, it may be that interest in the stressor results in a greater use of a fuller range of possible coping responses, rather than the use of more challenge and less threat coping. However, it should be noted that orientation towards stress was assessed with only one item for each stressor. Future research should improve the measurement of orientation, thereby explicitly assessing attention, interest in the situation, as well as interest in one’s own emotional reactions. A more comprehensive assessment might reveal the pattern of associations with coping that we had originally expected to find. Temperament and previous experience with stress We also examined children’s temperament as a correlate of their coping responses, given that temperament is often described as a process underlying children’s preferences for particular ways of coping (Derryberry et al. 2003; Rothbart et al. 1994; Rueda and Rothbart 2009; Skinner
Motiv Emot
and Zimmer-Gembeck 2009). However, after considering appraisals and orientation, the temperamental subscale of activity was the only aspect of temperament associated with coping. Children who were rated as more active by their parents reported that they anticipated using less threat coping in response to a parent–child conflict. However, no zero-order correlations between temperament and coping were found. Thus, this association only emerged after accounting for other correlates, suggesting that temperament, at least when reported by parents, has little association with coping in responses to the standardized set of interpersonal stress stimuli presented to children in the current study. Study limitations and future research There are three study limitations that should be considered when interpreting the findings of this study. First, the stressors were chosen from children’s movies, and it was difficult to match the age and sex, while also presenting the same stressor to all participants. Previous research has suggested that the sex of the child displayed in a video stimulus can influence responses (Brody et al. 1995). However, few gender differences were found in the present study, age was matched as closely as possible to study participants, and sex varied across the scenarios presented. Second, many variables were measured with one item. Thus, measures may not be as valid and reliable as desired and future research could consider additional items to capture the key constructs assessed here. However, our assessment of coping had been validated against a widely used measure of children’s coping responses in past research (Zimmer-Gembeck et al. 2009), and emotions are often measured with single items. Also, the focus on specific stressors and the age of children who participated limited the length of measures that could be used. Third, we focus only on interpersonal stressors in the present study. It is quite possible that non-interpersonal types of stressors, such as academic failure or other competence-related stressors, are equally salient to children and adolescents. However, these other types of stressors may prompt different emotions and coping responses or yield different results than those reported here. Thus, the findings are not generalizable to all types of stressful events. While acknowledging these limitations, the findings of the current study suggest that future research on children’s and adolescents’ stressful experiences and coping should consider perceived controllability, individual emotional responses, and orientation towards stress as important elements of the stress-coping process. Future research should continue to assess multiple coping and regulatory responses, and the particular type of stress, thereby focusing on how and why children cope flexibly and in
particular ways, and when and why their appraisals and coping responses yield adaptive and maladaptive trajectories of functioning over time. Such research is important for understanding the development of psychopathology and the nature of child and adolescent resilience, given the central nature that stress, coping, emotional responses, emotion regulation, and cognitive beliefs have in such developmental pathways (Cicchetti and Rogosch 2009; Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner in press). Although the findings of the present study were generally consistent with our hypotheses and with theory and previous research, the findings raise two questions that deserve further consideration. First, why would sadness be associated with more threat coping when children confront a peer stressor, but not be associated with more threat coping in response to parent stressors? If we assume that it is the social partner involved in the stressor (i.e., peer vs. parent) that makes the difference, it may come down to time course, the relationship history, and the power difference that are particularly important. For example, when being aggressed against by a peer, especially when this peer is not a friend or a close other, threat coping strategies could be more likely when sadness occurs because children may engage in all strategies (both challenge and threat coping strategies) in an attempt to cope, and some of these may be immediate (opposition or negotiation) and others may occur later (support seeking or isolation). However, when the stressor involves parents and the home setting, where it may be more difficult to react with isolation, escape, and opposition, and where sources of support and information are readily available, only challenge coping would be uniquely associated with greater sadness. The second question is why fear and anger were associated with more challenge and threat coping in the parent stressor conditions, but only associated with more threat coping in the peer victimization condition? The explanation might be similar to that offered above. In peer situations, fear and anger may be emotions that especially covary with the use of threat coping responses such as escape, isolation, and opposition, rather than challenge coping such as seeking support and problem-solving, because it may be easier for youth to fall back on threat coping. That is, a peer context may not always provide a ready source of support, opportunities for problem-solving, and a history of interactions with the other in many settings and across time, all of which allow for knowledge about how and if negotiation, support-seeking and other challenge coping responses are possible. However, when stressors occur that involve parents, such challenge coping strategies may be easier to enact, along with threat coping responses, because they are able to be enacted within a context of ongoing support and connection with others.
123
Motiv Emot
Yet, future research should test these assumptions more explicitly.
Conclusion Our findings illustrate how children’s coping responses to interpersonal problems, both in the peer and parent domains, are connected to a complex set of appraisals of stressful events, including how much control children perceive, the emotions they report feeling, and their orientation to the stressor. In general, more control and greater orientation to the stressor are relevant for identifying when children anticipate responding with more adaptive coping strategies, such as support seeking and problem solving, and when they anticipate coping with more maladaptive responses such as escape and helplessness. Sadness, relative to fear and anger, prompts more adaptive coping responses. Some associations differ across domains of stress, also. Overall, these findings identify the complexity of the stress-coping process showing that children are flexible and differ in their responses across domains. Yet, the findings also show that perceived control, emotional responses, and orientation towards stress are identifiable correlates of when children will respond with more adaptive (challenge) coping responses and when they will respond with more maladaptive (threat) coping responses across domains. The results of this study may be of interest to adults who attempt to improve children’s coping with everyday stressors, including parents, teachers, and interventionists. Findings suggest that supports and interventions may consider targeting children’s interpretations of stressful events, including their emotional reactions, perceptions of controllability, and orientation toward the event, as one pathway toward helping them view such encounters as challenges that can be dealt with using a repertoire of constructive ways of coping.
Appendix MTC-12 items If this was happening and someone was bullying you (your parents were arguing, you and your parent were having a conflict or fight)…what would you do? …deal with the situation on my own (self-reliance) …do something to work on solving the problem (problem-solving) …accept the situation (accommodation) …go to someone (like a parent or teacher) for support (support seeking)
123
…find out more information about the situation (information seeking) …try to work out the situation with the other person (negotiation) …let somebody else deal with the situation (delegation) …do nothing (helplessness) …feel like it is not even worth trying to deal with the situation (submission) …want to go off to be by myself (isolation) …get away from the situation as fast as possible (escape) …fight to change the situation (opposition)
References Aldwin, C. M. (2007). Stress, coping, and development: An integrative approach (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford. Ayers, T. S., Sandler, I. N., West, S. G., & Roosa, M. W. (1996). A dispositional and situational assessment of children’s coping: Testing alternative models of coping. Journal of Personality, 64, 923–958. Barrett, L. F. (2006). Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 20–46. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr1001_2. Barrett, K. C., & Campos, J. J. (1987). Perspectives on emotional development II: A functionalist approach to emotions. In J. D. Osofsky (Ed.), Handbook of Infant Development (2nd ed., pp. 555–578). Oxford: Wiley. Barrett, L. F., Gross, J., Christensen, T. C., & Benvenuto, M. (2001). Knowing what you’re feeling and knowing what to do about it: Mapping the relation between emotion differentiation and emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion, 15, 713–724. Brody, L. R., Lovas, G. S., & Hay, D. H. (1995). Gender differences in anger and fear as a function of situational context. Sex Roles, 32, 47–78. Buss, K. A. (2011). Which fearful toddlers should we worry about? Developmental Psychology, 47, 804–819. Buss, K. A., & Goldsmith, H. H. (1998). Fear and anger regulation in infancy: Effects on the temporal dynamics of affective expression. Child Development, 69, 359–374. Carson, D. K., & Bittner, M. T. (1994). Temperament and schoolaged children’s coping abilities and responses to stress. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 155, 289–302. Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approachrelated affect: Evidence and implications. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 183–204. doi:10.1037/a0013965. Cheng, C., Lau, H. P., & Chan, M. P. S. (2014). Coping flexibility and psychological adjustment to stress life changes: A meta-analytic review. Psychologiclal Bulletin, 140, 1582–1607. Cicchetti, D., & Rogosch, F. A. (2009). Adaptive coping under conditions of extreme stress: Multilevel influences on the determinants of resilience in maltreated children. In E. A. Skinner & M. J. Zimmer-Gembeck (Eds.), Coping and the development of regulation. A volume for the series, R. W. Larson & L. A. Jensen (Eds.-in-Chief), New directions in child and adolescent development (pp. 47–59). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. doi:10.1002/cd.242 Clarke, A. T. (2006). Coping with interpersonal stress and psychosocial health among children and adolescents: A meta-analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35, 11–24.
Motiv Emot Compas, B. E., Connor-Smith, J. K., Saltzman, H., Thomsen, A. H., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2001). Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence: Problems, progress, and potential in theory and research. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 87–127. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.87. Derryberry, D., Reed, M. A., & Pilkenton-Taylor, C. (2003). Temperament and coping: Advantages of an individual differences perspective. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 1049–1066. doi:10.1017/S0954579403000439. Ebata, A. T., & Moos, R. H. (1994). Personal, situational, and contextual correlates of coping in adolescence. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 4, 99–125. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Nyman, M., Bernzweig, J., & Pinuelas, A. (1994). The relations of emotionality and regulation to children’s anger-related reactions. Child Development, 65, 109–128. Flynn, M., & Rudolph, K. D. (2010). The contribution of deficits in emotional clarity to stress responses and depression. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 31, 291–297. doi:10.1016/j. appdev.2010.04.004. Folkman, S., & Moskowitz, J. T. (2004). Coping: Pitfalls and promise. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 745–774. doi:10. 1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141456. Grant, K. E., Compas, B. E., Stuhlmacher, A. F., Thurm, A. E., McMahon, S. D., & Halpert, J. A. (2003). Stressors and child and adolescent psychopathology: Moving from markers to mechanisms of risk. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 447–466. Jaser, S. S., Champion, J. E., Reeslund, K., Keller, G., Merchant, M. J., Benson, M., et al. (2007). Cross-situational coping with peer and family stressors in adolescent offspring of depressed parents. Journal of Adolescence, 30, 917–932. Kliewer, W. (1991). Coping in middle childhood: Relations to competence, Type A behavior, monitoring, blunting, and locus of control. Developmental Psychology, 27, 689–697. Kochenderfer-Ladd, B. (2004). Peer victimization: The role of emotions in adaptive and maladaptive coping. Social Development, 13, 329–349. Langrock, A. M., Compas, B. E., Keller, G., Merchant, M. J., & Copeland, M. E. (2002). Coping with the stress of parental depression: Parents’ reports of children’s coping, emotional, and behavioral problems. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 31, 312–324. Larsen, J. T., To, Y. M., & Fireman, G. (2007). Children’s understanding and experience of mixed emotions. Psychological Science, 18, 186–191. Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. American Psychologist, 46(8), 819–834. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer. Lengua, L. J., & Long, A. C. (2002). The role of emotionality and self-regulation in the appraisal coping process: Tests of direct and moderating effects. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 23, 471–493. Lengua, L. J., & Sandler, I. S. (1996). Self-regulation as a moderator of the relation between coping and symptomatology in children of divorce. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 24, 681–701. Lengua, L. J., Sandler, I. N., West, S. G., Wolchik, S. A., & Curan, P. J. (1999a). Emotionality and self-regulation, threat appraisal, and coping in children of divorce. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 15–37. Lengua, L. J., Sandler, I. N., West, S. G., Wolchik, S. A., & Curan, P. J. (1999b). Emotionality and self-regulation, threat appraisal, and coping in children of divorce. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 15–37.
Lengua, L. J., & Stormshak, E. (2000). Gender, gender roles and personality: Gender differences in the prediction of coping and psychological symptoms. Sex Roles, 43, 787–820. Losoya, S., Eisenberg, N., & Fabes, R. A. (1998). Developmental issues in the study of coping. International Journal of Behavior Development, 22, 287–313. doi:10.1080/016502598384388. Mackie, D. M., Devos, T., & Smith, E. R. (2000). Intergroup emotions: Explaining offensive action tendencies in an intergroup context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 602–616. Mattlin, J. A., Wetherington, E., & Kessler, R. C. (1990). Situational determinants of coping and coping effectiveness. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 31, 103–122. Mavroveli, S., Petrides, K. V., Rieffe, C., & Bakker, F. (2007). Trait emotional intelligence, psychological well-being, and peer-rated social competence in adolescence. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 25, 263–275. McClowry, S. G. (1995). The temperament profiles of school-age children. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 17, 3–10. Mikolajczak, M., Nelis, D., Hansenne, M., & Quoidbach, J. (2008). If you can regulate sadness, you can probably regulate shame: Associations between trait emotional intelligence, emotion regulation and coping efficiency across discrete emotions. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1356–1368. Miller, S., & Green, M. L. (1990). Coping with stress and frustration: Origins, nature, and development. In M. Lewis & C. Saarni (Eds.), The socialization of emotions (pp. 263–314). New York: Plenum Press. Murphy, L., & Moriarity, A. (1976). Vulnerability, coping, and growth: From infancy to adolescence. New Haven: Yale University Press. Park, C. L., Armeli, S., & Tennen, H. (2004). Appraisal-coping goodness of fit: A daily Internet study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 558–569. Pearlin, L. I., & Schooler, C. (1978). The structure of coping. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19, 2–21. Roesch, S. C., & Weiner, B. (2001). A meta-analytic review of coping with illness: Do causal attributions matter? Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 50, 205–219. Roth, G., Benita, M., Amrani, C., Shachar, B., Asoulin, H., Moed, A., et al. (2014). Integration of negative emotional experience versus suppression: Addressing the question of adaptive functioning. Emotion, 14, 908–919. Roth, S., & Cohen, L. (1986). Approach, avoidance, and coping with stress. American Psychology, 41, 813–819. Rothbart, M. K. (2011). Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development. New York: Guilford. Rothbart, M. K., Derryberry, D., & Posner, M. I. (1994). A psychobiological approach to the development of temperament. In J. E. Bates & T. D. Wachs (Eds.), Temperament: Individual differences at the interface of biology and behavior (pp. 83–116). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Rothbaum, F., Weisz, J. R., & Snyder, S. S. (1982). Changing the world and changing the self: A two process model of perceived control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 5–37. Rueda, M. R., & Rothbart, M. K. (2009). The influence of temperament on the development of coping: The role of maturation and experience. In E. A. Skinner & M. ZimmerGembeck (Eds.), Coping and the development of regulation. A volume for the series, R. W. Larson & L. A. Jensen (Eds.-inChief), New directions in child and adolescent development (pp. 19–32). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. doi:10.1002/cd.239 Ryan, R. M., Deci, E. L., Grolnick, W. S., & La Guardia, J. G. (2006). The significance of autonomy and autonomy support in psychological development and psychopathology. In D. Cicchetti & D.
123
Motiv Emot J. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Theory and method (Vol. 1, pp. 795–849). New Jersey: Wiley. Saarni, C. (1999). The development of emotional competence. New York: Guilford. Saklofske, D. H., Austin, E. J., Galloway, J., & Davidson, K. (2007). Individual difference correlates of health-related behaviours: Preliminary evidence for links between emotional intelligence and coping. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 491–502. Skinner, E. A. (1995). Perceived control, motivation, and coping. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Skinner, E. A., Edge, K., Altman, J., & Sherwood, H. (2003). Searching for the structure of coping: A review and critique of category systems for classifying ways of coping. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 216–269. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.2.216. Skinner, E. A., & Wellborn, J. G. (1994). Coping during childhood and adolescence: A motivational perspective. In D. Featherman, R. Lerner, & M. Perlmutter (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior (pp. 91–133). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Skinner, E. A., & Wellborn, J. G. (1997). Children’s coping in the academic domain. In S. Wolchik & I. A. Sandler (Eds.), Handbook of children’s coping: Linking theory and intervention (pp. 387–422). New York: Plenum Press. Skinner, E. A., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2007). The development of coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 119–144. doi:10. 1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085705. Skinner, E. A., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2009). Challenges to the developmental study of coping. In E. A. Skinner & M. J. Zimmer-Gembeck (Eds.), Coping and the development of regulation. A volume for the series, R. W. Larson & L. A. Jensen (Eds.-in-Chief), New directions in child and adolescent development (pp. 5–17). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. doi:10.1002/cd. 239 Skinner, E. A., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2011). Perceived control and the development of coping. In S. Folkman (Ed.) & P. E. Nathan (Series Editor), The Oxford handbook of health, stress and coping (pp. 35–62). New York: Oxford University Press.
123
Sorgen, K. E., & Manne, S. L. (2002). Coping in children with cancer: Examining the goodness-of-fit hypothesis. Children’s Health Care, 31, 191–208. Sroufe, L. A. (1996). Emotional development: The organization of emotional life in the early years. New York: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, S. E., & Stanton, A. L. (2007). Coping resources, coping processes, and mental health. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 3, 377–401. Valentiner, D. P., Holahan, C. J., & Moos, R. H. (1994). Social support, appraisals of event controllability, and coping: An integrative model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1094–1102. Weinstein, N., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). When helping helps: Autonomous motivation for prosocial behavior and its influence on well-being for the helper and recipient. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 222–244. Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Lees, D., Bradley, G., & Skinner, E. A. (2009). Use of an analogue method to examine children’s appraisals of threat and emotion in response to stressful events. Motivation and Emotion, 33, 136–149. doi:10.1007/s11031-009-9123-7. Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Lees, D., & Skinner, E. A. (2011). Children’s emotions and coping with interpersonal stress as correlates of social competence. Australian Journal of Psychology, 63, 131–141. doi:10.1111/j.1742-9536.2011.00019.x. Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., & Skinner, E. A. (2011). The development of coping across childhood and adolescence: An integrative review and critique of research. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35, 1–17. Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., & Skinner, E. A. (in press). The development of coping and regulation: Implications for psychopathology and resilience. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), Developmental psychopathology (2nd ed., Vol. 4, pp. 485–544). Oxford: Wiley. Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Skinner, E. A., Morris, H., & Thomas, R. (2013). Anticipated coping with interpersonal stressors: Links with the emotional reactions of sadness, anger, and fear. The Journal of Early Adolescence. doi:10.1177/0272431612466175.
