Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses
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ItemResilient coping styles: taxonomy, measurement and moderating role in the stress-health relationship( 2012)In this thesis, resilience is reconceptualised as coping styles based on positive emotions that moderate the stress - health relationship, thereby working as protective factors. Three studies were conducted with the aim of (i) creating a taxonomy of resilient coping styles as a conceptual and empirical framework to (ii) develop an instrument to measure said resilient coping styles to be able to (iii) evaluate the protective role of the resilient coping styles in the stress - health relationship. In Study 1a, individual interviews on 44 university students and 10 workers were used to create a list in 314 instances of coping. That list of ways of coping was initially analysed and reduced by the author of this thesis and the supervisor to 186 resilient ways of coping (i.e., coping that is based on positive emotions, flexible and predictive of adaptive outcomes). In Study 1b, 19 independent raters conducted a second content analysis of that 186 resilient coping list. This resulted in a list of 137 instances of coping classified as resilient coping. The 19 independent raters also performed a free sorting of the 137 instances of resilient coping and the product of that was integrated via a hierarchical cluster analysis to create a Taxonomy of Resilient Coping Styles comprised of 11 clusters (Individual Leisure, Social Leisure, Positive Future Outlook, Positive Self-evaluation, Positive Meaning, Acceptance, Situation Management, Effort Management, Emotional Management, Seeking Instrumental Support and Seeking Emotional Support) organised in 10 higher order contrasting categories. In Study 2a, the taxonomy developed was used to create a Resilient Coping Styles Questionnaire. The same 137 instances of coping were administered as a questionnaire to 220 University students. Exploratory factor analyses of their responses were compared with the taxonomy to find the most parsimonious dimensional representation of the resilient coping styles. This process derived in a five factor model: Resources Management, Situation Management, Positive Evaluation, Seeking Social Support and Positive Disengagement. The model was further tested with a confirmatory factor analysis and other psychometric indices. The five scales were also correlated with measures of trait emotions, personality, coping and health obtaining evidence of their concurrent validity. In Study 2b, the moderating role of the five resilient coping styles in the relationship between academic stress and health was evaluated finding support for the protective role of situation management, positive evaluation and positive disengagement in the academic stress-life satisfaction relationship and factors positive evaluation, seeking social support and positive disengagement in the academic stress-depression relationship. Study 3a was a direct replication of Study 2a. The factor structure of the Resilient Coping Styles Questionnaire was replicated. Study 3b was a conceptual replication and extension of Study 2b. The protective role of the five resilient coping styles, in the stress-depression relationship was replicated, as well as the protective effect of situation management, positive evaluation, and positive disengagement in the stress-life satisfaction relationship. Also, in Study 3b the protective role of the resilient coping styles remained after controlling for gender, age, language and dispositional resilience. The results of this thesis highlight the diversity of coping styles that are based on positive emotions that operate as protective factors in the relationship between stress and mental health. These results also have theoretical implications for the understanding of coping styles related to positive emotions as regulatory mechanism in the stress-health relationship.