Children and affect: strategies for self-regulation and sex differences in sadness.
Thirty-two children, aged 6 to 11, were interviewed concerning their responses to distressing situations. Results indicate that the children possessed expectancies for coping with both sadness and anger. Coping strategies were predominantly behavioral, verbalized, and self-oriented; the most common was to engage in a distracting activity. Strategies employed with parents differed from those used with peers, and girls reported higher proportions of sadness-inducing events than did boys.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000339:Affect; D000367:Age Factors; D000786:Anger; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010553:Personality Development; D012737:Sex Factors; D012931:Social Environment