title: A dispositional and situational assessment of children's coping: testing alternative models of coping.
abstract: Dispositional and situational measures of children's coping were developed using a theoretically based approach. Two studies (N1 = 217; N2 = 303) assessed the psychometric characteristics of these measures in fourth- through sixth-grade children. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a four-factor model of dispositional coping (active, distraction, avoidant, and support seeking) provided a better fit to the data than either the problem- versus emotion-focused (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) or passive versus active (Billings & Moos, 1981) coping models. The four-factor model was largely invariant with respect to age and gender. Moderate to high correlations were found between the parallel subscales of the dispositional and situational measures of coping. Although the four factor structures of the dispositional and situational measures were generally similar, factor loadings and correlations between dimensions were not equivalent.
authors.affiliation: Program for Prevention Research, Arizona State University, Tempe 85287-1108, USA.
authors.forename: T S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Ayers
authors.forename: I N
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Sandler
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: West
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Roosa
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004243:Divorce / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010553:Personality Development; D011340:Problem Solving; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012931:Social Environment