Coping with failure: relationship with self-concept discrepancy and attributional style.
In the relationship of attributional style and self-concept discrepancy with coping behavior among 10th-grade Hong Kong Chinese students, 3 significant canonical variate pairs were identified. The total criterion redundancy showed that self-concept discrepancy and attributional style predicted about 20% of the variance of coping behavior. The 1st variate pair indicated that students with small self-concept discrepancy and low-depressive attributional style tended to cope with failure by planful problem solving and by positive reappraisal. The 2nd variate pair showed that students, particularly girls, with small self-concept discrepancy in verbal ability and same-sex peer relations tended to cope with failure by seeking social support. The last variate pair showed that students with great self-concept discrepancy in same-sex peer relations and parent relations tended to cope with failure by avoiding or escaping. The 3 canonical variate pairs also suggested a new taxonomy for coping behavior: mobilization of internal coping resources, mobilization of external coping resources, and the inability to mobilize any coping resources.
Poon
W T
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Center for Child Development, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong.
Lau
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D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D012944:Social Support; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology