Coping Skills: Socio-Culturally Independent Personality Traits

To determine the number of reproducible dimensions inherent in the COPE instrument, our Neural Network analysis used independent learning and verification samples. We found 2 highly stable and reproducible scales (personality traits) that explained the observed inter-individual variation in coping behavior sufficiently well (68.6%) and in a socio-culturally independent way. The mean within-factor correlations of 0.284 and 0.257 were at least twice as high as the between-factor correlation of 0.127. The new COPE scales included 17 and 11 items, respectively, and reflected basic coping behavior in terms of "activity" (activity-passivity) and "defeatism" (defeatism-resilience).

Activity versus Defeatism

Activity is best described through items like "turning to work", "getting help and advice from other people", or "coming up with a strategy" whereas "defeatism" is characterized by behavior like "giving up", "using alcohol", or "refusing to believe that this has happened". "Passivity" is understood as negative scoring on the activity scale and "resilience" as negative scoring on the defeatism scale. The term "resilience" is used here as a broader concept, encompassing all those endogenous mechanisms that support and maintain health, thereby enabling subjects to cope with stressful situations. This particularly includes personality traits supporting or impeding social skills.

External Validation

The factors "alcohol consumption", "regular use of medicine", "illegal drugs", "impaired physical health", "psychosomatic disturbances", "impaired mental health", and "regular exercises", as quantitatively assessed through the Zurich Health Questionnaire, were used to externally validate the newly constructed scales and to estimate the extent to which the new scales are inter-related with consumption behavior and health problems. Correlation analyses yielded a highly significant and consistent picture of the close relationship between insufficient coping skills and general health: The higher a person’s defeatism score the higher his/her impairment in terms of physical and mental health or psychosomatic disturbances, combined with a higher consumption of illegal drugs as well as a significant lack of physical activity (Table).

References

Delfino JP, Barragán E, Botella C, Braun S, Bridler R, Camussi E, Chafrat V, Lott P, Mohr C, Moragrega I, Papagno C, Sanchez S, Seifritz E, Soler C, Stassen HH: Quantifying Insufficient Coping Behavior under Chronic Stress. A cross-cultural study of 1,303 students from Italy, Spain, and Argentina. Psychopathology 2015; 48: 230-239

Mohr C, Braun S, Bridler R, Chmetz F, Delfino JP, Kluckner VJ, Lott P, Schrag Y, Seifritz E, Stassen HH: Insufficient Coping Behavior under Chronic Stress and Vulnerability to Psychiatric Disorders. Psychopathology 2014; 47: 235-243

Stassen HH, Delfino JP, Kluckner VJ, Lott P, Mohr C: Vulnerabilität und psychische Erkrankung. Swiss Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 2014; 165(5): 152-157