The detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire

Coping, defined as the thoughts and behaviors used to manage the internal and external demands of situations that are appraised as stressful, has been a focus of research in the social sciences for more than three decades. The dramatic proliferation of coping research has spawned healthy debate and criticism and offered insight into the question of why some individuals fare better than others do when encountering stress in their lives. We briefly review the history of contemporary coping research with adults. We discuss three primary challenges for coping researchers (measurement, nomenclature, and effectiveness), and highlight recent developments in coping theory and research that hold promise for the field, including previously unaddressed aspects of coping, new measurement approaches, and focus on positive affective outcomes.

Coping: Pitfalls and Promise

This sales letter may not influence you to be smarter, but the book that we offer will evoke you to be smarter. Yeah, at least you'll know more than others who don't. This is what called as the quality life improvisation. Why should this research methods in social relations? It's because this is your favourite theme to read. If you like this theme about, why don't you read the book to enrich your discussion?

Research methods in social relations

From analyzing 100 assessments of coping, the authors critiqued strategies and identified best practices for constructing category systems. From current systems, a list of 400 ways of coping was compiled. For constructing lower order categories, the authors concluded that confirmatory factor analysis should replace the 2 most common strategies (exploratory factor analysis and rational sorting). For higher order categories, they recommend that the 3 most common distinctions (problem- vs. emotion-focused, approach vs. avoidance, and cognitive vs. behavioral) no longer be used. Instead, the authors recommend hierarchical systems of action types (e.g., proximity seeking, accommodation). From analysis of 6 such systems, 13 potential core families of coping were identified. Future steps involve deciding how to organize these families, using their functional homogeneity and distinctiveness, and especially their links to adaptive processes.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/129/2/216.pdf

Searching for the structure of coping: a review and critique of category systems for classifying ways of coping.

This book gives an up-to-date overview of methodological and data-analytical issues of cross-cultural studies. Written by leading experts in the field, it presents the most important tools for doing cross-cultural research and outlines design considerations, methods, and analytical techniques that can improve ecological validity and help researchers to avoid pitfalls in cross-cultural psychology. By focusing on the relevant research questions that can be tackled with particular methods, it provides practical guidance on how to translate conceptual questions into decisions on study design and statistical techniques. Featuring examples from cognitive and educational assessment, personality, health, and intercultural communication and management, and illustrating key techniques in feature boxes, this concise and accessible guide is essential reading for researchers, graduate students, and professionals who work with culture-comparative data.

Methods and Data Analysis for Cross-Cultural Research

Three stages of factor-analytic investigation aimed at uncovering general strategies that underlie the myriad specific coping responses to stress. Each stage utilized a separate, large, heterogeneous sample, yet analyses consistently revealed three fundamental strategies: Problem Solving, Seeking Social Support, and Avoidance. Over the course of studies, a short, self-report questionnaire evolved that indicates the extent to which each of the strategies has been employed in a recent stressful event. A fourth stage of study, focusing on the instrument's psychometric properties, revealed orthogonality of scales and good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity. Advantages over existing measures, as well as potential problems in the instrument, are discussed. Researchers in the field of stress have long sought a finite set of "strategies" to define the myriad coping responses that people bring to bear on life's problems. Traditionally, there have been two philosophies about how best to conduct this search. One approach has been to begin with a set of hypothetical categories, designed to be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive of coping options, and then test this new taxonomy by assessing actual responses to stressful stimuli (Beckham & Adams, 1984; Folkman & Lazarus, 1980; Miller, 1987; Morris & Engle, 1981; Sidle, Moos, Adams, & Cady, 1969; Stone & Neale, 1984). Such deductive taxonomies have been appealing

A factor analytically derived measure of coping: The Coping Strategy Indicator.

We conducted four studies that pertained to excuses given for a broken social contract. In an initial field investigation, participants recalled occasions in which they had given true and false reasons for not fulfilling a social obligation. Communicated reasons tended to be external to the person, uncontrollable, and unintentional (e.g., "My car broke down"), whereas withheld reasons tended to be internal, controllable, and either intentional (e.g., "I did not want to go") or unintentional (e.g., "I forgot"). The external uncontrollable excuses were anticipated to lessen the anger of the wronged party. In a subsequent simulation study, excuses based on the categories detected in Experiment 1 were manipulated and related to anger ratings. The same pattern of results was displayed, with intent and negligence provoking the highest anger ratings. The final two studies involved laboratory manipulation of a communicated reason for coming late to an experiment. In Experiment 3, a confederate conveyed either an internal controllable, an external uncontrollable, or no reason for making a subject wait, whereas in Experiment 4, subjects were detained and created their own good, bad, any, or no excuse for being tardy, which was communicated to a second, waiting subject. A consistent pattern of good excuse/external uncontrollable reason and bad excuse/internal controllable reason was displayed; offering no excuse resulted in the same judgments as giving a poor excuse. Relative to the external uncontrollable reasons, internal controllable excuses for being late augmented aversive emotional reactions, increased negative personality ratings, and resulted in a desire for no further social contact.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

An attributional analysis of excuse giving: studies of a naive theory of emotion.

Recent evidence suggests a larger role for personality determinants of the coping response than has been traditionally held. In the two studies presented here, we examined the influence of personality on the use of social support and other coping strategies in samples of undergraduate students. The first study surveyed a range of coping responses to naturally occurring stressors and found that Extraversion was related to social support seeking, optimism (identified as germane to coping in prior research) was related to problem solving, and both dispositions were negatively related to avoidance. The second study used an experimental approach and multiple personality measures to correct for possible methodological problems in the first. Extraversion again proved to be associated with help seeking; moreover, this relationship accounted for that of another disposition, self-esteem--a construct considered crucial in the literature. The utility of personality variables, particularly Extraversion, in predicting and explaining the choice of a coping strategy is discussed.

Extraversion: A “Hidden” Personality Factor in Coping?

A paucity of evidence for the validity of coping questionnaires prompted investigation of the Coping Strategy Indicator (CSI; Amirkhan, 1990), a self-report measure of three fundamental modes of coping that has already demonstrated considerable psychometric strength. Three tests of criterion-related validity were performed, with variations in both the types of stressors and respondents sampled. In the first, CSI scores were found to correspond to coping choices made under the threat of electric shock in a laboratory. In the second and third, the CSI correctly identified coping patterns associated with participation in educational and therapeutic programs in more natural settings. Results confirmed the validity and wide applicability of the CSI and suggested avenues for future basic and applied research.

Criterion validity of a coping measure

Sense of coherence - a disposition towards seeing the world as comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful - has been linked to greater stress-resistance and better health. However, the mechanisms underlying these benefits remain unspecified. Three laboratory studies of undergraduates ( n s = 116, 90, and 52) explored possible perceptual, attributional, and behavioral mechanisms. Findings revealed (1) a perceptual process, which had diffuse and subtle effects on views of stressful events; (2) a behavioral process, which involved more problem-solving and less avoidant coping; and (3) that these processes were tied to coherence, rather than to related (i.e., control) constructs. Data from a community-based, longitudinal field study ( n = 75) verified associations among coherence, coping, and health. Moreover, they yielded a causal model which showed the disposition to both directly impact health status, and to operate indirectly via coping. Implications for the study of other personality dispositions and hea...

James H. Amirkhan

Papers

A factor analytically derived measure of coping: The Coping Strategy Indicator.

An attributional analysis of excuse giving: studies of a naive theory of emotion.

Extraversion: A “Hidden” Personality Factor in Coping?

Criterion validity of a coping measure

Sense of Coherence and Stress: The Mechanics of a Healthy Disposition