In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.

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The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.

We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotional-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.

Assessing Coping Strategies: A Theoretically Based Approach

The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Conservation of Resources (COR) theory predicts that resource loss is the principal ingredient in the stress process. Resource gain, in turn, is depicted as of increasing importance in the context of loss. Because resources are also used to prevent resource loss, at each stage of the stress process people are increasingly vulnerable to negative stress sequelae, that if ongoing result in rapid and impactful loss spirals. COR theory is seen as an alternative to appraisal-based stress theories because it relies more centrally on the objective and culturally construed nature of the environment in determining the stress process, rather than the individual’s personal construel. COR theory has been successfully employed in predicting a range of stress outcomes in organisational settings, health contexts, following traumatic stress, and in the face of everyday stressors. Recent advances in understanding the biological, cognitive, and social bases of stress responding are seen as consistent with the original formulation of COR theory, but call for envisioning of COR theory and the stress process within a more collectivist backdrop than was first posited. The role of both resource losses and gains in predicting positive stress outcomes is also considered. Finally, the limitations and applications of COR theory are discussed.

The Influence of Culture, Community, and the Nested-Self in the Stress Process: Advancing Conservation of Resources Theory

Despite the importance that is attributed to coping as a factor in psychological and somatic health outcomes, little is known about actual coping processes, the variables that influence them, and their relation to the outcomes of the stressful encounters people experience in their day-to-day lives. This study uses an intraindividual analysis of the interrelations among primary appraisal (what was at stake in the encounter), secondary appraisal (coping options), eight forms of problem- and emotion-focused coping, and encounter outcomes in a sample of community-residing adults. Coping was strongly related to cognitive appraisal; the forms of coping that were used varied depending on what was at stake and the options for coping. Coping was also differentially related to satisfactory and unsatisfactory encounter outcomes. The findings clarify the functional relations among appraisal and coping variables and the outcomes of stressful encounters.

Dynamics of a stressful encounter: Cognitive appraisal, coping, and encounter outcomes.

PART I. A SYSTEMS EVALUATION OF ALCOHOLISM TREATMENT: Evaluating and improving alcoholism treatment programs Objectives, methods, and assessment of treatment implementation Short-term outcome and patient prognosis The process and effects of treatment Gender and marital status in treatment and outcome PART II. EXTRATREATMENT FACTORS AND THE RECOVERY PROCESS: Life stressors, social resources, and coping responses Context, coping, and treatment outcome The process of recovery and relapse PART III. ALCOHOLISM AND THE FAMILY: Spouses of alcoholic partners Children of alcoholic parents PART IV. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: Improving treatment, work, and family settings Implications for treatment and program evaluation Index.

Alcoholism Treatment: Context, Process, and Outcome

Social-environmental factors in unipolar depression: comparisons of depressed patients and nondepressed controls.

We examined military-related sexual trauma among deployed Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans. Of 125 729 veterans who received Veterans Health Administration primary care or mental health services, 15.1% of the women and 0.7% of the men reported military sexual trauma when screened. Military sexual trauma was associated with increased odds of a mental disorder diagnosis, including posttraumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders, depression, and substance use disorders. Sexual trauma is an important postdeployment mental health issue in this population.

Military-Related Sexual Trauma Among Veterans Health Administration Patients Returning From Afghanistan and Iraq

The field of stress and coping emerged more than three decades ago from the recognition of the dynamic interaction between person and environment (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Moos, 2002). Over the years, researchers developed a system of objectifying and quantifying people’s environment, such as counting the number of major life events or daily hassles that occurred in the past month. Unfortunately, this system of measuring the environment resulted in acontextualizing the stress and coping research paradigm as it does not give much consideration to the meaning of the events that occur in an idiosyncratic life context. In recent years, the field has been trying to introduce more realism to stress and coping research, as the acontextual research of the last two decades yielded few solid findings that made a difference in people’s lives (Somerfield & McCrae, 2000). One of the most important neglected contexts is culture. We believe that culture is a fundamental context that helps to shape both the individual and the environment. There have been growing efforts to examine cross-cultural variations in stress and coping, but these efforts are fragmented and primarily descriptive, and usually lack an overarching conceptual framework. The aim of our overview is to help shape future research to address the generalizability of current models of stress and coping across cultural and ethnic groups. Here we describe a conceptual framework based on Moos’ transactional model (1984; 2002) that encompasses the role of culture in stress and coping. Using this conceptual framework, we illustrate how culture serves as a pervasive context for the stress and coping paradigm, and present some empirical evidence on this issue. We conclude by addressing several key issues and assumptions of the current stress and coping paradigm that may have contributed to conceptual confusion and slowed the progress of cross-cultural investigations, and we offer ways to solve these problems.

https://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9780387262369-c1.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-168007-p51553695

Ruth C. Cronkite

Papers

Alcoholism Treatment: Context, Process, and Outcome

Social-environmental factors in unipolar depression: comparisons of depressed patients and nondepressed controls.

Military-Related Sexual Trauma Among Veterans Health Administration Patients Returning From Afghanistan and Iraq

Culture: A Fundamental Context for the Stress and Coping Paradigm

Methodological issues in estimating main and interactive effects: examples from coping/social support and stress field