Personality may directly facilitate or constrain coping, but relations of personality to coping have been inconsistent across studies, suggesting a need for greater attention to methods and samples. This meta-analysis tested moderators of relations between Big Five personality traits and coping using 2,653 effect sizes drawn from 165 samples and 33,094 participants. Personality was weakly related to broad coping (e.g., Engagement or Disengagement), but all 5 traits predicted specific strategies. Extraversion and Conscientiousness predicted more problem-solving and cognitive restructuring, Neuroticism less. Neuroticism predicted problematic strategies like wishful thinking, withdrawal, and emotion-focused coping but, like Extraversion, also predicted support seeking. Personality more strongly predicted coping in young samples, stressed samples, and samples reporting dispositional rather than situation-specific coping. Daily versus retrospective coping reports and self-selected versus researcher-selected stressors also moderated relations between personality and coping. Cross-cultural differences were present, and ethnically diverse samples showed more protective effects of personality. Richer understanding of the role of personality in the coping process requires assessment of personality facets and specific coping strategies, use of laboratory and daily report studies, and multivariate analyses.

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Relations between personality and coping: a meta-analysis.

Machismo is an important concept describing men’s behavior in Mexican culture, yet it is not welldefined. Most conceptions of machismo focus on a restricted, negative view of hypermasculinity. The authors posit that a fuller conception consists of 2 parts: traditional machismo and caballerismo, which is a focus on emotional connectedness. The authors developed a scale to measure these dimensions and found support for these 2 independent factors in 2 separate studies of Mexican American men. Traditional Machismo was related to aggression and antisocial behavior, greater levels of alexithymia, and more wishful thinking as a coping mechanism. Caballerismo was positively associated with affiliation, ethnic identity, and problem-solving coping. Traditional Machismo was also associated with less education, whereas there were no differences across education level on Caballerismo scores. These results support the more complete, two-dimensional representation of machismo.

Toward a fuller conception of Machismo: Development of a traditional Machismo and Caballerismo Scale.

In the present study of 80 volunteer counselors who cared for terminally ill patients, the authors examined the relationship between burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (C. Maslach, S. E. Jackson, & M. P. Leiter, 1996) and the 5 basic (Big Five) personality factors (A. A. J. Hendriks, 1997): extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellect/autonomy. The results of 3 separate stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that (a) emotional exhaustion is uniquely predicted by emotional stability; (b) depersonalization is predicted by emotional stability, extraversion, and intellect/autonomy; and (c) personal accomplishment is predicted by extraversion and emotional stability. In addition, some of the basic personality factors moderated the relationship between relative number of negative experiences and burnout, suggesting that personality may help to protect against known risks of developing burnout in volunteer human service work.

The relationship between the big five personality factors and burnout: a study among volunteer counselors

Social Problem Solving: Theory and Assessment.

Previous research has shown that dispositional optimism (M. F. Scheier & C. S. Carver, 1985) is linked to both coping and adjustment but has failed to consider the potential influence of appraisals in the stress and coping process (R. S. Lazarus & S. Folkman, 1984). The present study examined the influence of optimism and appraisals on coping and psychological and physical adjustment in 726 college students. Results from correlational analyses indicated that stress-related appraisals were associated with optimism, coping, and adjustment. Comparative analyses further indicated that optimists (n = 109) and pessimists (n = 110) differed significantly in secondary (but not primary) appraisal, coping, and adjustment. In addition, optimism was found to add significant incremental validity in predicting adjustment, beyond what was accounted for by appraisals and coping. The implications of these findings for understanding the influence of dispositional optimism are discussed.

Dispositional optimism and primary and secondary appraisal of a stressor: Controlling for confounding influences and relations to coping and psychological and physical adjustment.

This investigation reports the development of a multidimensional instrument of stable coping styles that focused on whether one's problem-focused coping efforts were facilitating or inhibiting progress toward resolution of a problem. Study 1 describes the steps in scale construction, including the factor analyses, normative information, and reliability estimates. Study 2 provides initial estimates of the stability of the factor structure and construct, concurrent, and discriminant validity. Study 3 provides evidence for the test-retest stability of the Problem-Focused Style of Coping (PF-SOC) factors, an examination of the relations between the PF-SOC factors and neuroticism as another estimate of discriminant validity, and additional concurrent validity by comparisons with a well-developed coping styles inventory.

W. Calvin Johnson

Papers

Progress in Resolving Problems: A Problem-Focused Style of Coping.