A computer-based avatar task can differentiate avoidant and non-avoidant coping styles^*

* The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

ABSTRACT

Background/Objective: Coping styles play a role in how individuals respond to stress and therapy. One aspect of coping which has been linked to adverse outcomes including anxiety disorders and PTSD is avoidance. However, a tendency to avoid may affect the accuracy of paper and pencil inventories used to identify avoidant temperaments. Previously, we showed that a computer-based task in which an on-screen “avatar” is guided through a series of onscreen events could predict avoidance including behavioral inhibition, harm avoidance, and self-reported PTSD symptoms. Since some coping styles involve avoidance, we extended this work to determine whether scores on the avatar task would also differentiate avoidant and non-avoidant coping styles as measured by the Brief COPE.

Methods: One hundred and fifty undergraduates voluntarily completed the avatar task and the Brief COPE.

Results: Scores on the avatar task had a significant positive relationship with an aggregate score for the five avoidant coping styles and a significant negative relationship with an aggregate score for the nine non-avoidant coping styles.

Conclusions: The effectiveness of the avatar task to differentiate coping styles based on avoidance further validates this task and also shows selectivity to avoidant coping styles as opposed to other non-avoidant coping styles.

KEYWORDS:

• Coping styles
• avoidance
• computer-based task
• avatar
• anxiety vulnerability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by Merit Review Awards #I01 CX000771 and #I01 CX001826 from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Clinical Sciences Research and Development Service to CEM.