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Abstract
During the first year of college, students are faced with numerous educational and personal stressors which can negatively impact their psychological and physical health. The present study examined the benefits of primary and secondary control for self-rated health in students based on Rothbaum, Weisz, and Synder's (1982) dual-process model of control, and examined stress and gender as potential mediating variables. College students’ (n=888) primary and secondary academic control and perceived stress were assessed in the first semester, and self-rated global health, illness symptoms, and illness-related behaviors were assessed at the end of the academic year. For males, primary control was indirectly related to better overall health and fewer symptoms through lower stress levels, and both primary and secondary control directly corresponded to lower illness behaviors. For females, only secondary control was related to better overall health and illness symptoms, albeit indirectly through reduced stress. The mediational roles of stress and gender in health research on primary/secondary control and potential control-enhancing interventions are discussed.
Notes
1. This study was supported by a Manitoba Health Research Council graduate studentship to N. C. Hall and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Investigator Award to J. G. Chipperfield. This research was also supported by a doctoral fellowship to N. C. Hall and research grants to R. P. Perry from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-99-0435; 410-2003-0059). The assistance of the Motivation and Academic Achievement (MAACH) Research Group was invaluable in the collection of the data. Part of this research was presented at the Western Psychological Association annual convention in Portland, April 2005 (MAACH website: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/psychology/maach/).
2. The constructs of primary and secondary control as represented by the strategies of persistence and positive reappraisal, respectively, are directly consistent with the well-known coping taxonomy of problem- and emotion-focused coping outlined by Lazarus and Folkman (Citation1984). Whereas problem-focused coping strategies involve active efforts to alter the source of stress (e.g., initiation of direct action, increased effort), emotion-focused coping strategies are aimed at reducing the emotional distress caused by the stressor (e.g., reconstruing the situation in positive terms). The primary/secondary control framework was adopted for the present study based in part on research on coping in adolescence conducted by Compas and colleagues in which this terminology is increasingly employed (e.g., Connor-Smith & Calvete, 2004; Wadsworth & Compas, Citation2002). For a comprehensive review and comparison of these and related coping classification systems, see Skinner, Edge, Altman, and Sherwood (2003). For an attributional perspective on the conceptual links between causal attributions, coping, and perceived control, a meta-analytic review of the relations between these constructs and psychological adjustment is provided by Roesch and Weiner (Citation2001).
3. Recent coping research on primary/secondary control and anxiety has also assessed these control constructs as mediators of the effect of stress on subsequent adjustment (e.g., Connor-Smith & Compas, Citation2002; Langrock et al., Citation2002; Wadsworth & Compas, Citation2002), with results suggesting that those higher in stress are less likely to engage in primary and secondary control than their low-stress counterparts. Because this assertion is inconsistent with other theoretical and empirical work highlighting the effectiveness of secondary control particularly in stressful or low-control circumstances (e.g., Chipperfield et al., Citation1999; Heckhausen & Schulz, Citation1995; Thompson, Citation1993 Citation2002; Thompson et al., Citation1998), and studies showing lower levels of anxiety resulting from primary and secondary control (see Primary/secondary control research section), the present study assessed perceived stress as a mediating process underlying the health benefits of these control processes. This approach is also consistent with research on stress and health in college students that presents anxiety as mediating the relationship between cognitive appraisals of stressors (i.e., controllability) and subsequent health status (e.g., Bennett & Elliott, Citation2002; Hemenover & Dienstbier, Citation1998). Nonetheless, it is important to note that because our measures of control and stress were administered at the same time, alternate directions of causality (e.g., stress to control, bidirectional) cannot be ruled out.
4. According to Rothbaum et al. (Citation1982), secondary control is hypothesized to consist of four distinct dimensions including predictive, illusory, vicarious, and interpretive control. Prediction enables one to avoid disappointment by attributing potential failure experiences to limited ability, whereas construing luck as a personal attribute, not unlike ability, can provide an illusory sense of control. Similarly, identification with powerful others permits vicarious control, and interpretive control is achieved through construing meaning in one's situational limitations.