Emotional approach and problem-focused coping: A comparison of potentially adaptive strategies

Abstract

This study examined for whom and under what circumstances emotional-approach coping and problem-focused coping are differentially more effective. Eighty-nine participants identified a current stressful situation and then were randomly assigned to either: (a) write for 15 minutes about their feelings (emotional-approach coping); or (b) write about how to solve their problem (problem-focused coping). Participants also completed a self-report measure that assessed how they coped during the two weeks after the exercise. Coping effectiveness was assessed by measuring positive affect, negative affect, and physical symptoms. Dimensions of emotional processing (e.g., clarity and attention to emotions) were assessed using self-report. Gender, type of stressful event (interpersonal vs. achievement), and individual differences in emotional processing moderated the effect of type of coping on positive affect.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Carol Baker and Patrick Palmieri for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

¹Only data from those who attended both sessions (n=89) were included in the analyses. An additional 5 women and 4 men attended the first but not the second session.

²The results of analyses examining the individual scores (e.g., ambivalence over emotion) resembled the results using the composite clarity/communication score, which is not surprising since the scales are all highly intercorrelated.

³We did not form a composite measure from the two social-support subscales (seeking social support for emotional reasons and seeking social support for instrumental reasons) for theoretical reasons. In reviewing recent taxonomies of coping (e.g., Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003) there was disagreement concerning how to organise adaptive emotional-approach coping strategies, particularly if emotional-approach coping should be a higher-order category in its own right or be included with problem solving. We separated instrumental support from emotional support because instrumental support (e.g., “I talk to someone who could do something concrete about the problem”) is more organised around control or competence, is elicited by appraisals of challenge, and therefore seems associated (or confounded) with problem-focused coping. Emotional support (e.g., “I discuss my feelings with someone”) is also elicited by appraisals of challenge but is organised around relatedness or attachment, and therefore appears to be less confounded with problem-focused coping.

⁴Thus, some of the emotional awareness measures (e.g., TMMS) were administered at Time 1, whereas others (e.g., TAS-20) were administered at Time 2. The patterns of results were quite similar whether we examined only those emotional awareness instruments administered at Time 1, only those instruments administered at Time 2, or the composite scores described above.