Moderating effect of coping flexibility over waiting patiently as a coping strategy for interpersonal stressors and depressive symptoms

Abstract

Objective: The present study examined the moderating effect of coping flexibility on the association between the coping waiting patiently for interpersonal stressors and depression. Coping flexibility refers to devising and implementing suitable coping strategies according to the situation, coping was defined in this study as holding oneself back and not acting prematurely to address a stressful relationship. Participants: A total of 481 Japanese college students. Methods: Participants completed questionnaires to measure coping, coping flexibility, perceived stress, and depression using a longitudinal design. Results: Multiple regression analysis showed that an interaction between coping and coping flexibility was associated with depression. This result indicated that higher levels of coping was associated with lower depression 16 weeks later when coping flexibility was higher, but the association was not observed when coping flexibility was lower. Conclusions: Our findings contribute to elucidating the condition or process whereby the strategy of waiting patiently as a coping mechanism for interpersonal stressor reduces depression.

Keywords:

• Coping behavior
• coping flexibility
• depression
• interpersonal stress

Author contributions

All works, including conceptualization, funding acquisition, all writing, data curation, methodology, formal analysis, are contributed by the author.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Japan and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Toyo University.

Data sharing and declaration

The data are available from the author upon reasonable request.

Ethnical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with APA ethical guidelines for the participation of human subjects, the ethical standards of the Toyo University institutional review board, and the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in this study.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.