A comparison of coping and safety-seeking behaviors

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives

Safety behaviors display some similarities to coping behaviors, raising questions about whether the two sets of behaviors display distinct associations with anxiety symptoms.

Design and Method

To examine this issue, we conducted two cross-sectional studies in which participants (n = 243 and 157) completed measures of the safety behaviors associated with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), the Brief Ways of Coping Scale (BWOC), and SAD and GAD symptom measures. In Study 1, extant safety-behavior and coping measures were used. In Study 2, the measures were modified so that they followed the same format and instructions.

Results

Both studies indicated that the safety behavior measures displayed strong positive associations with their respective symptoms, as did several dysfunctional coping strategies, most notably wishful thinking.

Conclusions

These findings provide preliminary empirical support for the conceptual distinction between safety behaviors and coping, and suggest that assessing both concepts provide a nuanced understanding of responding to anxiety-evoking situations.

Highlights• Safety-seeking strategies and coping behaviors have striking similarities• We conducted two studies to compare extant measures of the two constructs• Participants were able to distinguish the two set of behaviors• Both safety behaviors and dysfunctional coping were associated with anxiety symptoms

KEYWORDS:

• Safety behaviors
• coping
• anxiety disorders

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Sarah McCuaig, Seung-Jae Pi, Tanya Wattnem and Danielle Kingdon for their careful work as research assistants on this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper, we use the term “safety behaviors” (SBs) to encompass the full range of actions that individuals may use to offset perceived threat.

2 Using a principal components analysis with Varimax rotation. A second analysis using Direct Oblimin rotation to allow for correlations between components produced the same solution.

3 The resulting square root transformed scales were then re-reflected so that scales retained their original directionality.

4 Details of these analyses are available from the second author on request.

5 Details of these analyses are available from the second author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under grant # 435-2018-330 awarded to the second author.