Comparing Coping Strategies in an Interactional Context

44 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.The study examined whether supportive or unsupportive behaviors of a partner and individual differences in coping style moderated the effectiveness of problem-focused and emotional approach interventions. At Time 1 each member of a dyad indicated use of various coping strategies in a self-report. Several days later participants were randomly assigned to either a problem-focused or an emotional approach coping workshop. Positive affect, negative affect, and anhedonic depression were measured at Time 1 and two weeks subsequent to the intervention. Forty-eight dyads, friends of the same gender and known to each other for at least six months, completed the entire study. We found that the following three factors moderated the effectiveness of the emotional approach and problem-focused coping intervention: (a) an individual's environment, specifically having friends who are unsupportive; (b) preferred coping style, specifically participants who typically engage in emotional approach coping; and (c) the interaction of past unsupportive social interactions and preferred coping style.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD