Children's Perception of Relations between Anger or Anxiety and Coping: Continuity and Discontinuity of Relational Structures

Vierhaus M, Lohaus A. Children's Perception of Relations between Anger or Anxiety and Coping: Continuity and Discontinuity of Relational Structures. Social Development. 2009;18(3):747-763.The main research question of this study is whether children's emotional responses to specific stress-evoking situations (anger or anxiety) and the coping strategies they would use are related. Furthermore, it is asked if these relationships are consistent over a specific age range. A total sample of 432 second graders participated in a longitudinal study with repeated measurements at grades 3, 4 and 5. The children were presented with four short descriptions of everyday stressors. They were requested to indicate the intensity of their feelings of anger and anxiety, and to assess the coping strategies they would use in each of the four situations. The results show that anxiety is related to the use of seeking social support, palliative coping, and avoidant coping, whereas anger is associated to externalizing emotional coping. Problem solving appears to be unrelated to the experience of both anxiety and anger. This structure proved to be invariant for grades 2, 3, 4 and 5, and thus may be generalized for the focused age range. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed