The relationship between coping flexibility and self-esteem in interpersonal stressful situations <Research Article>

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between coping flexibility and self-esteem in interpersonal stressful situations. Coping flexibility was defined as the ability to discontinue an ineffective coping strategy (evaluation coping) and produce and implement an alternative coping strategy (adaptive coping). Participants were 271 university students. Results indicated that participants who had high self-esteem showed higher scores in evaluation coping, adaptive coping, self-efficacy, and psychological health than that of those who had low or moderate self-esteem. However, coping flexibility was not related to psychological health. These findings suggest that self-esteem may contribute to improve psychological health