An Examination of Associations Among Psychopathology, Personality, and Coping

Associations among personality, coping, and psychopathology have long been established (e.g., Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen, & DeLongis, 1986; Kobasa, 1979; Wheaton, 1983). This study assessed reported distress on the MMPI-2-RF (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008), coping and appraisal styles via the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ; Garnefski, Kraaij, & Spinhoven, 2001, 2002) and Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI; Greenglass, Schwarzer, & Taubert, 1999), personality traits on the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999), and exposure to and perception of stressors on the Adolescent Perceived Events Scale (APES; Compas, Davis, Forsythe, & Wagner, 1987). In the current study mediational analysis was employed to assess whether coping helped explain how and why the relationship between personality and psychopathology exists. Additionally, exposure to and perception of stressors was measured and compared to psychopathology and coping styles. Although coping did not mediate the relationship between personality and psychopathology as conceptualized in this study, implications are discussed regarding the associations among constructs