A comparison of two approaches to the assessment of coping styles
Abstract This study examined the association of coping style classifications based on (a) dispositional vigilance (VIG) and cognitive avoidance (CAV) and (b) trait anxiety and social desirability (SD). 281 subjects (123 men, 158 women) completed questionnaires to assess these variables. By applying median splits, subjects were divided into high and low scorers on each dimension. According to both classifications, four coping style groups were operationally defined on the basis of the respective dichotomized variables. Results yielded convergent assignments of repressers (low anxiety and high SD; low VIG and high CAV, respectively), sensitizers (high anxiety and low SD; high VIG and low CAV)…
Interactive effects of state anxiety and trait anxiety on emotional Stroop interference
This study examined main, interaction, and quadratic effects of state and trait anxiety on attentional bias toward threat related stimuli. Students (n=121) completed a card version of an emotional Stroop task. While there were no main effects for trait anxiety or state anxiety, regression analyses revealed a significant contribution of the interaction term of both variables. Only for individuals high in trait anxiety, was state anxiety positively related to Stroop interference. In contrast, the low anxious group showed the opposite response pattern. A quadratic effect of trait anxiety was also found but the interaction term proved to be the most important predictor. Implications of these fi…
Anxiety, coping strategies, and the processing of threatening information: Investigations with cognitive-experimental paradigms
Abstract This review treats individual differences in anxiety and coping from several perspectives. It starts with the argument that structural considerations (often linked to trait concepts) and processing considerations (often linked to situational demands and actual behavior) are not fundamentally in opposition, but that global and uncontextualized trait concepts (e.g., trait anxiety) require revision to incorporate cognitive–affective units such as appraisals, goals, or self-regulatory competencies (cf. Mischel, 2004 ). The article then presents a personality-oriented coping theory (the model of coping modes; MCM; Hock and Krohne, 2004 , Krohne, 1993 , Krohne, 2003 ) which attempts to i…
Relationships between restrictive mother-child interactions and anxiety of the child
Abstract The “two-process model” postulates that there are specific associations between patterns of parental child-rearing styles and the development of the child's anxiety and coping dispositions. Besides parameters of parental feedback to the child, this model considers support and restriction to be the central dimensions of child-rearing behavior. The present study aims at assessing behavioral indicators for restriction. For this purpose, the working and intervention behavior of 47 mothers and their ten- to 13-year-old children was observed and registered during a 15-minute period of common problem-solving (putting together a difficult puzzle-like cube). In order to register processes o…
Anxiety and coping dispositions as predictors of the visual interaction between mother and child
Abstract The “model of coping modes” distinguishes four dispositionally determined patterns of behavior (coping modes) which become apparent in stressful situations: repression, sensitization, nondefensiveness, and high anxiety. Following from this model, the present study is aimed at assessing associations between coping modes and children's looking behavior towards their mothers in a moderately stress-inducing laboratory setting. The visual exchange of 63 mothers and their eight- to 14-year-old children was observed during a ten-minute planning period for a Punch and Judy show which the child had to later perform. A close visual orientation toward the mother was registered for sensitizers…
Continuity and discontinuity in memory for threat.
Using a paradigm that allows a quasi-continuous tracking of memory performance over time, two experiments were designed to test the hypotheses that (a) persons with a cognitively avoidant style of coping with threat manifest a dissociation between (intact) short-term and (reduced) long-term retrieval of aversive information and (b) persons with a vigilant coping style recall aversive information particularly well after long retention intervals, provided they are free to think about aversive events. Study 1 (N = 75) showed that avoiders manifest a poor memory for aversive pictures after long retention intervals only. Study 2 (N = 95) replicated this finding. In addition, manipulation of the …
Construct validity of the anxiety sensitivity index-3 in clinical samples
"Using two clinical samples of patients, the presented studies examined the construct validity of the recently revised Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3). Confirmatory factor analyses established a clear three-factor structure that corresponds to the postulated subdivision of the construct into correlated somatic, social, and cognitive components. Participants with different primary clinical diagnoses differed from each other on the ASI-3 subscales in theoretically meaningful ways. Specifically, the ASI-3 successfully discriminated patients with anxiety disorders from patients with nonanxiety disorders. Moreover, patients with panic disorder or agoraphobia manifested more somatic concerns …
Assessing attention allocation toward threat-related stimuli: a comparison of the emotional Stroop task and the attentional probe task
This study examined the association of two widely used measures of attention allocation toward or away from threat-related stimuli: The emotional Stroop task and the attentional probe task. Fifty-three participants responded to computer versions of both tasks where stimuli were presented both subliminally and supraliminally. Thus, four indexes indicating attention allocation were computed for each participant. A correlation analysis showed that the attentional probe index and the emotional Stroop index were associated within each presentation mode while all other relations were nonsignificant. These results are discussed in terms of a distinction between preattentive and attentional process…
Cognitive avoidance, positive affect, and gender as predictors of the processing of aversive information
Abstract The study investigated the influence of cognitive avoidance, positive affect, and gender on the evaluation of and memory for threat-related information varying in degrees of aversiveness and ambiguity. Stimulus material consisted of threatening, nonthreatening, and ambiguous pictures. First, valence ratings of the stimuli were collected. This phase was followed by a first memory test. A second memory test was administered three days later. Memory for aversive information was influenced by cognitive avoidance, positive affect, and gender. Avoiders exhibited a comparatively good memory for aversive information in the first (immediate) test and a very poor memory in the delayed testin…