How do people cope with stress? building the everyday coping scale and mapping its nomological net

Abstract

The diverse and fragmented use of coping scales in past research has made it challenging to understand how people cope with stress in their daily lives. With over 100 different coping scales utilized in the literature, encompassing more than 400 coping factors, there remains significant disagreement regarding the conceptualization of coping factors and their relationships to external psychological variables. To bring some order to the coping literature, the present studies aimed to develop the Everyday Coping Scale (ECS) based on an overarching structure derived from existing coping scales and to map a nomological net of coping strategies using the ECS. To build the ECS, Study 1 culled coping strategies from an extensive review of 24 existing coping scales designed to assess adults’ coping strategies. This study explored the underlying structure in a large sample (N = 419) using exploratory factor analysis. A five-factor model of coping was identified, comprising proactive coping, social support, helplessness, religious support, and distancing. To validate this five-factor model, Study 2 tested its factor structure in a separate large sample (N = 329) using exploratory structural equation modeling. The five-factor model of the ECS proved robust, demonstrating good internal consistency as well as acceptable convergent and divergent validities with personality and religious traits. To map a nomological net of coping strategies, Study 3 conducted a diary study relating the five coping factors to situational (i.e., actual affect, ideal affect) and dispositional (i.e., personality, and religious motivations) variables. The results revealed significant links between the coping factors and the psychological variables examined. Collectively, these studies support the utility of the ECS for assessing coping strategies and systematically relating them to psychological correlates. Keywords: coping strategies, coping scale, Everyday Coping Scale, personality, affect

Date of Award	2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Supervisor	Michelle YIK (Supervisor)