Coping with Daily Stress: The Role of Conscientiousness

The current study examined how specific coping strategies mediate the relationship between Conscientiousness (C) and positive affect (PA) in a large, multiethnic sample. Using an internet-based daily diary approach, 366 participants (37.6% Caucasian, 30.6% Asian American, 20.7% Hispanic, 9.1% African American) completed measures that assessed daily stressors, coping strategies used to deal with those stressors, and PA over the course of five days. In addition, participants completed a measure of the Five-Factor Model of Personality. Problem-Focused coping partially mediated the relationship between C and PA. Individuals higher in C used more problem-focused coping, which, in turn, was associated with higher PA. The findings of the current study suggest C serves as a protective factor from stress through its influence on coping strategy selection. Other possible mediators in the C-PA relationship are discussed.     

Emotion and the evaluative feature of all behavior

The Psychological Record -     

Gender differences in patterns of emotional distress following heart transplantation

The study provides the first empirical evaluation of gender differences in psychological symptomatology and DSM-III-R major depressive disorder (MDD) across the first year following heart transplantation. An important goal was to identify physical health-related and psychosocial factors that could account for, or mediate, any association between gender and psychological distress. The sample for the present analyses was drawn from a larger cohort of 172 heart recipients and included all 28 women in the cohort plus 118 men who were matched demographically with the group of women. Detailed patient assessments were completed at 2, 7, and 12 months posttransplant. As expected, women's symptom levels were consistently higher than men's. However, while men's symptom levels in all areas declined with time posttransplant, women's distress in the area of depression initially improved but then worsened by the 12-month assessment. The distribution of episodes of MDD showed a temporal pattern of gender differences similar to that of depressive symptoms. The most important mediators of the gender-depression relationship were factors related to early posttransplant daily functional limitations: women reported more impairments in daily activities. Higher levels of such impairments, in turn, predicted subsequently higher depression levels by 12 months posttransplant. Several additional variables pertaining to transplant-related concerns and a low sense of personal mastery—while not serving as mediators—exerted their own independent effects on 12-month depression levels. The findings are relevant to the tailoring of educational and clinical interventions to the individual needs of women and men who receive heart transplants.Roberta G. Simmons, Ph.D., died on February 15, 1993, during data collection for this paper.