Carpio, Karen Nicole C.

BSN 3A
A. Research on the following:
1. Measuring Stress and Coping Styles
• The COPE Inventory
The COPE inventory was created by Carver (1989). It is a multi-dimensional inventory
developed to assess the different coping strategies people use in response to stress.
COPE stands for Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced.

The inventory is a list of statements that participants review and score. There are two
main components to the COPE inventory: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused
coping.

Five scales aim to measure each of these:

Problem-focused coping

1. Active Coping
2. Planning
3. Suppression of Competing Activities
4. Restraint Coping
5. Seeking of Instrumental Social Support
Example statements from the inventory include ‘I concentrate my efforts on doing
something about it’ and ‘I take additional action to try to get rid of the problem.’

Emotion-focused coping

1. Seeking of Emotional Social Support

2. Positive Reinterpretation
3. Acceptance
4. Denial
5. Turning to Religion
Example statements from the inventory include ‘I discuss my feelings with someone’ and
‘I seek God’s help.’

It also contains three scales aimed at measuring coping responses:

Carpio, Karen Nicole C.
BSN 3A
1. Focus on and Venting of Emotions
2. Behavioral Disengagement
3. Mental Disengagement
Example statements from the inventory include ‘I get upset and let my emotions out’ and
‘I get upset, and am really aware of it.’

• The Carver Brief COPE Inventory

One of the challenges and criticisms of the COPE Inventory was its length. The Brief
COPE Inventory was adapted by Carver (1997) and is an abbreviated version of the full
COPE Inventory.

The Brief COPE Inventory consists of only 28 statements, across two scales, and is more
focused on understanding the frequency with which people use different coping strategies
in response to various stressors. Participants using the inventory, score themselves from
1 to 4 with 1 being ‘I haven’t been doing this at all’ and 4 being ‘I’ve been doing this a lot.’

Statements from the scale include things like:

o I’ve been turning to work or other activities to take my mind off things.
o I’ve been concentrating my efforts on doing something about the situation
I’m in.
o I’ve been saying to myself, “this isn’t real.”

• The Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES)

Similar to the COPE Inventory, the Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES) was created to
measure an individual’s confidence in their coping strategies when it comes to handling
challenges and stressors.
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BSN 3A
It was authored by Chesney et al. (2006) in partnership with Dr. Albert Bandura from
Stanford University and initially developed for use with staff and patients at the Center for
AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.

The CSES contains 26 items which are prefaced by the statement ‘When things aren’t
going well for you, or when you’re having problems, how confident are you that you can
do the following.’

Example statements include things like:

o Make new friends.

o Do something positive for yourself when you are feeling discouraged.
o Make unpleasant thoughts go away.
o Think about one part of the problem at a time.

• The Brief Resilient Coping Style (BRCS)

The Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS) is an even shorter measure of resilient coping,
designed by Sinclair and Walston (2004), to capture an individual’s ability to cope with
stress in highly adaptive ways.

When the researchers say brief – they mean brief! The measure contains only four
statements, that participants rate from 1 (Does not describe me at all) to 5 (Describes me
very well).

After giving each of the four statements a score, participants sum up their responses for
a final score. A high score – between 17 and 20 – indicates that you are a highly resilient
coper, and a low score – between 4 and 13 – suggests that you are a low resilient coper.

• The Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI)

The Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI) was developed by Greenglass and Schwarzer
(1998). The PCI was created to measure different proactive approaches to coping and
contains seven subscales to achieve this:

o Proactive Coping
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o Preventive Coping
o Reflective Coping
o Strategic Planning
o Instrumental Support Seeking
o Emotional Support Seeking
o Avoidance Coping
There are 55 statements in total in the inventory, and participants are asked to give each
statement a score between 1 (Not at all true) and 4 (Completely true). Example
statements include:

o I like challenges and beating the odds.

o I visualize my dreams and try to achieve them.
o Despite numerous setbacks, I usually succeed in getting what I want.
o I try to pinpoint what I need to succeed.
The statements are grouped by the subscale they relate to (so the examples above all
relate to the Proactive Coping subscale) and then totals are used to ascertain which
subscales of coping you use the most.

• The Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI)

The Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI) was created by Bodenmann (2008) and is slightly
different from the other scales mentioned in this article in that it was specifically developed
to be used within close relationships, for when one or both partners are experiencing
stress.

It contains 37 statements that aim to measure communication and dyadic coping. Dyadic
coping relates closely to partners in close relationships and strategies include:

o Supportive
o Delegated
o Negative
o Joint
Dyadic coping also involves:
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BSN 3A
1. One partner’s attempt to reduce the stress of the other partner.

2. A joint effort from both partners to deal with stress that may impact their
relationship.

The DCI contains six subscales that ask each person to reflect on how they communicate
stress to their partner, how their partner responds, how their partner communicates they
are stressed, how they react to their partner’s stress, how they behave when both partners
are stressed, and how you cope as a couple.

Example statements include:

o When my partner feels he/she has too much to do, I help him/her out.
o When my partner is stressed, I tend to withdraw.
o We help one another to put the problem in perspective and see it in a new light.
Each statement is given a score between 1 (Very rarely) and 4 (Very often). Higher scores
reflect higher dyadic coping for each of the subscales.

• The Multidimensional Coping Inventory (MCI)

Many of these coping measures suffer from a variety of psychometric weaknesses. A self-
report instrument, the Multidimensional Coping Inventory (MCI), was constructed that
identifies 3 types of coping styles: task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-
oriented coping. Support for the multidimensional nature of the MCI is presented, along
with support for the reliability of the MCI coping scales. Overall, the results suggest that
the MCI is a valid and highly reliable multidimensional measure of coping styles.

• Coping Strategy Indicator (CSI)

The Coping Strategy Indicator (CSI) is a self-report measure of situational coping

encompassing the strategies of avoidance, problem solving and seeking social support.
The first scale, Problem Solving, assesses instrumental, problem-oriented approaches to
active management of stressors (e.g., “Brainstormed all possible solutions before
deciding what to do”) and is derivative of primitive ‘‘flight’’ tendencies. The second scale,
Seeking Social Support, measures attempt at human contact during times of duress for
the comfort such contact provides (e.g., “Confided your fears and worries to a friend or
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BSN 3A
relative”). The last scale, Avoidance, reflects tendencies to escape the problem, both by
means of physical and psychological withdrawal for example, through distraction or
fantasy (e.g., “Avoided being with people…” and “Buried yourself in a hobby…”) and is
derivative of ‘‘flight’’ tendencies.

• Positive Coping Behavior Inventory (PCEI)

Positive coping strengths are important personal resources in helping employees deal
constructively with the complex interaction between the individual and the work
environment (Demerouti & Bakker, 2011). Constructs relating to positive emotion (e.g.
emotional intelligence, positive affect, happiness), cognition (e.g. hope, optimism,
problem-solving, self-acceptance, self-esteem), intrinsic motivation (e.g. locus of control,
resilience, self-efficacy, flourishing) and interpersonal interactions (e.g. extroversion,
agreeableness, social support) are inherent to positive coping behavior and seen to
facilitate better adjustment to stressful life events (Hammer, 1988; Marx, 2016; Proyer,
Gander, Wellenzohn & Ruch, 2014). Measuring individuals’ positive coping strengths in
a valid and reliable manner has therefore become an important endeavor for scholars
and practitioners as studies have shown important links between positive coping
constructs and positive work and organizational outcomes such as work engagement, job
satisfaction, productivity, well-being and low turnover intention (Mayer, 2014;
Rothmann, 2014; Van der Heijde, 2014).

• Maladaptive and Adaptive Coping Styles

Adaptive coping strategies generally involve confronting problems directly, making

reasonably realistic appraisals of problems, recognizing and changing unhealthy
emotional reactions, and trying to prevent adverse effects on the body. Maladaptive
coping includes using alcohol or drugs to escape problems.
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BSN 3A
• Emotional Approach Coping Scale (EACS)

Emotional approach coping can be assessed using the emotional approach coping scales
developed by Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, and Dan off-Burg in 2000. The scales involve two
distinct subscales of items: emotional processing and emotional expression. Emotional
processing and emotional expression scales are positively correlated but distinct. The
emotional processing items reflect an attempt to understand, consider and examine
emotions in response to a stressful event. For example, “I acknowledge my feelings” and
“I take time to figure out what I’m really feeling.” Emotional expression items assess
attempts to verbally and non-verbally communicate and share emotions. Sample items
include: “I allow myself to express my feelings” and “I feel free to express my
emotions.” The emotional approach coping scales have been tested and validated using
situational (i.e., what do you do in response to a specific stressor) and dispositional (i.e.,
what do you do in general) instruction sets. The scales are uncorrelated with social
desirability. In addition to English, the emotional approach coping scale has also been
validated in Norwegian and Turkish.

• The Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS)

Coping styles play an important role in physical and psychological wellbeing. This role is
especially evident when individuals are confronted with negative or stressful life events.
The way people cope with illness is an important factor in their recovery and subsequent
adjustment. The CISS represents a new direction in understanding the important
interaction between stressful events and the ways in which we deal with them. The CISS
scales were derived from both theoretical and empirical bases, and have been used in a
variety of research and applied settings. Because of the theoretical and empirical bases
of the scales, there is a context for interpreting test results and relating scores on this
measure to other health and personality variables. The multidimensional approach to the
assessment of coping affords greater precision in predicting preferred coping styles, and
contributes to understanding the differential relationships between coping styles and other
personality variables. The CISS is useful in assisting with assessment and placement
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decisions for psychiatric patients, medical patients, stress and wellness programs,
inmates of correctional centers, and counseling situations

References:

6 Scales to Measure Coping + The Brief Cope Inventory (positivepsychology.com)

APA PsycNet
Measure: Coping Strategy Indicator (force.com)
Examining the construct validity of the positive coping behavioural inventory | Coetzee | SA Journal of
Industrial Psychology (sajip.co.za)
Stress, Coping, and Health: Coping | SparkNotes
Technical (pearsonclinical.co.uk)