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Coping Strategies In Adolescents

Kristin Williams

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 Coping Strategies in Adolescents
Kristin Williams and Ann McGillicuddy-De Lisi
Lafayette College

Children and adolescents report that they experience stress in their lives and that they
attempt to cope with that stress. Although most research on stress and coping has focused
on adults, recent attention to adolescents suggests there are developmental changes in
coping during adolescence and that particular coping strategies vary with gender and the
type of stressors adolescents experience. This study examined coping strategies used by
male and female students in early, middle, and late adolescence when they were coping
with two different types of stressors: daily hassles and major life events. Older adolescents
used a greater variety coping strategies and used methods that directly reduce the impact of
the stressor and involved a cognitive component (e.g., planful problem solving; reappraisal)
more often than younger adolescents. Adolescents in all age groups varied their strategies
in relation to the type of stressor, but there were no significant gender differences. The
findings suggest that significant changes during a relatively short period during adolescence
may affect adaptive processes and have implications for intervention efforts aimed at
reducing the negative effects of stress during this period of development.

Adolescence is recognized as a particularly stressful period of development. During

this period adolescents simultaneously deal with physical and cognitive transforma-
tions; the challenges of changing family and peer relationships, including sexual
relationships; school transitions with accompanying changes in peer groups, social
complexity, and educational demands and expectations; and decisions about school-
ing and careers (Boekaerts, 1996; Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993; Rice, Herman, &
Petersen, 1993). Both children and adolescents report experiencing stress in their
lives and report attempts to cope with that stress, although most research on stress
and coping has been focused on adults (Stern & Zevron, 1990). Furthermore, Seiffe-
Krenke (1993a) acknowledged that few of the studies of coping strategies used by
adolescents focus on developmental changes in coping behaviors or on how coping
strategies may vary with gender and with different types of stressors experienced
at different stages of adolescence.
Such developmental changes and group differences have implications for the
ways that parents, teachers, and health practitioners help adolescents cope with
stress as well as for the adaptive value of particular coping strategies for adolescents

Direct all correspondence to: Ann McGillicuddy-De Lisi, Department of Psychology, Lafayette Col-
lege, Easton, PA 18042 ,McGillia@Lafayette.edu..

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 20(4): 537–549 Copyright  2000 Elsevier Science Inc.
ISSN: 0193-3973 All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

537
538 WILLIAMS AND MCGILLICUDDY-DE LISI

themselves. In addition to providing knowledge of how development may affect and

be affected by coping responses, information concerning normative development of
coping strategies throughout the period of adolescence is necessary for the promo-
tion of healthy adaptation to stress through intervention when it does not naturally
occur (Roosa, Wolchik, & Sandler, 1997). To obtain such information, the coping
strategies used by male and female adolescents in three age groups in response to
two different types of stressors were investigated in the present study.

Age Differences
There are several reasons to predict that changes occur from early to late
adolescence that affect coping. Aspects of cognitive development are cited as a
source of these changes, including greater skill in making inferences about internal
states; learning through observation of others; an increased awareness of different
coping strategies that result from developmental advances in problem-solving abili-
ties; increasing cognitive complexity and maturity; greater empathy and perspective-
taking abilities; and greater metacognitive awareness and increasing regulation of
emotions, of situations, and of emotion-driven behaviors (Eisenberg, Fabes, &
Guthjrie, 1997; Seiffe-Krenke, 1993b).
In addition to cognitive changes within the adolescent, aspects of the social
environment change from early to late adolescence, and these too are likely to induce
changes in the types of coping strategies used. For example, younger adolescents
experience greater strain concerning issues with their parents, whereas older adoles-
cents most often report academic issues as salient stressors (Wagner, Compas, &
Howell, 1988; Timko, Moos, & Michelson, 1993). In addition, the nature of social
relationships and social supports changes concurrently with shifts in stressors. Dis-
cussions with parents become less salient and restricted to a narrower range of
issues, and the importance of peer discussion increases. Finally, individuals in early
adolescence may be stressed more than older adolescents, in part because multiple
transitions that cause stress occur simultaneously at earlier ages (Seiffe-Krenke,
1993b). The coping strategies used by individuals during different phases of adoles-
cence are likely to vary with cognitive advances and with the particular life demands
and social supports that are characteristic at early, middle, and late periods of
adolescence.
Several findings suggest that types of coping strategies used by adolescents do
change with age. Frydenberg and Lewis (1993) found that younger adolescents
reported that they dealt with stress by working more and distracting themselves
from the problem, whereas older adolescents used tension reduction techniques
more often than younger adolescents. This finding is consistent with Compas, Oro-
san, and Grant’s (1993) conclusion that emotion-focused coping strategies increase
in frequency through adolescence. Emotion-focused strategies manage or reduce
distress and can involve problem avoidance through ignoring the issue, withdrawal,
or expressing negative feelings. They assert that problem-focused coping strategies,
which involve making decisions and planning solutions that manage or remedy the
problem, have already emerged by adolescence and do not appear to change in a
consistent manner over the course of middle to late adolescence. Examples of
 COPING STRATEGIES 539

problem-focused coping include strategies to obtain instrumental or social support

as well creating cognitive plans to address the issue. The literature reviewed did
not establish what particular types of emotion-focused strategies increase during
this period, however.
Compas et al. (1993) noted that there were some findings that conflicted with
the pattern of increase in emotion-focused coping and inconsistent changes in
problem-focused coping, however. In addition, Seiffe-Krenke (1993b) found that
coping strategies classified as both problem-focused and emotion-focused increased
with age through adolescence. Gibson, Westwood, Ishiyama, Borgen, Showalter,
Al-Sarraf, Atakan, Fuimares, Guisti-Ortiz, Robertson, Shafrir, De Weerdt, Velazco,
Baker, Dikaiou, Gabay, Kashyup, Lee, Felce di Paula, Ngunangwa, and Talyzina
(1991) reported that the most frequently reported types of coping strategies across
almost 4000 adolescents in 17 countries were problem focused.
Some studies have not found any age-related changes in coping during adoles-
cence, however. For example, Dusek and Danko (1994) and Stern and Zevron
(1990) found few age differences in either problem-focused or emotion-focused
coping. Analysis of age differences in coping suggest that there is not a simple one-
to-one correspondence between advancing age through the adolescent years and
development of coping skills, although there is considerable evidence that changes
occur during this period. Previous research suggests that both the type of stressor
considered and gender may play a role in the developmental pattern of coping
behaviors. Each of these factors will be considered in the present study of develop-
mental patterns of coping strategies during the adolescent years.

Types of Stressful Events

Major life events and daily hassles are two types of stressors that appear to
affect coping processes of adults. Daily hassles are more proximal, focusing on the
day-to-day disruptions in one’s life, and they occur with greater frequency than
major events. Daily hassles have been found to be a better predictor of adjustment
difficulties than major life events (Sandler, Wolchik, MacKinnon, Ayers, & Roosa,
1997).
However, both types of events must be examined in relation to coping and
changes that may occur with age during adolescence. Compas, Wagner, Slavin, and
Vannatta (1986) have emphasized life transitions as particular periods of vulnerabil-
ity to stressful events. Adolescence is such a period, characterized by change, loss,
and disruption of prior structure in one’s life. Individuals undergo changes in simul-
taneous domains and must tackle many new issues on a daily basis, making adjust-
ment more difficult.
Major life events are seen as critical or traumatic events and are often nonnor-
mative in nature. For adolescents, such major life events may involve parental
divorce, death of a loved one, changing schools, and so forth. Although major life
events occur less often than daily hassles, they are rated more negatively and are
appraised as more challenging and threatening to one’s coping abilities. Davis and
Compas (1986) suggested, based on the responses of students who ranged from
early to late adolescence, that major life events are viewed as especially difficult
540 WILLIAMS AND MCGILLICUDDY-DE LISI

stressors because they occur infrequently, and they are viewed as particularly unde-
sirable.
Caspi, Bolger, and Eckenrode (1987) noted that most of the research on stress
and coping focuses on major life events but assert that daily stressors have enduring
effects and magnify the difficulty of coping with major events as well. An understand-
ing of day-to-day changes is necessary to clarify how the dynamic transitional process
of adolescence is manifested in changing coping strategies. Research on children’s
coping suggests that major stressful events affect the child’s environment so as to
create multiple minor stressors that then have a negative impact (Roosa et al.,
1997).
The distinction between major life events and daily hassles has not been included
in the design of most studies of coping during adolescence. An exception is Rice
et al.’s (1993) longitudinal study of mental health. Their analysis suggests that
coping responses and the developmental path of mental health varies with both
the number and type of stressors considered. Investigations of age patterns in coping
must take the effects of different types of stressors into account because the pattern
of development could vary with both age and the type of stressor.

Gender
Frydenberg and Lewis (1991) studied coping strategies used by 16- to 18-year-
old adolescents. They reported that males and females did not differ from one
another in their use of strategies that focus on changing the environment or on
generating alternative solutions. However, females were more likely than males to
seek social support and to engage in wishful thinking. Girls preferred avoidance
strategies because they believed the situation was not within their control. Boys
were more likely to actively confront the problem in an attempt to resolve it, were
more willing to take risks, or were likely to make light of the situation.
A number of studies report similar findings with respect to gender differences
in coping during adolescence. Female adolescents are more likely than males to
rely on social support, increasing their interpersonal involvement and using a broad
range of coping strategies that can be characterized as both problem focused and
emotion focused. Male adolescents, however, report that they use ventilation strate-
gies more often, relying on humor and physical recreation, or they report self-control
through passive diversions, ignoring the problem, or suppressing their reaction more
often (Bird & Harris, 1990; Copeland & Hess, 1995; Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993;
Halstead, Johnson, & Cunningham, 1993; Puskar & Lamb, 1991).
Gender differences in coping are not found in all studies of adolescents, how-
ever. For example, a lack of significant differences between adolescent boys’ and
girls’ coping strategies when dealing with daily hassles have been reported (Band &
Weisz, 1988; Timko et al., 1993). Stern and Zevron (1990) reported that the nature
of the stressor was an important characteristic related to coping strategies but that
neither gender nor age effects were significant.
The most consistent findings with respect to gender differences in coping are:
(1) female adolescents seek social support more often than male adolescents; (2)
male adolescents use ventilation, ignore the problem more often, or both, although
 COPING STRATEGIES 541

some contradictions, including nonsignificant differences, occur in the literature as

well. Rice et al. (1993) noted that even if gender differences are found to be a
reliable effect after entry into adolescence, it is not clear when they arise.
As a result of considering the patterns of findings regarding age, gender, and
types of stressors in relation to coping, the present study was designed to investigate
coping strategies in male and female students who were in early, middle, and late
adolescence. Students in three age groups were asked to report the strategies they
used to cope with a particular daily hassle and a particular major event that had
occurred recently in their own lives. The purpose of the study was to clarify patterns
of development when age, gender, and type of stressor were considered simultane-
ously. Such information is important to the daily life of adolescents and to the
adults who model and help adolescents develop adaptive and effective means of
coping with normative stress.

METHOD
Participants
One hundred nine students from three schools participated in the study. Thirty-
four of the students were from a middle school (grades 6–8), 37 were from a high
school (grades 9–12), and 38 were students enrolled in a psychology course in a
private college. The mean (and SD) age of the participants in each of the three
groups was 12.0 (9.1), 15.6 (.83), and 19.1 (1.2) years. A total of 58 girls and 51
boys participated. The number of males and females who participated was 14 and
20, 15 and 22, and 22 and 16 for the early, middle, and older adolescent groups,
respectively. The sample was predominantly white, and the schools drew their
populations from predominantly middle-class communities. The study was reviewed
by the institutional review board of the authors’ institution. Notices that provided
information about the requirements of the study were distributed to students in
class and were sent home to parents of the students in the middle school and high
school. Informed consent was obtained from both parents and participants for
students in the middle school and high school groups, and it was also obtained from
the students in the college group. The college students received extra credit in the
course for their participation. All students who volunteered were included in the
study.

Measures and Procedure

Data were collected from students in small groups of 6 to 8 people in a classroom
in the students’ schools. Students first completed the Adolescent Perceived Events
Scale (Compas, 1987a) to facilitate the adolescents’ retrieval of major and daily
stressful events. The instructions that were printed at the top of the questionnaire
were read aloud to the group. Participants were asked to indicate if each event
listed on the scale had happened to them in the past 6 months and if so, to classify
it as a major event or daily hassle, each of which was defined in the instructions.
After all people in the group had completed this first questionnaire, they were
542 WILLIAMS AND MCGILLICUDDY-DE LISI

asked to choose the daily hassle and the major event that they had recently experi-
enced that was the most stressful.
A modified version of the eight subscales of the Ways of Coping Checklist
(Folkman & Lazarus, 1988; Halstead et al., 1993) was then administered. In this
questionnaire, 66 items represent eight different ways of coping: confrontative
coping (“tried to get the person responsible to change his or her mind”), distancing
(“didn’t let it get to me,” “refused to think about it too much”), self-controlling
(“I tried to keep my feelings from interfering with it too much”), seeking social
support (“accepted sympathy and understanding from someone”), accepting respon-
sibility (“realized I brought the problem on myself”), escape-avoidance (“avoided
being with people in general”), planful problem solving (“I made a plan of action
and followed it”), positive reappraisal (“the experience helped make me a better
person”). Each statement is presented with a 4-point Likert-type scale next to each
item (0 5 not used; 1 5 used somewhat; 2 5 used quite a bit, 3 5 used a great
deal).
The participants completed the coping questionnaire once in relation to the
major event selected by the student as most stressful and once in relation to the
selected daily hassle. The student was asked to indicate the extent to which she or
he used each strategy in the situation that was selected as the most stressful major
event or daily hassle by circling a number on the scale. The scores were summed
across items comprising each coping category and then divided by the number of
those items to yield a score from 0 to 3 representing the degree to which that
strategy was used. Each participant received 16 scores, one for each of the eight
types of coping strategies in reference to major stressors and one for each type of
strategy in relation to daily stressors.
The order of administration for major events versus daily hassles was counter-
balanced across participants in each age group. Cronbach alphas ranged from .52
to .78 for the eight subscales and were similar across age groups. These values are
comparable (.61 to .79) to those reported for adult samples (Folkman & Lazarus,
1988).

RESULTS
The median number of daily hassles that students reported they had dealt with in the
past 6 months was 15. The median number of major events was 10. All participants
reported that they had been confronted with at least one major life event in the
preceding 6-month period. There were no age or gender differences in the number
of hassles or major events reported.
Mean (and SD) scores for each coping strategy used by adolescents in each of
the three age groups are presented in Table 1. A 3 (age) 3 2 (gender) 3 2 (type
of stressful event) 3 8 (coping strategy) mixed design analysis of variance was
conducted on the ratings given for each coping strategy to determine if the use of
these strategies varied with age, gender, and type of stressor. Contrary to expecta-
tions, gender was not involved in any significant main or interaction effects.
A 3 3 2 3 8 analysis of variance with type of event and type of coping strategy
as within factors was therefore applied to the coping strategy scores. The results
 COPING STRATEGIES 543

Table 1. Mean (and SD) Coping Strategy Scores for

Three Adolescent Age Groups

Age Group
Early Middle Late
Strategy Adolescence Adolescence Adolescence
Confrontative 1.16 (0.66) 1.16 (0.57) 1.07 (0.49)
Distancing 1.07 (0.71) 1.01 (0.51) 1.17 (0.54)
Self-Control 1.10 (0.60) 1.31 (0.45) 1.51 (0.42)
Social Support 1.16 (0.70) 1.23 (0.65) 1.37 (0.53)
Responsibility 1.11 (0.76) 1.34 (0.54) 1.60 (0.52)
Escape-Avoidance 1.02 (0.61) 1.20 (0.49) 1.18 (0.52)
Problem Solving 1.23 (0.65) 1.55 (0.52) 1.77 (0.60)
Reappraisal 1.41 (0.65) 1.38 (0.51) 1.63 (0.54)
Total 1.16 (0.54) 1.27 (0.34) 1.41 (0.32)

of the analysis indicated that adolescents in the three age groups differed from one
another in the total use of coping strategies: F(2,106) 5 3.61, p , .03). When the
use of all coping strategies together was considered, mean comparisons revealed
that the oldest participants indicated a greater degree of reliance on coping strategies
to resolve the problems they had recently experienced than the youngest adolescents
did (mean 5 1.16, 1.27, and 1.41 for the early, middle, and late adolescence groups,
respectively).
The analysis revealed that differences in use of different types of coping strate-
gies were also significant: F(7,742) 5 15.86, p , .001). Planful problem solving and
positive reappraisal to cope with problems were used most often (mean over all
age groups 5 1.53 and 1.47, respectively). Distancing, confrontation, and escape-
avoidance were used least frequently to cope (mean 5 1.08, 1.13, and 1.14, res-
pectively). Follow-up tests indicated that planful problem solving and positive
reappraisal were used more often than strategies that involved escape-avoidance,
distancing, or confrontative coping.
These findings were subsumed under a significant age 3 type of coping strategy
interaction, F(14,742) 5 2.67, p , .001. This effect indicates that adolescents in
some age groups were more likely to use certain coping strategies than students in
other age groups. Tukey Honestly significant difference (HSD) tests were used to
compare mean differences. The pattern of differential use of strategies varied across
the three age groups. As the means in Table 1 show, the use of confrontative coping,
distancing, and escape-avoidance did not vary with age, but the use of planful
problem solving, accepting responsibility, and of self-control strategies increased
steadily across age groups, with the youngest adolescents using these strategies less
frequently than the middle adolescents who in turn used them less often than those
in late adolescence. In addition, the youngest adolescents used social support and
positive reappraisal less frequently than adolescents in the oldest group, although
positive reappraisal was the most frequently used coping strategy by the young
adolescents.
The strategies adolescents used to deal with problems also depended on whether
544 WILLIAMS AND MCGILLICUDDY-DE LISI

Table 2. Mean (and SD) Coping Strategy Scores for

Major Life Events and for Daily Hassles

Type of Stressor
Coping Strategy Major Life Events Daily Hassles
Confrontative 1.13 (0.69) 1.13 (0.61)
Distancing 1.07 (0.66) 1.10 (0.62)
Self-Controlling 1.33 (0.59) 1.30 (0.58)
Social Support 1.34 (0.78) 1.17 (0.68)
Responsibility 1.31 (0.80) 1.40 (0.73)
Escape-Avoidance 1.20 (0.64) 1.07 (0.58)
Problem Solving 1.47 (0.70) 1.59 (0.75)
Reappraisal 1.53 (0.62) 1.42 (0.66)

they were considering a daily hassle or a major event when they reported their
coping strategies. Age did not play a role in this effect, however. The mean (and
SD) reported use of each of the eight strategy types is presented in Table 2 for
type of stressor. As the means show, there was a significant interaction between
type of coping strategy and whether the stressor was a daily hassle or a major life
event: F(7,742) 5 2.81, p , .01. The adolescents reported that their use of positive
reappraisal, accepting responsibility, self-controlling, distancing, and confrontative
coping did not vary with the nature of the type of the stressor, but their use of
planful problem solving, escape-avoidance, and seeking social support did depend
on whether the problem was a daily hassle or a major event. Escape-avoidance and
seeking social support were each used more often to deal with major life events
than to deal with daily hassles. Planful problem solving was used more often when
dealing with daily hassles than with major events.

DISCUSSION
Sandler et al. (1997) reported statistics that suggest exposure to stress is a normative
aspect of childhood and adolescent life in America. The findings of the present
study suggest that most adolescents have several strategies for adapting to these
stressors, but that there are important age differences in coping that appear during
adolescence. These findings address the issue of which types of coping behaviors
increase and decrease in relative frequency and the timing of such changes within
the period of early to late adolescence. Findings suggest that adolescents develop
new coping strategies that increase the flexibility and range of responses to stress.
This is significant because such change is likely to enhance resilience and lead to
adaptive outcomes as adolescents experience varied sources of stress during this
period (Eisenberg et al., 1997).
The finding that older adolescents reported using coping strategies in dealing
with problems more frequently than younger adolescents is an important one that
is seldom addressed in studies of coping. When ratings were summed over all types
of strategies, the average index of use was found to be significantly higher for
students in late adolescence than those in early adolescence, with the middle adoles-
 COPING STRATEGIES 545

cent group ratings in between. Older adolescents may use more strategies than
those in early adolescence because they are more likely to try alternative strategies
in their repertoire of coping skills when the initial coping strategy is not effective.
This report of increasing use with age could reflect changes in cognitive ability or
increased skill in using coping strategies. For example, in the areas of memory and
problem solving, development in metacognition has been found to lead to higher
performance levels as children become aware of how different strategies help them
in these domains (Wellman & Gelman, 1992). Such cognitive changes could produce
increasing awareness regarding the efficacy of coping strategies to address problems.
If this is a source of change in the use of coping strategies, then training or interven-
tion efforts during adolescence may benefit from attention to developing metacogni-
tive abilities.
Furthermore, Boekaerts (1995) suggested that younger adolescents may be
especially vulnerable to stress specifically because they are less skilled in appraising
situations and making decisions about coping strategies. In her view, these younger
adolescents also have less access to peer social support, with peers often functioning
as a source of stress rather than a resource. This position is supported by the
relatively low use of social support as a coping strategy by the youngest versus
oldest adolescents in the present study and has implications for preventive and
intervention efforts with young adolescents. For young adolescents, a focus on
enhancement of metacognitive skills such as situation appraisal, effectiveness evalu-
ation, and awareness of alternative problem-focused strategies is more likely to
increase effective and adaptive coping than emphasis on social supports, for ex-
ample.
The developmental literature on memory and problem-solving strategies also
suggests that there is a change in ability to implement and benefit from cognitive
problem-solving strategies that may have a parallel in the coping domain. Miller
and Seier (1994) described a developmental progression in memory and problem-
solving performance in which children move from evidencing production deficienc-
ies (an inability to generate strategies to solve a problem) to control deficiencies
(the ability to generate strategies to solve problems is evidenced but the child applies
them to real-life problems in an inconsistent manner) to utilization deficiencies
(strategies are appropriately generated and applied but the child fails to benefit from
those strategies until they become proficient in using them). If such a developmental
pattern exists for coping strategies during the period of adolescence, awareness of
varied alternatives would not be sufficient to ensure that a range of strategies could
be effectively used by the younger or middle adolescent. Older adolescents’ greater
use of coping strategies in general are consistent with such developmental progres-
sions in strategy use that have been observed for other types of cognitive tasks.
Some social-cognitive intervention methods such as practice, role playing, and
scaffolding may be useful techniques for increasing and stabilizing strategies as they
are incorporated into the adolescent’s repertoire of coping mechanisms.
Information about the particular types of coping strategies adolescents at differ-
ent ages used was also provided by the current study. As the means in Table 1
show, the youngest adolescents preferred positive reappraisal more than nearly
every other coping mechanism. Positive reappraisal is a forward-looking cognitive
546 WILLIAMS AND MCGILLICUDDY-DE LISI

approach in the sense that these strategies focus on positive benefits that could
accrue, usually in the future, as a result of the stressor. This early view of coping
is optimistic and, when viewed in the context of changes in coping in middle
and late adolescence, is also cause for optimism about growing adolescent coping
abilities.
Those in middle adolescence used planful problem solving, positive reappraisal,
accepting responsibility, and self-control as often as the younger adolescents relied
on positive reappraisal. This suggests that one advance in coping that occurs from
early to middle adolescence is that a greater range of coping mechanisms become
an active component of adolescents’ repertoire of coping strategies. Students in
middle adolescence did not appear to replace the major coping strategy of early
adolescence with different ones, but added other types of strategies to their battery
of coping mechanisms.
By late adolescence these strategies (planful problem solving, positive reap-
praisal, accepting responsibility, and self-controlling) are joined by the strategy of
seeking social support, and each was used significantly more often by older adoles-
cents than by the youngest adolescents. Those coping strategies that were used
most in early and middle adolescence do not drop out in late adolescence, however.
This finding suggests that after a strategy has been used effectively it continues to
remain available rather than being replaced by newly acquired or more sophisticated
strategies. This pattern can be viewed as an accommodation in the development
of new coping schemas. In such a conceptualization, the development of coping
strategies is a dynamic process in which the coping schemas are elaborated and
expanded, increasing flexibility as the strategies for coping with everyday or major
life events are reorganized.
It is likely that as cognitive maturation and exposure to normative stressors
through life experiences occur, the developing adolescent not only becomes aware
of varied coping strategies but becomes more capable of attending to and evaluating
the specific features of the stressful situation, making increasingly effective choices
about their responses, a process that may include an evaluation of positive outcomes
of their strategy. As the adolescent develops increased information-processing abili-
ties in attention and evaluation, efforts to enhance adaptive coping can be increas-
ingly focused on the addition of new strategies without fear of displacing prior
means of coping that are working for the adolescent for some problems.
The types of strategies that arise in middle adolescence and become a significant
source of coping, as compared with those used in early adolescence, have several
features in common. They tend to have a cognitive component and are more active
attempts both to deal with distress and to manage the problem rather than involving
avoidance behaviors (e.g., planful problem solving, self-controlling versus distanc-
ing, escape-avoidance). The increase in accepting responsibility as a means of coping
is also consistent with cognitive changes during adolescence. For example, Rice et
al. (1993) noted that young adolescents often do not see themselves as responsible
agents but rather as the recipients of actions or events. A sense of adolescent
egocentrism and a lack of a sense of agency may make acceptance of responsibility
unlikely to be recognized by adolescents as a viable approach to problems until
relatively late in the teen years.
 COPING STRATEGIES 547

The strategies that were used more often by the oldest than the youngest
adolescents are ones that directly act on or reduce the stressor. Several of the
strategies used more frequently by older adolescents than younger adolescents
(planful problem solving, positive reappraisal, self-control) also have more of a
cognitive component than many of the other possible strategies. Note that although
positive reappraisal was the most frequently used strategy by the youngest adoles-
cents, adolescents in the oldest group did tend to use it significantly more often
than the youngest participants.
In addition to changes in the frequency and types of coping strategies, adoles-
cents of all ages appear to vary their strategies depending on the nature of the
stressor. The particular strategies used appear well suited to the different type of
situation—the cognitive approach of planful problem solving to resolve daily hassles
and seeking social support and escape-avoidance in the face of major life events.
Major life events have been reported to be perceived as very undesirable, very
challenging to coping resources, and as infrequent events with which the adolescent
has had little experience (Compas, 1987b). Such events may be accompanied by a
lower sense of control. Adolescent girls interviewed by Frydenberg and Lewis
(1991) revealed that they were more likely to use social support seeking and avoidant
coping when they believed the problem was outside of their control. Such a response
appears more likely to occur when stressors are major life events rather than daily
hassles.
Planful problem solving seems well suited to daily hassles. Frequent or recurring
issues that provide many opportunities to apply problem-solving plans are less likely
to be seen as outside of one’s control and as debilitating as major life events.
However, Sandler et al. (1997) report that minor daily stressors are related to
adaptive problems over and above the effects of major life events. The finding that
adolescents, regardless of age, indicated that planful problem solving was used more
often with daily hassles points to the importance of developing coping strategies
with this cognitive strategy throughout adolescence. The finding that adolescents
of all ages varied coping strategies for daily hassles and major life transitions suggests
that even young adolescents, in contrast with younger children (cf. Sandler et al.,
1997) are able to vary their response to different types of stressors.
The findings regarding age differences and variability in types of strategies
used for different kinds of stressors are consistent with and extend theoretical
formulations of adolescent development and prior empirical findings regarding
coping. This was not the case with respect to gender differences in coping. Although
gender differences have not been universally observed during adolescence, the
literature suggested females would endorse avoidant or social support strategies
more often than males. However, most previous studies of coping have used hypo-
thetical questions or have asked adolescents how they typically respond to a global
stressful event. These techniques have been criticized, however, on the basis that
they obscure the breadth of coping strategies that adolescents may use in everyday
life (Compas, 1987a; Compas et al., 1993). Therefore, in the present study, a list of
specific stressors were reviewed by adolescents who recalled which daily hassles
and major life events they had experienced in the past 6 months. The most stressful
hassle and most stressful major event recently encountered were selected and served
548 WILLIAMS AND MCGILLICUDDY-DE LISI

as the referent for their reported coping strategies. Gender differences in coping
may be more evident in hypothetical or global and ambiguous situations presented
to students because such scenarios require more inferences about the nature of the
stressor and efficacy of coping responses. If boys and girls are socialized to perceive
stress differently as some researchers contend (e.g. Olah, 1995), gender differences
are more likely to appear to the extent that responses involve greater degrees of
inferences about the stressor. In any case, different patterns of results have been
found to occur between studies that present a standard or hypothetical stress and
those that elicit a report of a personally experienced stress (Halstead et al., 1993),
suggesting that this is a factor to be explored in studies of individual differences in
coping. The findings of the present study are in accordance with those that suggest
males and females each attempt to cope with stressors in a variety of ways that
become more diverse and adaptive with development through the adolescent years.

Acknowledgments: The authors thank Dr. Susan Basow for helpful comments
regarding the design of the study.

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