Date of Award

1994

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Understanding how preschool children cope is a first step toward identifying adaptive ways of coping which reduce stress and ultimately can decrease the risk of dysfunctional behavior. However, the literature on preschooler's coping is minimal, in part due to the lack of assessment tools. This research examined preschoolers coping with daily stress in an attempt to assess what coping styles would be used across different situations.I hypothesized that family environment and temperament would affect the coping style used and that temperament would moderate the effects of the family environment.A secondary question concerned the efficiency of the coping. In order to accomplish this, a scale was developed to assess coping across four situational domains.Using mothers as the primary reporter,the preschooler's temperament,family functioning and coping behaviors were assessed and the relationships were examined.I investigated the ability of family control and cohesiveness,child temperament and an interaction of cohesiveness and temperament to predict coping styles. This model was very good at predicting coping in situations where a child was trying to master a task; adequate for predicting coping in emotional situations; and has limited predictive ability in parent-child or peer situations. There was some support for the moderating effects of temperament. Temperament was a robust predictor of coping style, whereas family cohesion was not.Other findings suggest that children who have emotional temperaments used emotional types of coping.Children in families with more interfamily cohesion, or whose parents have higher levels of education, used more cognitive behavioral-problem solving.Ratings of coping efficacy resulted in cognitive-behavioral problem solving being most effective in Mastery situations,moderate emotional coping being most effective in Parent-child domain and highly emotional coping was rated as most effective in Emotional situations.

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