HASSLES, COPING STYLES, AND NEGATIVE WELL-BEING

This article examines the moderating effects of coping styles on the adverse impact of daily hassles. In separate studies, university students (N = 186) and high-school teachers (N = 165) responded to measures of the following: hassles; task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping; perceived stress; psychiatric symptomatology; and minor physical ailments. The precise contributions of coping styles and hassles x coping interactions to perceived stress and psychiatric symptomatology differed somewhat across populations. Furthermore, they were modest in magnitude compared to the effects of hassles alone. In the case of minor ailments, coping styles and hassles x coping interactions made no predictive contribution over and above hassles in either sample. It was suggested that coping might be more usefully conceptualized in terms of ability rather than style.