Publication details
Optimism And Coping Strategies In High School Students (poster)
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2010 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In our research we measured the relationship between coping strategies and optimism in high school students. Coping strategies were based on a transactional approach to coping, which emphasizes the situational aspect in the selection of coping strategies, and emphasizes the appraisal of the situation itself. Optimism was assessed from the perspective of M. Seligman, as a learned response, not as an innate personality trait. Research was conducted in 97 high school students (40 men, 57 women) aged 15-19 years (average age 16.94 years, median 17 years) using the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI, Tobin, Holroyd, Reynolds, 1984) and Test of learned optimism (Seligman, 1991). Using content analysis, we found that the most demanding situations that occur in students' statements, was related to school and family problems. Descriptive statistics showed that students in dealing with demanding situations frequently use engagement coping strategy - cognitive restructuring and social support, but also achieve a high level of disengagement (non-adaptive) strategy wishful thinking, which is in accordance with other studies in adolescents quite often. The factors underlying the most common explanatory styles are represented in the following two factors: the persistence of good situations and bad personalization. Using correlation analysis we found only one (negative) significant correlation between social isolation (disengagement strategies focused on emotions) and pervasiveness (globality) of good situation. In this case, there were gender differences: in males we found negative correlations between cognitive restructuring of demanding situations and pervasiveness of bad situation and personalization bad. In women, we found a significant negative correlation between social isolation and pervasiveness of good situation and a positive correlation between the expression of emotion and personalization good. |