Lawrence H. Cohen

The role of neuroticism in daily stress and coping.

The authors examined the influence of neuroticism (N) on the occurrence of different types of daily events, primary and secondary appraisals of those events, use of specific coping strategies, and end-of-day negative mood. College students completed questionnaires at the end of every day for 14 consecutive days. When reporting their most stressful event of each day, high-N individuals, compared with low-N individuals, reported more interpersonal stressors and had more negative primary and secondary appraisals and reacted with more distress in response to increasingly negative primary and secondary appraisals. Compared with low-N individuals, high-N individuals used less-adaptive coping strategies (e.g., hostile reaction) and reacted with more distress in response to some types of coping strategies. The appraisal findings, in particular, help to explain the chronic negative affectivity associated with neuroticism.

Religious and nonreligious coping with the death of a friend

Interviewed 96 undergraduates about their coping with the recent death of a close friend. Measures assessed characteristics of: (a) the event (e.g., months since death); (b) the respondent (e.g., intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness); (c) religious and nonreligious causal appraisals; (d) religious and nonreligious coping strategies; and (e) general and event-related outcomes (e.g., dysphoria, personal growth). Data were analyzed by path analysis and models were constructed for each outcome variable, showing how each of the elements of the coping process was predictive of later elements in the models. As expected, person and event variables, attributions, and coping activities were predictive of each outcome in complex ways. One intriguing set of findings concerned the complex role of intrinsic religiousness, which was indirectly related to increased personal growth and decreased dysphoria, but was directly related to increased event-related distress. Overall, the results point to the important role of religion in the coping process.

Chronic stress in the lives of college students: Scale development and prospective prediction of distress

This article reports the development of the 54-item College Chronic Life Stress Survey (CCLSS) and its use in prospective studies of the relationship between chronic stress and psychological distress in college students. Study 1 demonstrated the CCLSSs test-retest reliability and concurrent validity (best friend corroboration of specific items). Study 1 also revealed differential endorsement of specific CCLSS items as a function of gender and year in college. Study 2 cross-sectional and prospective analyses showed that CCLSS chronic stress was a significant predictor of distress. Study 3 cross-sectional analyses showed that the CCLSS effects withstood the statistical control of neuroticism. The findings suggest the value of future research on chronic stress and demonstrate the utility of the CCLSS in studies with college students.

Efficacy of Personal Response Systems (“Clickers”) in Large, Introductory Psychology Classes

Four sections of introductory psychology participated in a test of personal response systems (commonly called “clickers”). Two sections used clickers to answer multiple-choice quiz questions for extra credit; 2 sections did not. Even though we used clickers very minimally (mainly to administer quizzes and give immediate feedback in class), their use had a small, positive effect on exam scores. On anonymous course evaluations, students in 1 clicker section reported that regular attendance was more important, but otherwise, students in clicker sections (compared to traditional sections) did not report feeling significantly more engaged during class. We suggest that future researchers might combine clicker technology with other, established pedagogical techniques.

Positive life events and social support and the relationship between life stress and psychological disorder

ConclusionIn conclusion, the present research demonstrated the deleterious effects of negative life events. Number of negative events was a significant predictor of psychological disorder even when initial disorder was statistically controlled. The cross-sectional regression findings provided some support for the stress-buffering effects of positive life events, but these effects were nonsignificant when initial disorder was statistically controlled. The cross-sectional and prospective regression findings suggest that received social support, as measured by the ISSB, does not have a direct or stress-buffering effect on psychological disorder. These analyses, however, demonstrated the direct and stress-buffering effects of perceived social support, as measured by the ISEL, and the data suggest that the ISEL is a promising measure of this construct.

Sex roles and social support as moderators of life stress adjustment

In this study we used a longitudinal design to test the stress-buffering effects of sex role orientation in combination with perceived social support on measures of trait anxiety and depression. College undergraduates served as subjects. The cross-sectional analyses provided strong support for the hypothesis that masculinity would function as a life stress buffer. The hypothesis that social support would serve as a stress buffer when coupled with high masculinity was supported by one of the cross-sectional analyses as well as the longitudinal analysis. This pattern was found primarily for perceptions of tangible social support. The longitudinal analysis also revealed a significant interaction involving negative life events and masculinity and femininity. This interaction effect provided unexpected support for a balance model of androgyny, in that non-sex-typed subjects showed greater resilience to recent life stress than did sex-typed subjects. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the study of life stress adjustment.

Intrinsic religiousness as a stress‐moderator for adult Protestant churchgoers

In this study we examined the stress-buffering effect of an intrinsic religious orientation for a community sample of adult Protestant churchgoers. At time 1, participants completed measures of intrinsic religiousness, religious activity, and dysphoria. At time 2, 8 months later, they completed measures of negative life events and dysphoria. For participants from liberal Protestant churches (e.g., Methodist), intrinsic religiousness served as a stress-buffer in the prediction of time 1–time 2 residual change in dysphoria. This effect was nonsignificant for participants from more conservative Protestant churches (e.g., Baptist). Similarly, single-item measures of religions importance, frequency of prayer, and frequency of church attendance served as stress-buffers for liberal participants, but not for conservative participants. The nonsignificant effects for the latter participants are attributable to their restricted range on the religion variables. The results for the former participants suggest that religious “commitment” is an individual difference variable that influences adjustment to negative life events.

Locus of control and control perceptions and the relationship between life stress and psychological disorder

ConclusionThe deleterious effects of negative life events were demonstrated, even with a relatively restricted range of negative experiences and the inclusion of a number of statistical controls. Employing a conservative multivariate regression model and a prospective design, the present study found that negative life events were consistently positively related to measures of psychological disorder. There was, however, no evidence for the moderating effects of dispositional locus of control beliefs and control perceptions of experienced life events, and it seems that the field awaits more refined conceptualization and measurement of life experiences and hypothesized moderator variables before explanatory and predictive models will yield significant and consistent returns.

Distress among women receiving uninformative BRCA1/2 results: 12‐month outcomes

Objective: Few data are available regarding the long‐term psychological impact of uninformative BRCA1/2 test results. This study examines change in distress from pretesting to 12‐months post‐disclosure, with medical, family history, and psychological variables, such as pretesting perceived risk of carrying a deleterious mutation prior to testing and primary and secondary appraisals, as predictors.

The Personality Belief Questionnaire-Short Form: Development and Preliminary Findings

Two studies are reported which document the development and psychometric properties of an abbreviated version of the Personality Belief Questionnaire (PBQ). In the first study, the seven PBQ items with the highest item–total correlations with each PBQ scale were used to construct experimental scales. These scales showed good internal consistency and discriminated five personality disorders as predicted. Items from the experimental scales were then incorporated into a new measure—the PBQ Short Form (SF)—which was administered to an independent sample of psychiatric patients. The PBQ-SF scales showed good reliability and correlated significantly with depression, anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, neuroticism, self-esteem, and psychosocial functioning. Findings suggest that the overall elevation of a PBQ-SF profile is influenced by a general distress factor, whereas variability of PBQ-SF scales within a profile reveals disorder-specific effects. It is concluded that the PBQ-SF is a practical alternative as a measure of personality disorder beliefs.