Monitoring and blunting coping styles: The Miller behavioural style scale and its correlates, and the development of an alternative questionnaire

doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)90257-7

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume 17, Issue 1, July 1994, Pages 9-19

https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)90257-7 Get rights and content

Abstract

The present article presents two studies concerning the measurement of monitoring (information seeking under threat) and blunting (information avoidance) coping styles. Study 1 (n = 69) showed that the widely used Miller Behavioural Style Scale suffers from a number of weaknesses such as insufficient internal consistency, susceptibility to correlate with measures of anxiety and other psychopathology, poor quality of scenarios, and moderate face validity. In study 2 (n = 42), an alternative instrument is presented: the Monitoring-Blunting Questionnaire (MBQ). The MBQ has high face validity, good reliability, and is unrelated to trait anxiety. Furthermore, in a “thought experiment” some indications were found for the predictive validity of the MBQ.

References (27)

G.C.L. Davey
A comparison of three worry questionnaires
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(1993)
G.C.L. Davey et al.
Some characteristics of worrying: Evidence for worrying and anxiety as separate constructs
Personality and Individual Differences
(1992)
S.B.G. Eysenck et al.
A revised version of the psychoticism scale
Personality and Individual Differences
(1985)
P. Muris et al.
Monitoring and perception of threat
Personality and Individual Differences
(1993)
P. Muris et al.
Preparation for a frightening picture: Effects of an imposed monitoring and blunting strategy in relation to habitual coping style
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
(1993)
S. Reiss et al.
Anxiety sensitivity, anxiety frequency, and the prediction of fearfulness
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(1986)
G. Steketee et al.
The effect of information and coping style on the reduction of phobic anxiety during exposure
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
(1989)
W.A. Arrindell et al.
Phobic dimensions: I. Reliability and generalizability across samples, gender, and nations
T.K. Bouman
The measurement of depression with questionnaires
D. Gard et al.
Sensitizing effects of pretreatment measures on cancer chemotherapy nausea and vomiting
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
(1988)

S.M. Gattuso et al.

Coping with gastrointestinal endoscopy: Self-efficacy enhancement and coping style

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

(1992)

R. Ludwick-Rosenthal et al.

Preparation for undergoing an invasive medical procedure: Interacting effects of information and coping style

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

(1993)

S.M. Miller

Monitoring and blunting: Validation of a questionnaire to assess styles of information seeking under threat

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(1987)

Cited by (38)

Finding evidence of dispositional coping
2006, Journal of Research in Personality
Data from college students and their parents were used in this longitudinal investigation, the primary goal of which was to examine the conditions under which coping style and coping behaviors are related. Participants completed a dispositional coping measure and reported on their coping with the most stressful event of the week for six weeks. Reports about the participants’ dispositional coping were also collected from the participants’ parents. Findings were consistent with the expectation that style would be a fairly weak predictor of coping in a given encounter but would predict more strongly aggregated coping responses across encounters. Additionally, parents tended to agree with each other about their child’s coping style, but the correlations between child and parental reports were generally small and nonsignificant.
Psychosocial factors associated with perceived disease severity in patients with chronic hepatitis C: Relationship with information sources and attentional coping styles
2005, Psychosomatics
Citation Excerpt :
The patients were provided with definitions of monitoring and blunting and asked to indicate on a 10-point scale (0 = not at all, 10 = very much) the extent to which they would rely on each strategy to cope with each of 10 potentially threatening situations. A subscore was calculated for each coping choice by summing up the scores for the 10 situations.29 Scores for perceived severity from the visual analogue scale were expressed as means and standard deviations.
The aim of this study was to investigate psychosocial factors associated with perceived disease severity, with emphasis on informational processing, in 185 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C. Medical data, information sources regarding chronic hepatitis C, and attentional coping styles were assessed. The patients considered their hepatitis C a severe disease and gave it a mean rating of 74 (SD = 19) on a 100-mm visual analogue scale, but this perception was not related to liver histological severity. In multivariate analysis, age, coping styles (monitoring, blunting), and having a hepatologist as an information source accounted for 23% of the variance of perceived severity. These results suggest that information processing and psychological features play a key role in the way patients with chronic hepatitis C perceive their disease.
Effect of distraction and coping style on in vivo exposure for specific phobia of spiders
2001, Behaviour Research and Therapy
Citation Excerpt :
Finally, another potential limitation was our use of the dichotomous version of the MBSS. Research suggests that the internal consistency of the dichotomous MBSS is not always acceptable (Muris, van Zuuren, de Jong, de Beurs, & Hanewald, 1994) and a 5-point version of the MBSS where participants indicate the extent to which each coping option is applicable to them (e.g., Muris, van Zuuren, & Merckelbach, 1993) is a stronger measure. Future research should also include a follow-up assessment, given evidence that a monitoring coping style may be associated with a greater risk of relapse (e.g., Muris et al., 1993a) and that distraction may interfere with the maintenance of treatment effects (Haw & Dickerson, 1998).
Recent studies have generated mixed findings regarding the effects of distraction on exposure-based treatments. Results have also been inconsistent regarding the effects of monitoring and blunting coping styles on outcome. The present study attempted to integrate these two areas of research. We hypothesized that the effect of distraction on treatment outcome might depend on coping style. Specifically, we predicted that for blunters (i.e., individuals who tend to avoid threat-related information), distraction would interfere with the effects of exposure. However, we predicted that distraction might benefit monitors (i.e., individuals who tend to seek out threat-related information). Sixty individuals with a specific phobia of spiders underwent a single, two-hour session of exposure treatment. During the first hour, half of the participants were distracted by listening to an audiotape and the other half underwent exposure without distraction. In the second hour, all participants underwent focused exposure. Based on measures of heart rate, subjective fear, and behavioral testing, participants improved after one hour of treatment, and improved further during the second hour. However, neither distraction, coping style, nor their interaction had a significant effect on outcome. The present study provides support for the benefits of behavioral treatment for specific phobias. However, our hypotheses regarding distraction and coping style were not confirmed.
Assessment of cognitive coping styles: A closer look at situation-response inventories
2001, Clinical Psychology Review
Cognitive coping style approaches establish two concepts central to the understanding of people's responses to a stressful situation: “attention” and “avoidance”. Theoretical frameworks corresponding to these conceptions are Sensitization-Repression (Byrne, 1961), Monitoring-Blunting (Miller, 1980), and Vigilance-Cognitive Avoidance (Krohne, 1986). Such types of cognitive coping styles are usually measured by means of situation-response inventories. In the present article, we take a closer look at this kind of coping assessment by considering the scenarios, the coping options and response formats, the dimensionality of the constructs, and published data on the reliability and the validity of seven situation-response inventories. Three important points deserve to be highlighted: (a) it probably makes little sense to assess coping style using scenarios that diverge maximally with respect to controllability and predictability since coping is not assumed to show such complete cross-situational stability; (b) similarly named inventories rely on largely different operationalizations and can hardly be considered as measuring similar constructs; and (c) monitoring/vigilance and blunting/avoidance generally emerge as independent constructs, which argues against use of summary scores.
A qualitative study on detecting cancer symptoms and seeking medical help; an application of Andersen's model of total patient delay
2001, Patient Education and Counseling
Patient delay is the interval between the day someone first becomes aware of an unexplained symptom and the day they seek medical consultation. This pre-diagnostic period is comprised of several stages which may involve delay on the part of the individual. This study investigated factors influencing the process of detecting cancer symptoms and consulting a general practitioner (GP). Twenty-three patients were interviewed about their experiences during this process. Among factors stimulating the process of detection and consultation were associating symptoms with cancer, and discussing symptoms with others. Being ashamed or embarrassed about the symptoms and attributing symptoms to common ailments were among the impeding factors. The findings of the present study suggest that future health education on early detection of cancer should focus on increasing knowledge and providing positive information about early detection of cancer. It is recommended that educational materials be disseminated to the general public via more channels, including non-medical channels.
Relations Between Personality and Coping: A Meta-Analysis
2007, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

View all citing articles on Scopus

^☆: This study was part of a dissertation accepted by the University of Amsterdam in fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree.

View full text

Monitoring and blunting coping styles: The Miller behavioural style scale and its correlates, and the development of an alternative questionnaire☆

Abstract

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Phobic dimensions: I. Reliability and generalizability across samples, gender, and nations

The measurement of depression with questionnaires

Sensitizing effects of pretreatment measures on cancer chemotherapy nausea and vomiting

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Coping with gastrointestinal endoscopy: Self-efficacy enhancement and coping style

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Preparation for undergoing an invasive medical procedure: Interacting effects of information and coping style

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Monitoring and blunting: Validation of a questionnaire to assess styles of information seeking under threat

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology