Coping, affect and aging: the roles of mastery and self-esteem

Abstract

The relationships between coping, affect and aging were examined using mastery and self-esteem as mediators of the aging–coping–affect associations. The sample included 168 young and old community residents who completed the dispositional coping strategies questionnaire [COPE scale; Carver, C.S., Scheier, M., & Weintraub, J.K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: a theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 267–283], as well as mastery, self-esteem and affect inventories. The results showed high levels of mastery, self-esteem and problem/accommodation meta-strategy of coping to contribute independently to positive affect, while low levels of mastery and self-esteem contributed to negative affect. Older people reported low levels of negative affect as well as lower levels of mastery than the younger ones, but no age-related differences were observed for positive affect, self-esteem, or coping strategies. Furthermore, mastery mediated the effects of aging on coping strategies. Unexpectedly, perceived health status, independently of age, was related to low levels of mastery and self-esteem while perceived economical situation or education level were not related to these variables. The study results imply that the use of efficient coping strategies in certain groups such as old people may be enhanced by elevating feelings of mastery.

Introduction

Folkman, Lazarus, Pimley, and Novacek (1987) claimed that “it is not stress per se, but how people cope with it, that affects health and well-being” (p.171). Indeed, the concept of coping has acquired a prominent place in present theories of stress and adjustment; it is currently being studied as a reaction, strategy, tactic, behavior or cognition (Schwarzer & Schwarzer, 1996), and is discussed under such topics as function, style and resource. The present research aims at assessing the associations between dispositional coping and general affect in young and old people, trying to delineate the roles of mastery and self-esteem as coping resources that may mediate the use of effective coping strategies in old age.

According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984), coping represents the cognitive and behavioral efforts of individuals to manage stressful encounters. These efforts result in a variety of activities, classified according to problem-focused and emotion-focused modes, as differentiated by their function (Folkman and Lazarus, 1980, Folkman and Lazarus, 1985, Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Problem-focused coping includes various actions aimed at managing future danger or threat, expressed in the efforts the person invests in order to actually change his/her interaction with the environment. Emotion-focused coping, in contrast, is aimed at reducing, preventing or tolerating the emotional and bodily reactions that are characterized as stressful.

Following Lazarus and Folkman, various coping models and techniques have been proposed (e.g. Amirkhan, 194, Endler and Parker, 1990, Holahan et al., 1996, Moos and Billings, 1982, Moos and Schaefer, 1993, Schwarzer and Schwarzer, 1996). One of the most comprehensive frameworks was described by Carver, Scheier, and Weintraub (1989), and Scheier, Carver, and Bridges (1994), with coping differentiated into 15 strategies according to three types: problem-focused strategies, which are considered effective and adaptive; and two types of emotion-focused strategies, with some considered functional and sometimes even helpful in solving the problem, and others seen as ineffective and dysfunctional. On the basis of factor analysis, Carver et al. (1989) reported a four-factor structure of coping strategies: problem, emotion, avoidance and acceptance coping. Ben-Zur (1999) reported a structure of three factors: (1) problem/accommodation coping, composed of problem-focused strategies (e.g. active coping) as well as accommodation strategies (e.g. positive reinterpretation and growth); (2) emotion/support coping, composed of approach type of emotion-focused strategies (e.g. looking for social support for emotional reasons); and (3) avoidance/disengagement, composed of avoidance type of emotion-focused coping (e.g. denial).

Lazarus and Folkman (1984) emphasized situational coping, based on a dynamic process involving evaluations and re-evaluations of the interplay between the person and the environment. In contrast, dispositional coping refers to the consistent coping responses of individuals across different time points (Folkman and Lazarus, 1985, Holahan et al., 1996, Terry, 1994). Carver et al. (1989) measured coping as a trait or state, with positive correlations obtained for dispositional and situational uses of coping. Carver and Scheier (1994) found dispositional coping to be related positively to exam-related coping for the majority of the 13 COPE strategies tested, though weak associations were found between these strategies and threat or harm emotions.

The present research tested the associations of dispositional coping strategies with affective responses. A current, prominent approach to emotion posits a general distinction between two dimensions of emotional experience, termed Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA; Bryant et al., 1996, Tellegen, 1985, Watson and Clark, 1992). NA describes subjective distress and dissatisfaction and is composed of negative emotional states, such as anger, fear, sadness, guilt, contempt and disgust. PA, in contrast, reflects the co-occurrence of positive emotional states, such as joy, interest, excitement, confidence and alertness. The two dimensions are considered to be highly distinct, with relative independence between these two presumably opposite poles, and have been investigated both as states and traits.

Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988) suggest that Trait PA is positively related to extraversion and negatively related to depression, while Trait NA is associated with anxiety/neuroticism. In addition, they report on studies that have shown NA to be related to stress and health complaints, while PA is found to be related to social activity and satisfaction. It should be noted that the PA/NA construct has been investigated in numerous studies on mood and distress, but it is also considered to be part of the affective aspect of well-being and quality of life. Psychological well-being is composed of cognitive and affective components and is defined as a subjective global state of satisfaction and positive mental health (Lawton, 1984), with two of its main characteristics being positive and negative affect. Costa and McCrae (1984) also claim that positive affect and negative affect are independent contributors to global well-being and have differential associations with extraversion and neuroticism.

Based on Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) claim that coping strategies may affect short-term reactions as well as long-term well-being, it is expected that people who use the more efficient problem-focused coping strategies will be characterized by high levels of well-being as indicated by positive affect, while the use of either emotion-focused coping or avoidance will show an opposite pattern.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the associations between coping and personal characteristics (McCrea & Costa, 1986). Carver et al. (1989) found dispositional problem-focused strategies to be related to Type A behavior and optimism, and emotion-focused strategies to be related to trait-anxiety. Watson and Hubbard (1996) tested coping dispositions within the framework of the five-factor model of personality, revealing that neuroticism is associated with passive and ineffective coping mechanisms, conscientiousness with active problem-focused coping, and extraversion with support strategies and positive reinterpretation. The present research focused on mastery and self-esteem as two characteristics that may change with age, as well as relate to both coping and affective outcomes.

Mastery and self-esteem are personality characteristics claimed to be strong defenses against stressful consequences (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984, Pearlin and Schooler, 1978). Mastery refers to whether one regards life occurrences as being under personal control or under fatalistic control (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978), and Burger (1989) defined it as the “perceived ability to significantly alter events” (p. 246). The literature suggests that perceiving a link between one's own actions and outcomes is an important cognition that can lead to problem-focused coping and action (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). It might also lead to better adaptation when individuals experience a variety of major stressors, such as when patients are recovering from heart surgery (Fitzgerald, Tennen, Affleck, & Pransky, 1993).

High self-esteem refers to the positive attitude towards oneself, and it is defined globally as “the level of global regard that one has for the self as a person” (Harter, 1993, p. 88). A recently published review suggests that positive self-esteem is an essential component of mental health, associated with positive affect acting as a resource that influences the outcomes of stressful life events (Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999). High self-esteem is also related to coping strategies considered efficient. Carver et al. (1989) reported on positive correlations between self-esteem and active coping or planning, while negative correlations were observed for avoidance strategies.

In testing coping responses and processes, Pearlin and Schooler (1978) found that self-esteem and mastery are particularly helpful against strain in areas involving conditions of direct control (such as job and finances). It is expected that both mastery and self-esteem will be positively associated with high levels of well-being and problem-focused coping and negatively associated with emotion-focused and avoidance types of coping.

In addition to personal characteristics, age is another variable believed to have an impact on dispositional coping. Several hypotheses have been offered in the past in relation to age and coping. The “developmental” hypothesis suggests that as people become older, certain inherent, stress-related changes occur, with the resulting use of either more mature or more primitive coping options (Folkman et al., 1987), and with possible interactions with gender. The alternative hypothesis suggests that age differences are the result of “contextual” changes, that is, as people age, they have to deal with changes in the sources of stress. Folkman et al. (1987) showed that across a wide variety of life domains, young people use more active, problem-focused coping than older people, while the latter use more passive, emotion-focused coping than the former. In addition, no age by gender interaction was observed. All in all, the developmental hypothesis was confirmed, with the suggestion that the patterns of problem- and emotion-focused coping used by younger and older people, respectively, are effective insofar as they are related to differential assessments of the changeability of stressful encounters.

Similar results were obtained by Blanchard-Fields, Jahnke, and Camp (1995), who showed age differences in problem-solving style, with older adults (65–75 years) using less problem-focused coping and more passive-dependent coping than either adolescents, young or middle-aged adults. However, Costa amd McCrae (1993) suggested, on the basis of the results of a longitudinal study (McCrae, 1989), that aging has little effect on coping and concluded that coping responses are in part a function of the enduring characteristics of individuals.

Even if young and elderly people do not basically differ in their use of coping strategies, they may differ in other aspects of life. For example, socioeconomic status often gets higher and health status gets lower with age, and these are considered resources that can affect the ability to use problem- or emotion-focused coping. Similarly, perceived control may diminish with age (Aldwin, 1991), due to the accumulating effect of physical and environmental limitations. A lower sense of control or mastery, in turn, may lead to a lesser use of problem-focused coping.

The present research followed the theoretical framework of Moos and Schaefer (1993), which encompasses a coping model of resources and demographics as variables that affect both coping strategies and outcomes, with coping mediating the effects of resources and demographics. The research tested the main effects of coping strategies on positive and negative affect, together with mastery, self-esteem, age, and several background variables. In addition, the mediating and moderating effects of coping and personal resources were also examined, as depicted in Fig. 1.

The present research used a structure of three meta-strategies of coping (Ben-Zur, 1999): Problem/accommodation (Problem), Emotion/support (Emotion), and Avoidance/disengagement (Avoidance). The following hypotheses were tested: (1) PA will show positive associations with the Problem meta-strategy, mastery and self-esteem, and negative associations with the Emotion and Avoidance meta-strategies. (2) NA will show negative associations with the Problem-meta strategy, mastery and self-esteem, and positive associations with the Emotion and Avoidance meta-strategies. (3) Mastery and self-esteem will be positively related to Problem meta-strategy and negatively related to Emotion and Avoidance meta-strategy. Thus, coping is expected to mediate the effects of mastery and self-esteem on affect. (4) As people grow older, they will experience less mastery, and possibly lower levels of both PA and NA. In light of the inconsistent associations found between age and coping, no directional hypotheses were put forward in relation to age and coping or affect. However, the study aimed at finding whether mastery and self-esteem, although being related constructs, show the same patterns for young and old people. They were also seen as possible mediators of the effects of age and other background variables (i.e. gender, perceived health status, perceived economic situation and education) on affect. Finally, the possibility of interactions between coping, resources, and aging was tested.