98 COPING RESOURCES
included information to reassure and address anxiety. Messages that were matched to
monitoring style were more effective in promoting uptake of mammography during
the following six months. However, the difference was only significant for blunters,
for whom it may be particularly important to provide messages that are appropriate.
A similar approach was also useful in promoting fruit and vegetable consumption,
though here the monitor message was particularly successful (Williams-Piehota et al.,
2009). Furthermore, Kola et al. (2013) found that matching information to suit the
monitoring/blunting coping style of patients minimized the distress of patients under -
going colposcopy (an investigative procedure commonly used following abnormal
cervical smears). Overall, these studies suggest tailoring messages to be appropriate
to the coping styles of recipients is important for health psychologists and medical
practitioners.
Personality, coping dispositions and situational coping
We have discussed situational and dispositional approaches to coping, separately.
However, coping styles and strategies are interrelated and function within the context
of general personality. Many studies have examined links between personality and
coping strategies, especially neuroticism and optimism. Hewitt and Flett (1996) suggest
that the relationship between personality and coping can be conceptualized in terms
of the three types of relationships between variables shown in Focus 5.2. Thus for the
mediational model, personality would determine coping style or strategy, which then
determines adjustment. In the additive model, personality and coping have independent
effects and in the interactive (or moderation) model coping may buffer the impact of
personality on adjustment.
Bolger (1990) found that coping strategies mediated the relationship between
personality and anxiety in the face of medical school entrance exams such that the
personality trait of neuroticism led to ineffective coping. Specifically, they found that
two ineffective coping strategies (wishful thinking and self-blame) mediated over half
of the effect of neuroticism on anxiety. Fortunately, they found no effect of neuroti -
cism on exam mark! Coping styles may also moderate the effects of personality. For
example, O’Connor and O’Connor (2003) found that the negative effects of trait
perfectionism on psychological well-being were moderated by coping styles. Specific -
ally, the maladaptive effect of self-oriented perfectionism (i.e. having unrealistically high
expectations for one’s self) was reduced by the adaptive effects of positive reappraisal,
while the harmful effect of socially prescribed perfectionism (i.e. the belief that others
hold unrealistically high standards for one’s behaviour) was exacerbated by the presence
of an avoidance coping style.
Optimists and pessimists have also been shown to adopt markedly different coping
styles and strategies (for a review see Carver, Scheier and Segerstrom, 2010). For
example, pessimists tend to be more avoidant copers, whereas optimists are more
likely to use approach styles and strategies such as problem-focused coping, cognitive
restructuring and acceptance (Solberg Nes and Segerstrom, 2006). Optimism is
generally linked to more positive approaches to coping that are considered in the
next sections.