Publication Date

2025

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Michelle Durham, Qin Zhao, Frederick Grieve

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

Stressful events, negative emotions, and negative events are all a normal part of life. How we react and cope with these events can reduce the damage stress can have on our mental health and well-being. There are many ways to cope with situations, but not all are considered to be beneficial. The ability to alternate between different coping strategies within a given situation is called coping flexibility. Having high coping flexibility is considered to be healthy and adaptive, but not everyone possesses the ability to flexibly cope with situations. Personality may explain individual differences among coping flexibility. The big five personality theory divides personality into five factors: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. This study aimed to discover which specific personality traits correlate to high and low coping flexibility. Results found that conscientiousness and openness to experience were positively associated with coping flexibility, coping repertoire, coping changeability, and coping reflexivity. Neuroticism was negatively associated with coping flexibility, coping repertoire, coping changeability, and coping reflexivity. Agreeableness had no significant associations. Extraversion was positively associated with coping repertoire, but had no other significant associations. Results of the study found that there were no significant associations between any of the big five personality traits and the ability-based measure of coping flexibility (CFQ). Results of the study found no significant gender differences.

Disciplines

Clinical Psychology | Health Psychology | Personality and Social Contexts | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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