Effects of waiting patiently as coping strategy for an interpersonal stressor on depressive symptoms

Background: Coping behavior is known to moderate the effect of stressors on depressive symptoms. Increased reassessing coping, that is, waiting patiently for an appropriate opportunity to handle a stressful relationship, as coping strategy for interpersonal stressors is associated with lower depressive symptoms. Objectives: We hypothesized that higher reassessing coping would be associated with lower depressive symptoms in individuals with higher coping flexibility. Coping flexibility is the ability to discontinue a coping strategy that produces undesirable outcomes by monitoring and evaluating stressful situations and the effects of coping strategies. Methods: Two studies involving approximately 1,800 college students were conducted, one using a cross-sectional design (n = 281) and another a longitudinal design (n = 1,468). Results: In both studies, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that the interaction between reassessing coping and coping flexibility scores was predictive of a significant depressive symptom score. This indicates that higher levels of reassessing coping are associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms when coping flexibility is higher, whereas reassessing coping is not associated with depressive symptoms when coping flexibility is lower. Conclusions: These results were consistent with our hypothesis in both studies.