Individual Differences in Adolescent Coping: Comparing a Community Sample and a Low-SES Sample to Understand Coping...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Adolescent Development
• Stress and Coping Research

Background:

• Coping mechanisms effective in low-stress environments may be maladaptive for adolescents experiencing poverty.
• Understanding diverse adolescent coping profiles is crucial for identifying context-specific adaptive strategies.
• Previous research has not fully elucidated how coping profiles vary across different socioeconomic and stress levels.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify distinct coping profiles among adolescents in both community and low-socioeconomic status (SES) samples.
• To examine the differences in coping profiles based on gender and internalizing psychopathology symptoms.
• To explore how coping profiles function differently in varying environmental stress contexts.

Main Methods:

• Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify coping profiles in two adolescent samples (community N=374, low-SES N=304).
• Ten subscales from the Responses to Stress Questionnaire were employed as indicators in the LPA models.
• Demographic data, gender, and symptoms of internalizing psychopathology were analyzed in relation to the identified profiles.

Main Results:

• Five coping profiles were identified in the community sample: Inactive, Low Engagement, Cognitive, Engaged, and Active Copers.
• Four of these profiles (excluding Low Engagement) were also found in the low-SES sample, indicating cross-contextual strategy use but lower engagement in low-SES youth.
• Profile membership varied by gender and internalizing symptoms; for example, Inactive Copers were more likely male, and Engaged Copers reported fewer symptoms.

Conclusions:

• Adolescents utilize similar coping strategies across different stress contexts, but socioeconomic status influences the level of engagement with these strategies.
• The effectiveness of certain coping profiles, like Cognitive Copers, may be context-dependent, potentially being protective in less stressful environments but linked to higher symptoms in low-SES contexts.
• Identifying within-person coping patterns is vital for developing targeted interventions to support adolescent mental health, particularly for vulnerable populations.