Are coping strategies and variability in their use associated with lifespan?

Some stress-related coping strategies contribute to survival among medical populations, but it is unclear if they relate to longevity in the general population. While coping strategies are characterized as being adaptive or maladaptive, whether capacity to tailor their implementation to different contexts (i.e., flexibility of use) may influence lifespan is unknown.

In 2004-2006, participants from the Midlife Development in the United States study completed a validated coping inventory including 6 strategies and provided information on sociodemographics, health status, and biobehavioral factors (N = 4398). Deaths were ascertained from death registries with follow-up until 2018. Accelerated failure time models estimated percent changes and 95% confidence intervals (CI) in predicted lifespan associated with use of individual coping strategies. As a proxy for flexibility, participants were also classified as having lower, moderate, or greater variability in strategies used, using a standard deviation-based algorithm.

After controlling for sociodemographics and health status, maladaptive strategies (e.g., per 1-SD increase in Denial = -5.50, 95%CI = -10.50, -0.21) but not adaptive strategies (e.g., Planning) were related to shorter lifespan. Greater versus moderate variability levels were related to a 15% shorter lifespan. Estimates were somewhat attenuated when further controlling for lifestyle factors.

Although most associations were of modest magnitude, use of some maladaptive coping strategies appeared related to shorter lifespan. Compared to moderate levels, greater coping variability levels were also clearly detrimental for lifespan. Although adaptive strategies were unrelated to longevity, future work should examine other favorable strategies (e.g., acceptance) and more direct measures of flexibility (e.g., experience sampling methods).