Social goals and coping with interpersonal stress in adolescence

Prior studies have found that three types of social goals-social learning, social performance-avoidance, and social performance-approach goals-predict stress coping among adolescents. However, prior findings are limited by the range of stress contexts and coping forms examined. Furthermore, questions remain regarding how social performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals differ in predicting coping. To address these gaps, this study examined whether the three social goals differentially predict engagement, disengagement, and mixed forms of coping in the context of friend-related stress-an important but unexplored stress context and set of coping forms.

Participants were 137 students (67 girls) recruited from a public middle school in Japan. Data were collected using a cross-sectional design. A path analysis was conducted to examine the hypothesized associations.

As hypothesized, social learning goals were associated with relationship-rebuilding and positive reappraisal coping, a form of engagement (adaptive) coping; social performance-avoidance goals were associated with relationship-withdrawal coping, a form of disengagement (maladaptive) coping; and social performance-approach goals were associated with relationship-changing coping, a mixed form of engagement and disengagement (adaptive and maladaptive) coping. Although not initially hypothesized, social performance-approach goals were also associated with relationship-rebuilding and positive reappraisal coping.

These findings support the predictive utility of the trichotomous framework of social goal orientations across stress contexts and coping forms. Furthermore, our findings support the discriminative utility of this framework by highlighting the contrasting roles of the three goals in coping. Notably, whereas social performance-avoidance goals may serve maladaptive functions in coping, social performance-approach goals seem to serve both maladaptive and adaptive functions.