Not just feeling stressed: Coping, emotional, and somatic functioning in adolescents' daily lives

Daily stress is a pervasive experience during adolescence and is linked to emotional and physical health, yet few studies have examined multiple coping strategies in relation to different domains of emotional and somatic functioning within the same daily context. This study used a daily diary approach to examine whether coping strategies moderate associations between daily stress and adolescents' positive affect, negative affect, and somatic symptoms. Data were drawn from a 7-day daily diary study of 208 Chinese adolescents. Participants reported stress, affect, somatic symptoms, and coping strategies. Multilevel models disaggregated within-person and between-person associations and tested moderation effects. At the within-person level, higher-than-usual daily stress was associated with lower positive affect and higher negative affect on the same day. Emotion-focused coping amplified these associations, whereas affiliation-focused coping attenuated them; task-focused coping was nonsignificant. At the between-person level, higher average stress was related to poorer emotional and somatic functioning. Emotion-focused coping amplified these associations, and task-focused coping strengthened the association between stress and lower positive affect. Lagged associations were generally weaker. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing within-person processes from between-person differences in understanding adolescents' responses to daily stress. Coping strategies play distinct roles in shaping emotional and physical functioning in daily life and may represent targets for intervention.