Coping Profiles and Psychological Distress: A Cluster Analysis

Few researchers have investigated the possibility that individuals may exhibit coping profiles (or unique combinations of coping strategies). Coping strategies likely operate in conjunction with one another and it may be valuable to consider the profile or combination of strategies endorsed by individuals rather than simply examining coping strategies discretely or in isolation of one another. Exploring the potential of this interdependency of coping strategies was the impetus for this study. Coping Defined Coping research has had a long history that spans many disciplines of psychology and, as such, the concept of coping can be approached from multiple perspectives and theoretical orientations (for reviews, see Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Lazarus, 1993; Zeidner & Endler, 1996). The surfeit of theoretical approaches, coping conceptualizations, and measurement scales reported in the literature has resulted in findings that are often inconsistent with one another and make it difficult to select an appropriate definition of coping. If any consensus exists among researchers, however, it is that coping is an organizing construct used to encompass a myriad of actions individuals use to deal with stressful experiences (Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003). Coping, then, is often defined as the cognitive and behavioral activities a person engages in to manage external (e.g., interpersonal relationship) and/or internal (e.g., loneliness) demands appraised as exceeding the resources of the person (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Coping Functions Given that coping can encompass a great many behaviors and, literally, is anything a person does or thinks in contending with stressful demands, researchers have tried to classify various coping strategies on the basis of their functions. Various taxonomies of coping functions exist (for a review, see Skinner et al., 2003) but many can be clustered around several basic dimensions such as problem-focused coping (e.g., planning, decision making), emotion-focused coping (e.g., venting feelings, humor), avoidance coping (e.g., denial, behavioral disengagement), and social support coping (e.g., seeking help, advice, or comfort from others). The underlying theoretical and empirical research suggests that people seem to use multiple coping strategies yet, to date no consensus among researchers has been achieved as to the number of relevant coping functions or the utility of each in predicting stress outcomes (Skinner et al., 2003). Coping Profiles The coping literature frequently reflects the assumption that coping functions are orthogonal constructs and individuals are prone to one type of coping over another (e.g., either avoidance, problem- or emotion-focused coping). Yet, coping strategies can and do interact with one another and should not be pitted against one another to predict stress outcomes (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). As such, researchers and scholars have suggested that examining patterns of coping styles or coping profiles, such as individuals' relative reliance on some strategies and de-emphasis on others, may be a more advantageous way of understanding the manner in which individuals cope with stress (Aldwin, 1994; Lazarus, 2000). A particular coping profile, for example, that examines the proportion of problem-focused coping to emotion-focused coping may be more important than the absolute amount of problem-focused coping per se. Cluster Analysis Cluster analysis is a promising method for identifying subgroups of individuals with different coping profiles. This analytic technique identifies groups of individual cases defined by similarities among multiple dimensions of interest (Henry, Tolan, & Gorman-Smith, 2005). For example, research has demonstrated that individuals can be categorized into groups on the basis of distinctive coping profiles that differentiate people on a multitude of health outcomes: including depression (Matheson & Anisman, 2003), stress (Baird, Matheny, & Brack, 2003), psychological adjustment (Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004), life satisfaction (Smith & Wallston, 1996), and quality of life (Hamilton, Agarwal, Carter, & Crandell, 2011). …