COPING IN ADOLESCENCE - EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE FOR A THEORETICALLY BASED APPROACH TO ASSESSING COPING

The present study was designed to examine the reported stressors and patterns of coping strategies used by adolescents and extend the 1989 work of Carver et al. by reporting internal reliability, factorial validity, and normative data on the COPE for a sample of middle adolescents. A sample of 484 ninth through twelfth graders (ages 14-18) attending a Laboratory High School participated in the study. The COPE inventory developed by Carver et al. in 1989 for use with college students, was administered with a battery of measures to all adolescent participants in their classrooms. Results indicated sufficient internal consistency for the measure and significant gender differences Factor analysis of the COPE indicated that the subscales consistently fell into four factors rather than the traditional two (i.e, problem focused vs emotion focused). Implications for using the COPE in research on adolescent were discussed.