CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 253Resilience and Mental HealthStudent Stress and CopingStress and Burnout Research

Engaging in rather than disengaging from stress: Effective coping and perceived control

Open access
Dijkstra, Maria T. M., Homan, Astrid C.·2016·Frontiers in Psychology
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01415PMC PMC5030286
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Being able to cope effectively with stress can help people to avoid negative consequences for their psychological well-being. The purpose of this study was to find out why some coping strategies are effective in reducing the negative effect of stressors on well-being and some are not. We argue that the degree to which such coping strategies engage or disengage people from stressful incidents is related to their perceived control of the situation that, in turn, is positively associated with their psychological well-being. We thus propose that the relationship between coping and psychological well-being is mediated by the extent of perceived sense of control. We collected cross-sectional data from a large heterogeneous sample (N = 543) in the Netherlands. We assessed seven different coping strategies, perceived control, and psychological well-being. Our results indeed revealed that strategies reflecting more engaged coping such as active confronting and reassuring thoughts, were associated with more sense of control and therefore to psychological well-being. In contrast, strategies reflecting disengagement coping, such as passive reaction pattern, palliative reaction, and avoidance, were associated with less perceived control, which in turn was negatively associated with psychological well-being. Results regarding the coping strategies expressing emotions and seeking social support were less straightforward, with the former being negatively associated with perceived control and psychological well-being, even though this strategy has stress engaging elements, and the latter only showing a positive indirect effect on psychological well-being via perceived control, but no positive main effect on well-being. These findings are discussed from the perspective of stress being an environment-perception-response process.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01415

Cites

65 of 71 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Disengagement coping strategies (denial, substance use, self-blame) are likely to heighten feelings of being out of control and distressed.

    “On the other hand, disengagement coping strategies that focus attention away from thoughts and feelings about endometriosis, such as denial, substance use and self-blame, are likely to heighten feelings of being out of control and being distressed (Dijkstra and Homan, 2016).”

    From Self-management strategies to consider to combat endometriosis symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020) · cites this paper as Dijkstra and Homan, 2016

    The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that passive reaction, palliative reaction, and avoidance were associated with lower perceived control and well-being, supporting the claim’s general point about disengagement coping. The paper does not establish that finding for people with endometriosis or for the cited set of strategies—denial, substance use, and self-blame. Its mention of denial/self-criticism describes a separate study, not its own results. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Barnett R. C. Biener L. Baruch G. K. (1987). Gender and Stress. New York, NY: The Free Press. 3578991
  2. Ramlal N. (2007). De Relatie Tussen Coping en Psychisch Welbevinden bij Hindoestanen en de rol van Karma in het Copingproces (The Relationship Between Coping and Psychological Wellbeing in Hindustani and the Role of Karma in the Coping Process). Unpublished Master's thesis. Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Dijkstra, M. T. M., & Homan, A. C.
Affiliations
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
  • University of Amsterdam (NL)
Corresponding author
Homan, Astrid C.
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2016-09-21
Volume
7
Pages
1415-1415
ISSN
1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01415
PMC
PMC5030286
OpenAlex
W2521148154
Cited by
253
References
65
Citations by year
2026: 28 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 4
FWCI
8.03
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
Keywords
stress coping, coping strategies, perceived control, psychological well-being, disengagement coping, avoidance, emotional expression, social support seeking, mediation

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review