ALTHOUGH stress has been a familiar topic in social

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1 Journal tifcenmiology: PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES 19X9. Vol. 44. No. 6. PI6I-I69 In the Public Do Age Differences and Changes in the Use of Coping Mechanisms Robert R. McCrae Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging. Two cross-sectional studies of coping conducted on 45 men and women aged 21 to 91 in 198 (McCrae, 1982) formed the basis for longitudinal analyses in At Time 2,191 of the original subjects were retested, and data were also gathered from a new sample of 27 men and women. Subjects reported on a single event classified as a loss, threat, or challenge; responses were scored for 28 specific coping mechanisms and 2 broad coping factors. Crosssectional analyses showed evidence of age or cohort differences in the use of several coping mechanisms, but none of these effects was consistently paralleled by changes in repeated measures and cross-sequential analyses. These findings suggest that aging has little effect on coping behavior in a community-dwelling sample. Retest correlations demonstrated modest stability of individual differences in most coping mechanisms, suggesting that coping responses are in part a function of enduring characteristics of the individual. ALTHOUGH stress has been a familiar topic in social science research for decades, the systematic study of coping processes is relatively new (Costa & McCrae, 1989). Studies documenting the harmful effects of stress have generally reported only modest associations (Schroeder & Costa, 1984), and even major stressors such as bereavement tend to have relatively short-term effects (McCrae & Costa, 1988). Clearly, most people find ways to deal with stress, and researchers in the past decade have begun to study these ways of coping. Gerontologists have a natural interest in the ways in which aging individuals cope with the characteristic stressors of each phase of the life span. Do older individuals bring wisdom and experience to their coping efforts, or are the stressors of old age compounded by a declining ability to cope? Maturational theories of coping and defense (e.g., Pfeiffer, 1977; Vaillant, 1977) received little support from early cross-sectional studies of coping, which showed few age differences in the use of coping mechanisms (Lazarus & DeLongis, 1983; McCrae, 1982). Such findings suggested that, like personality (Costa & McCrae, 1988), coping styles and abilities were stable in adulthood. More recently, however, cross-sectional age differences have been reported. Folkman, Lazarus, Pimley, & Novacek (1987) found that older respondents were less likely to seek social support or use confrontive coping; they were more likely to use distancing and positive reappraisal. Irion and Blanchard-Fields (1987) replicated the association of age with the decreased use of confrontive coping, but only when dealing with stressors that could be classified as threats. Cross-sectional differences in styles of defense have also been noted: Costa, Zonderman, and McCrae (in press) suggested that older men and women were "more forgiving and willing to meet adversity cheerfully, and less prone to take offense or to vent frustrations on others." With the exception of Vaillant's (1977) research on the maturity of coping mechanisms between late adolescence and middle adulthood, all these studies have relied on crosssectional methods that confound generational differences with maturational changes. This article reports a 7-year longitudinal study of coping in adults initially aged 21 to 91 (McCrae, 1982), and thus offers the opportunity to examine age changes over a reasonably long interval as well as age differences. Two parallel studies were conducted in 198. In the first, 255 men and women completed a 118-item Coping Questionnaire (CQ) concerning the ways in which they had dealt with a single event they had previously reported on a checklist of life events. The event was selected and classified by the investigator as a loss, threat, or challenge. In the second study, 15 men and women completed a shortened, 5-item version of the CQ for each of three events. These events were selected by the subject as instances of loss, threat, and challenge. Age differences were examined for 28 specific coping mechanisms in the first study. After controlling for the type of stressor, eight mechanisms showed significant effects; only two of these, however, were replicated in the second study. In both studies, middle-aged and older subjects were less likely than younger adults to use hostile reactions and escapist fantasy in dealing with stress. In 1987 the full CQ was administered to 398 subjects aged 2 to 93. Cross-sectional analyses of these data provide one way to estimate age effects, but aging is confounded with generational differences and sampling biases. About half of the subjects tested in 1987 were from the initial 198 sample; on these subjects, repeated measures analyses could be performed to assess changes over time. These longitudinal analyses control for cohort differences, but may be susceptible to practice and time of measurement effects. Because the CQ had not been previously administered to the other half of the 1987 sample, it was also possible to conduct cross- and time-sequential analyses (Schaie, 1977). Cross-sequential analyses compare groups of people born at the same time but tested at different times for example, one subsample of people born in 19 might be tested in 196, at age 6; a second subsample might be tested in 198, at age 8. Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216 P161

2 P162 MCCRAE Differences between these two groups could not be due to birth cohort effects (because subjects were born at the same time) or to practice effects, and may indicate maturational change. Time-sequential analyses, which compare individuals tested at the same ages but at different times, allow an estimation of time of measurement effects. Taken together, these analyses allow reasonable inferences about which effects may be attributed to maturation. It should be noted that the topic of coping presents both conceptual and methodological challenges to longitudinal research. Repeated measures and cross-sequential designs normally examine changes in the same variable over time. Coping behavior, however, is by definition situationspecific. An individual might have been asked at Time 1 how he or she coped with a recent bereavement. The same question seven years later is not really the same question: Most individuals will long since have adapted to the stress of widowhood (McCrae & Costa, 1988). It is unlikely that many individuals would be found who recently faced the same stressor that they had reported on seven years earlier. Operationally, this entails a change in the design for nominating stressors; conceptually, it means that the measures are "repeated" only approximately. This does not, however, invalidate the logic of longitudinal research. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of age and coping examine one or a few instances of coping behavior as a sample of general coping styles. If there were no consistent individual differences in coping if all coping behavior were determined entirely by the specifics of the situation then it would make no sense to speak of age differences or changes in coping. Any such differences would be the result of age differences in the stressors encountered. If, however, maturation has broad effects on the ways individuals deal with stress, then these should appear even when different stressors are sampled at different times. Although the same stressor cannot be examined at both times, it is possible to introduce some control by requiring that the same type of stressor be examined. For this purpose, stressful events have been classified as losses, threats, or challenges. This classification, suggested by Lazarus and Launier (1978), was used in the original cross-sectional study and has proven useful in understanding situational determinants of coping (McCrae, 1984). Other dimensions of the stressor, including severity, chronicity, and controllability, may also affect coping responses. Although they were not controlled in the present design, these features, as rated by a judge (McCrae, in press), were weakly related to age (I r s =.8 to. 19), and so are unlikely to affect the results of age analyses. Longitudinal studies offer a direct approach to the question of individual consistency versus situational specificity in coping. Correlations of coping measures across time can suggest the degree to which coping behavior is a stable characteristic of the individual. A few studies have examined stability in broad styles of defense (Haan, 1977; Vaillant, Bond, & Vaillant, 1986) and reported modest but significant associations over 1-year intervals. Additional studies have examined the stability of specific coping mechanisms, but over considerably shorter periods of time. For example, Felton and Revenson (1984) reported 7-month retest reliability coefficients of.58 and.63 for measures of information seeking and wish-fulfilling fantasy, respectively, as mechanisms for coping with chronic illnesses. Solomon, Mikulincer, and Avitzur (1988) reported one-year retest coefficients for four coping mechanisms ranging from.38 to.58 in a sample of Israeli soldiers who had experienced a combat stress reaction. The present study will examine the 7-year stability of individual differences in the use of a variety of coping mechanisms. One of the unresolved issues in contemporary coping research is the number, nature, and breadth of coping mechanisms. Although it is universally recognized that there are many different ways to cope, researchers disagree on how these specific behaviors can be meaningfully combined into useful scales. Should we examine a few broad categories like problem-focused and emotion-focused coping (Folkman & Lazarus, 198), several mid-level mechanisms such as confrontive coping and distancing (Folkman, Lazarus, Dunkel- Schetter, DeLongis, & Gruen, 1986), or many fine-grained mechanisms (McCrae, 1982)? In the present study, mechanisms at two levels are examined. In addition to the 28 specific mechanisms examined in the original study, two broad factors Neurotic Coping and Mature Coping derived from analysis of these 28 mechanisms (McCrae & Costa, 1986) are also considered. (Analyses were also performed on the Folkman et al., 1986, scales; the results were similar to those found for the other coping scales and so have been omitted.) METHOD Because two related studies were carried out in 198, a number of different longitudinal and sequential comparisons are possible. An overview of the design is presented in Table 1, which summarizes some characteristics of the subsamples used in the present study. The subsamples are identified by letters. Note that A' is the subset of A that returned complete data in 1987; similarly, B' is the subset of B who completed the full CQ in The short CQ can be scored from the full version to permit longitudinal analyses of B' data. Subsam- Subsample % Male Age range Instrument Subsample N % Male Age range Instrument Table 1. Characteristics of Subsamples and Data for Two Administrations Full CQ A' Full CQ Time 1 (198) B Time 2 (1987) B' Short CQ Full CQ C Full CQ Note: CQ = Coping Questionnaire. The Full CQ contains the 68 items of the Folkman and Lazarus (198) Ways of Coping plus 5 additional items; the Short CQ contains only the 5 additional items. Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216

3 LONGITUDINAL ANALYSES OF COPING P163 pie C is composed of subjects first tested in Individual analyses will be described in terms of this Table. Subjects. All participants were members of the Augmented Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (ABLSA). The BLSA sample itself is composed of generally healthy, well-educated, community-dwelling volunteers (Shock et al., 1984); the ABLSA consists of a subsample of BLSA participants, augmented by the addition of their spouses, who have agreed to complete a variety of psychological questionnaires at home. Recruitment into the BLSA is continuous, so that new participants joined the study after the initial data collection in 198. In 198, 255 ABLSA participants (Subsample A) completed the CQ in the first of two parallel studies. Their responses provide Time 1 data for repeated measures and cross-sequential analyses on the full CQ. An additional 15 participants (Subsample B) completed an abbreviated version of the CQ with regard to three self-selected stressors; their data are used in supplementary repeated measures and cross-sequential analyses. Subsamples A' and B' also provide data for correlational analyses of the stability of individual differences in coping. In 1987, responses to the full Coping Questionnaire were obtained from 27 ABLSA participants (Subsample C) who had not previously completed either version of the CQ. The age ranges and sex ratios of all these groups are given in Table 1. Procedure. In 1979, ABLSA participants completed a life events checklist. The 255 subjects in Subsample A were selected because they indicated that they had experienced a life event that could be categorized as a loss, threat, or challenge within the past year. These subjects were sent the 118-item CQ in 198 and asked to complete it with regard to the selected event. The 15 subjects in Subsample B had not experienced any of the designated life events within the past year. They were therefore asked to nominate three events a loss, a threat, and a challenge which had occurred in the past six months, and to complete a 5-item version of the CQ with regard to each. Further details are given in McCrae (1982)." In 1987, participants in Subsamples A', B', and C were mailed one of three questionnaires which asked them to recall a stressful event they had experienced in the past six months. The first asked about harm or loss, and instructed subjects to recall an event "in which you were hurt, disappointed, or lost something of value to you"; the second asked about threat ("some kind of threat or clanger, in which you were worried about how things would turn out"); the third asked about challenge ("some challenge or big opportunity"'). All subjects were asked to describe the incident in a paragraph, rate its stressfulness, and then decide whether they had ever used each of the 118 coping responses in dealing with the stressor. As in the original study, subjects were told to leave blank inapplicable items. Subjects in Subsample A were assigned the same type of stressor at Time 2 as they had reported on at Time 1; other individuals were randomly assigned to one of the three types. Because the original study involved investigatorclassified events and the follow-up employed self-selected events, the validity of the classification at Time 2 must be assessed. A judge, blind to the type of questionnaire assigned, read each of the narrative paragraphs describing the stressful event and coded it as a loss, threat, or challenge. Overall agreement between assigned and judged type of stressor was 47%, showing less-than-perfect agreement, but well over the 33% to be expected by chance, ^2(4, N = 378) = 64.1, p <.1. When examined by categories, most discrepancies concerned confusions between threats and losses. This is understandable, given the association between these two categories: Threats are often potential losses, and some losses (e.g., loss of a job) pose threats to future well-being. Further, most of the situational effects on the choice of coping mechanisms contrast challenges with threats and losses (McCrae, 1984). When the threat and loss categories were combined, agreement between rater and assigned condition increased to 74%. There was, then, substantial agreement on the most important distinction among types of stressor. Measures. The Coping Questionnaire (CQ) consists of 118 items. The first 68 items were taken from the Ways of Coping (Folkman & Lazarus, 198); 5 additional items were written to cover a wide range of coping mechanisms identified in a review of the literature (McCrae, 1982). The abbreviated version of the CQ consisted only of the 5 new items and differed also in some details: Subjects were offered a "does not apply" category and were also asked to rate the perceived effectiveness of the coping strategy described by the item. Responses to the full CQ were scored for use of each of 28 specific coping mechanisms; these are listed in Table 2. The number of items in each mechanism ranged from 1 to 7; for scales with two or more items, internal consistency in the initial study ranged from.35 to.83, with a median of.67 (McCrae, 1984), suggesting moderate reliability, the scales have shown validity and utility in studies of environmental and dispositional determinants of coping (Costa & McCrae, 1989; McCrae, 1984; McCrae & Costa, 1986). Twentyseven of the specific coping mechanisms were also scored from the short version of the CQ, although the scales were necessarily shorter. Table 2 gives the number of items in both versions of each of the scales. Scores were computed separately for each of the three types of stressor for each subject in Subsample B. Parallel factor analyses of mechanisms from the 198 administrations of the long and short versions of the CQ showed two well-replicated factors (McCrae & Costa, 1986). Neurotic coping was defined by loadings on hostile reaction, escapist fantasy, self-blame, sedation, withdrawal, passivity, and indecisiveness; each of these specific mechanisms was found to be associated with the personality dimension of Neuroticism. Mature coping was defined by rational action, perseverance, positive thinking, restraint, and self-adaptation. These mechanisms were summed to estimate the factors in the present study; coefficient alphas for the composites were.74 for both factors. (The other coping mechanisms loaded on different factors in the two different analyses.) Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216

4 PI 64 McCRAE Table 2. Correlations and Stability Coefficients for Coping Mechanisms Time 2 Correlations Education Stability Coefficients Subsample A' Subsample B' Coping mechanism Gender Age Individual mechanisms Hostile reaction (7,6) Rational action (7,4) Seeking help (5,2) Perseverence (3.1) Isolation of affect (2.1) Fatalism (6,2) Expression of feelings (5,1) Positive thinking (7,3) Distraction (2,1) Escapist fantasy (5,2) Intellectual denial (4,3) Self-blame (4,1) Taking one step at a time (2, ) Social comparison (1,1) Sedation (3,1) Substitution (1,1) Restraint (4,2) Drawing strength from adversity (5,1) Avoidance (1,1) Withdrawal (2,1) Self-adaptation (5,3) Wishful thinking (4,1) Active forgetting (3,1) Humor (3.1) Passivity (3,2) Indecisiveness (2,1) Assessing blame (1,1) Faith (1,1) Coping Factors Neurotic coping (26,14) Mature coping (26,13) 1 Q * * * ** *** ***.12* ***..3.12*.16** Ig*** * * * -.17** * *. _ 7*** -.12* *.12* -.25*** _ 22*** -.4 _ 23*** * ** * * -.13* ** ** 15** -.16** 22*.28**.2* *** 39***.21*.18 43***.22*.22* ** 27**.24* 47***.12 33*** 39***.26**.5 29**.45*** 27**.16 4Q*** 51 ***.38*** 37*** ***.25*.2.24* 29**.15.31**.6***.25* ***.29* 41 ***.26*.3 34**.28*.12.27* Note: The number of items in each scale for the full and short version of the Coping Questionnaire are given in parentheses. /Vs = 398 for gender and age, 315 for education, 113 for Subsample A', and 78 for Subsample B'. Stability coefficients for Subsample. B' are based on the short version of the Coping Questionnaire; the coping mechanism Taking one step at a time was not measured in the short version. Gender is coded I for males, two for females. *p <.5; **p <.1; ***/; <.1. RESULTS Maturational effects are best inferred from converging evidence from several different designs (Costa & McCrae, 1982). Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and sequential analyses are considered separately for the long and short versions of the CQ, and results are then compared across the designs. None of the coping mechanisms shows a consistent pattern of maturational effects, suggesting that ways of coping do not change predictably with age. Cross-sectional analyses. Cross-sectional age relations are examined by correlating age with scores on the coping mechanisms at Time 2 for Subsamples A', B', and C. These 398 subjects represented 57% of the 74 participants active in the ABLSA in The subjects who responded with complete data were slightly better educated and higher in the personality disposition of Conscientiousness than were nonrespondents, but the two groups did not differ in age, gender, or the personality dispositions of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, or Agreeableness (see.55*** 34** Costa & McCrae, 1988, for details on personality measurement). The respondents appear to be a fairly representative subgroup of ABLSA participants. Because coping is determined in part by type of stressor, and because types of stressor vary with age, some control for type of stressor is needed in cross-sectional analyses. Two dummy variables representing the three types of stressors were therefore partialed from each of the coping mechanism scores to provide event-adjusted measures. Table 2 gives correlations of these adjusted scores with gender, education, and age. (A comparison of unadjusted scores shows a very similar pattern of results.) Women appear more likely to use hostile reaction, expression of feelings, distraction, sedation, self-adaptation, wishful thinking, passivity, and indecisiveness in dealing with stress; overall, they are somewhat higher on the use of neurotic coping mechanisms. These findings are consistent with previous evidence that women are higher in the personality disposition of Neuroticism, which is a determinant of neurotic coping (McCrae & Costa, 1986). Education is not Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216

5 LONGITUDINAL ANALYSES OF COPING P165 strongly related to the use of coping mechanisms, although it appears that better educated individuals are somewhat less likely to use intellectual denial, sedation, wishful thinking, active forgetting, and assessment of blame. Half of the 28 specific coping mechanisms are related to age at Time 2. Only four of these findings, however, replicate the cross-sectional results from Time I analyses of Subsample A (McCrae, 1982). In both studies, older men and women were less likely to use hostile reaction, escapist fantasy, and sedation, and more likely to use faith. In the present study there are relatively strong negative correlations between age and the use of expression of feelings and positive thinking, but neither of these effects was seen at Time I. Overall, older individuals are slightly less likely to use neurotic coping mechanisms, but also less likely to use mature coping mechanisms. The direction and significance of cross-sectional age effects are summarized in the first column of Table 3. Repeated measures analyses. For the 113 subjects in Subsample A', complete data on the CQ were available at Coping mechanism Specific mechanisms Hostile reaction Rational action Seeking help Perseverance Isolation of affect Fatalism Expression of feelings Positive thinking Distraction Escapist fantasy Intellectual denial Self-blame Taking one step at a time Social comparison Sedation Substitution Restraint Drawing strength from adversity Avoidance Withdrawal Self-adaptation Wishful thinking Active forgetting Humor Passivity Indecisiveness Assessing blame Faith Coping Factors Neurotic coping Mature coping Table 3. Summary of Effects for Age-Related Analyses Cross-sectional ** ** * * * * * both Time 1 and Time 2, and repeated measures analyses were conducted for these subjects on all coping mechanisms. Because of attrition from the larger study and nonresponse at Time 2, only 44% of Subsample A was retested. The subjects in A' were four years younger and had had one year more of education than the dropouts and nonrespondents. They did not differ from them, however, in gender, in the personality dispositions of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, or Conscientiousness, or in the use of mature or neurotic coping mechanisms at Time 1. It appears unlikely that results of the repeated measures analyses are seriously affected by attrition. Because each individual had been assigned the same type of stressor at Time 2 as he or she had reported on at Time 1, this variable was controlled. By measuring the same individual twice, repeated measures designs also control for birth cohort, sex, education, and other variables that are constant for the individual. Subjects were cross-classified by gender and type of stressor. Effects of gender generally paralleled those shown in Table 2, in part because the two samples overlap at Time 2. Main effects for type of stressor were Repeated Measures Subsample A' Subsample B' _** * * ** Cross-Sequential Full CQ Short CQ _* * * _ #** -j. + ** " _j* Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216 Note: Minus signs indicate a decrease in the variable with age or time and plus signs indicate an increase; zeros indicate no significant effect. The coping strategy Taking one step at a time was not measured in the Subsample B' analyses. */J <.5; **/> <.1: ***/; <.1.

6 P166 McCRAE consistent with previous research on the situational determinants of coping responses (McCrae, 1984). The second column of Table 3 indicates the direction and significance of main effects for time. Between 198 and 1987, the use of isolation of affect, intellectual denial, drawing strength from adversity, self-adaptation, active forgetting, and faith declined; the use of wishful thinking increased. The largest effects were for wishful thinking and faith, but even here time accounted for less than 2% of the variance in coping scores. In general, results of the longitudinal analysis do not square with those from the cross-sectional analysis. A comparison of the first and second columns in Table 3 shows only a single replication of age differences by age changes for self-adaptation. In the cases of isolation of affect and faith there are direct contradictions: Cross-sectional results point to an increase in the use of these coping mechanisms, whereas longitudinal results point to a decrease. In other cases, significant effects in one design are not significant in the other. These discrepancies suggest that cohort differences may be responsible for the cross-sectional correlations, or that practice or time of measurement effects or procedural differences between the two administrations may be responsible for the repeated measures effects. Sequential analyses. An alternative way to estimate age changes is provided by the cross-sequential design, in which two different samples, matched on date of birth, are compared at two different times. In the present study, Time 1 data from Subsample A were compared with Time 2 data from Subsamples B' and C. Subjects were cross-classified by type of event to control for its effects, and were also classified by gender and seven-year birth cohorts composed of individuals born between 197 and Data from 451 subjects were included in this range of birth years. Multivariate analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted for the 28 specific coping mechanisms. Significant multivariate effects were found for gender, event type, birth cohort, and administration main effects. The fourth column of Table 3 summarizes the effects of administration of the CQ in 198 versus Over this interval there were declines in the use of isolation of affect, fatalism, positive thinking, drawing strength from adversity, and faith; there was an increase in the use of wishful thinking. In general, this pattern of results resembles that found in the repeated measures analyses, but not that found in cross-sectional analyses. The effects seen in repeated measures and cross-sequential analyses might represent true maturational effects that failed to appear in cross-sectional analyses because they were somehow masked by cohort differences. Alternatively, they might be time of measurement effects that reflect differences between the 198 and 1987 administrations. By comparing individuals matched for age at time of testing but tested on two different occasions, time-sequential analyses can be used to test this hypothesis. When 495 subjects, aged 26 to 81 at time of testing, were compared on the use of coping mechanisms in a time-sequential analysis, 7 of the 8 significant administration effects seen in the cross-sequential analyses were replicated. Because subjects are matched on age in time-sequential designs, these differences could not be due to age. Administration, rather than aging, seems to be responsible for these effects. In the present design, the second administration differed from the first not only in time, but also in the procedure for determining the stressor. Stressful events were selected by the investigator at Time 1; they were nominated by the subject at Time 2. Although an attempt was made to control for type of stressor, subjectively selected events may differ in many ways from investigator-assigned stressors. Supplementary longitudinal analyses. In the analyses of the full CQ, historical time period changes associated with social events between 198 and 1987 is confounded with procedural changes in the way the stressor was selected. It is possible to separate these two effects by employing coping mechanism scores derived from the short version of the CQ. Data from Subsamples B and B' can be used in repeated measures analyses; data from Subsample B and Subsamples A' and C can be used in cross-sequential analyses. In these analyses, the procedure for selecting stressors is the same, so any effects ought to be the result of time of measurement or maturation. For the repeated measures analyses, the responses of the 78 subjects in Subsample B' were examined at Times 1 and 2. At Time 1, subjects had responded to three separate events; for this analysis, only data from the same type of event as that assigned at Time 2 were considered. Thus, 31 individuals were compared on responses to self-selected losses at two times; 28 individuals were compared on selfselected threats; and 19 were compared on self-selected challenges. Subjects were cross-classified by gender and type of event. Main effects for time of administration were seen for seeking help, self-adaptation, and neurotic coping, which decreased, and for fatalism and expression of feelings, which both increased between 198 and These effects are shown in column 3 of Table 3. All the effects were small in magnitude, and only one the decline in use of selfadaptation replicated the findings of repeated measures analyses conducted on the full CQ scales. The increased use of fatalism and decreased use of self-adaptation and neurotic coping are consistent in direction with the cross-sectional findings, but the increased use of expression of feelings is inconsistent with the significant negative cross-sectional correlation. It is also possible to conduct cross-sequential analyses on scales from the short version of the CQ. Subjects in Subsample B provided data on all three types of events in 198; subjects in Subsamples A' and C provided data on one event in When cross-classified by birth cohort (with dates of birth between 197 and 1956), comparisons of these two groups can be used to estimate age changes. Note that this analysis differs from traditional crosssequential analyses in that the same individuals provide three sets of measures at Time 1, whereas different individuals provide measures for each of the three types of stressor at Time 2. Administration X Event Type interactions would be difficult to interpret in this design, but the main effects for administration, which collapse data across type of event, are Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216

7 LONGITUDINAL ANALYSES OF COPING P167 probably meaningful and preferable to separate analyses within type of event; these would multiply opportunities for capitalizing on chance. Results must, however, be interpreted with caution. Significant main effects for administration were found for isolation of affect, which decreased, and for fatalism, distraction, social comparison, restraint, wishful thinking, and passivity, which all increased between 198 and These findings are summarized in the fifth column of Table 3. Only the increase in the use of fatalism replicated the results of the repeated measures analyses of the short version of the CQ. As a whole, this pattern of results also fails to replicate either cross-sectional or cross-sequential analyses of scales from the full CQ. It appears from the supplementary analyses of the short CQ scales that many of the effects seen in the longitudinal analyses of the full CQ may be due to procedural differences in the 198 and 1987 administrations. Neither age nor time of measurement itself appears to be systematically related to the changes seen there. Summary of mean level differences and changes. Maturational changes in the use of coping mechanisms might be seen in cross-sectional differences, in increases or decreases over time in repeated measures analyses, or in differences between administrations in cross-sequential analyses. The most meaningful pattern of effects would show changes or differences in the same direction for all these kinds of analyses (Costa & McCrae, 1982). Analyses on the full CQ and supplementary analyses on the short version summarized in Table 3 gave five opportunities for maturational effects to occur; none of the coping mechanisms showed a consistent pattern of replicated effects across all five sets of analyses. The closest approximations are found for self-adaptation and wishful thinking. Evidence for a maturational decline in self-adaptation is found in the cross-sectional analyses and the two repeated measures analyses. Cross-sequential analyses did not show significant effects for self-adaptation. Increases in wishful thinking are suggested by the two cross-sequential analyses and the repeated measures analysis of Subsample A', but not by the repeated measures analysis of Subsample B', nor by the cross-sectional results. Reporting inconsistent results across methods of analysis is not unusual when cross-sectional, longitudinal, and crosssequential designs are all employed in the same data set (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1988). When large samples are used, as in the present study, very subtle effects of sampling bias, practice, or time of measurement effects can appear as significant findings. In isolation, they might be misinterpreted as evidence of maturational change. Together, their mutual inconsistency suggests that there are no robust age effects in this sample of community-dwelling individuals. Retest stability. Correlations between 198 data and 1987 data can be used to assess the stability of individual differences in the use of coping mechanisms. As in studies of mean levels, these analyses are complicated by the fact that individuals coped with different specific events at the two times. In consequence, the retest correlations estimate consistency of coping across both time and situations and give a conservative estimate of stability. The fourth column of Table 2 gives retest correlations for the 113 individuals in Subsample A' who completed the full CQ at both times. Of the 3 correlations, 22 are significant; the median correlation is.26. It might be argued that the magnitude of the correlations is inflated by the fact that the same type of stressor is assessed at each time, and consistency of stressor may account for the observed stability. When retest correlations are examined within type of stressor, Ns are greatly reduced, so many correlations fail to attain significance. The general pattern of results, however, appears to be similar, and the median correlation across the three types of stressors is.26. These analyses suggest modest stability for a wide variety of coping mechanisms. The fifth column of Table 2 gives correlations between scores on 27 of the specific coping mechanisms and the two coping factors for the 78 individuals in Subsample B'. As in the repeated measures analyses, only Time 1 responses for the same type of stressor as that assessed at Time 2 are scored. Of the 29 correlations, 17 are significant; the median correlation is.25. It should be recalled that the correlations for Subsample B' are based on short versions of the scales in a smaller sample. The fact that 13 of the significant stability coefficients from the analyses of the full CQ are replicated under these conditions is remarkable. In addition, analyses of Subsample B' suggest significant stability for two mechanisms social comparison and active forgetting that are not significant in analyses of Subsample A'. Together, 22 of 28 coping mechanisms show some consistency in coping with two different events separated by seven years. There appear to be patterns of differential stability among coping mechanisms. Six of the seven coping mechanisms that define neurotic coping show significant retest stability in both studies; by contrast, only two of the five coping mechanisms from the mature coping factor show this pattern. It appears that coping mechanisms related to the personality disposition of Neuroticism are moderately stable over a period of seven years. By contrast, coping mechanisms that are determined more directly by situational requirements show lower levels of stability. DISCUSSION Do ways of coping change as people age? Consistent with most of the literature, the present study suggests that such changes, if they occur at all, are quite subtle in their influence. Cross-sectional analyses show significant associations of age with many different coping mechanisms, but all the associations are modest in magnitude, and only a few replicate previous findings. Further, changes over a sevenyear period assessed by both repeated measures and crosssequential designs provide no support for the view that age differences are due to maturation. Instead, they might better be interpreted as cohort effects. Perhaps the most consistent cross-sectional finding is that older individuals use less interpersonal aggression in dealing with stress. In both Time 1 and Time 2 analyses, age was negatively associated with the use of hostile reaction. (In cross-sectional analyses of the Folkman et al. scales, older Downloaded from at Penn State University (Paterno Lib) on February 2, 216

8 P168 MCCRAE subjects used confrontive coping less, as Folkman et al., 1987, and Irion & Blanchard-Fields, 1987, had reported earlier.) Felton and Revenson (1987) similarly found that older subjects were less prone to use emotional expression, which resembles hostile reaction. Finally, Costa, Zonderman, and McCrae (in press) found that older men and women were more forgiving and less likely to vent frustrations on others. Younger cohorts apparently have a greater tolerance for aggression; they may believe that the expression of hostility is an effective and healthy way to respond to frustration and conflict. Although this is a common notion in popular psychology, it may be incorrect: Hostile reaction was rated as one of the least effective ways to cope with stress by those who had used it (McCrae & Costa, 1986). The reliability of coping scales is a concern in the present study. The original research (McCrae, 1982) was exploratory; a large number of coping mechanisms were examined in order to detect possible age differences. Precision of measurement was traded for scope: Many coping mechanisms were assessed by a single item or a very brief scale. These features were carried into the follow-up study. It is, of course, possible that age differences and changes might be identified if the coping mechanisms examined here were more reliably measured. This is particularly true for some of the single-item scales such as avoidance and assessing blame, which fail to show significant retest correlations. However, other single-item scales, such as faith and wishful thinking in the short form of the CQ, show substantial stability across seven years; such scales must possess at least moderate reliability and could be expected to show age changes if they were present. It is also important to recall that many of the scales do show acceptable levels of reliability. Hostile reaction and escapist fantasy, which have shown consistent cross-sectional associations with age, have alpha reliabilities of.83 and.68, respectively (McCrae, 1984) yet neither shows any evidence of longitudinal change. Similarly, the two coping factors are broad, reliable, and stable, but fail to show maturational effects. It is useful to recall that the present study examines coping in response to a single event, which provides a limited sample of coping behavior. In order to see the systematic effects of age on coping, it may be necessary to aggregate coping responses to a large number of stressful events. It might also be necessary to extend the retest interval. Although long in comparison with other published studies, it is short in comparison with the full adult life span. Over seven years, slowly progressing changes may not be seen. A definitive study would need to cover a longer interval, use more reliable measures, aggregate over many events, and use the same procedure for selecting the stressors at each time point. In the meantime, however, there is little evidence of pervasive maturational effects on coping, and a conservative assessment would be that the influence of aging on coping processes is at best "limited in scope and modest in strength" (Felton & Revenson, 1987, p. 168). If age is not a major determinant of coping, what is? Certainly characteristics of the situation play a major role; in the present study, for example, rational action was used more in dealing with challenge, faith more in dealing with threat and loss. However, there also appear to be consistent individual differences in coping. The retest correlations in Table 2 are modest in comparison to those typically found for personality measures (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1988), but considering the reliability of the individual scales, the differences in the stressor on the two occasions, and the lack of aggregation across stressors, the retest correlations in Table 2 may be seen as remarkably high. The 7-year stability coefficients for neurotic coping approach the level of 7-month and 1-year retest reliabilities of coping mechanisms (Felton & Revenson, 1984; Solomon et al., 1988). Further, there is strong agreement on the stability of individual mechanisms between two studies conducted on independent samples using different versions of the CQ. Some of the stability of coping behaviors can be attributed to enduring personality variables, such as Neuroticism, which influence the choice of coping mechanisms. However, coping behaviors may also be learned and retained independently of personality. Longitudinal studies that include measures of both personality and coping behaviors can address that issue. The fact that age does not seem to have a central impact on coping does not mean that gerontologists should abandon interest in the topic. The major issue in coping research is the ultimate effectiveness of different coping strategies in helping individuals deal with stress (Aldwin & Revenson, 1987; McCrae & Costa, 1986). Basic research on coping can offer a rational and systematic basis for interventions designed to help older people cope with such stressors as physical impairment, cognitive decline, and bereavement. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author thanks Stephanie Stone for coding characteristics of the stressors. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Robert R. McCrae, Personality, Stress, and Coping Section, Gerontology Research Center, 494 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD REFERENCES Aldwin, C. M., & Revenson, T. A. (1987). Does coping help? 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