Age Differences and Changes in the Use of Coping Mechanisms

Two cross-sectional studies of coping conducted on 405 men and women aged 21 to 91 in 1980 (McCrae, 1982) formed the basis for longitudinal analyses in 1987. At Time 2, 191 of the original subjects were retested, and data were also gathered from a new sample of 207 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. Cross-sectional 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.