Abstract

RICHAUD DE MINZI, María Cristina  and  IGLESIAS, María Fabiola. Coping assessment in small children. Subj. procesos cogn. [online]. 2013, vol.17, n.1, pp.244-256. ISSN 1852-7310.

The way in which small children cope with stress is a fundamental variable that allows understanding whether they have a style to resolve conflicts, what the style is like and if it is functional enough for successful development. The evaluation of psychological processes in children has always been quite difficult and a challenge to the method. In general, when working with children observation or third party reports (from parents and teachers) are used, which though interesting differ from what the children actually do. The children self-reports centering on their own performance tend to be a safer measure compared to adult reports. The aim of the present work is to present different forms of evaluating the hetero- evaluation coping self-report, in children aged 4 to 12, originated in the stress coping model proposed by Lazarus and Folkman (1986) which emphasizes a continuous and reciprocal type of interaction between person and environment. The processes of interest for the study of coping, according to this model, are specific categories of performance which modify either the source of the problem (coping centered on the problem) or the emotional distress (coping centered on emotion). To this categorization Billings and Moos add coping centered on evaluation, which consists in modifying conflict interpretation in order to reduce its impact. This study indicates how operationalization of the model of the three styles is carried out, according to the different measures here presented and the results of their psychometric study.

Keywords : Coping; Children; Evaluation; Hetero evaluation; Self-report.

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