Development of Two Scales of Coping Strategies: An Initial Investigation

For several years, researchers have studied stressors and strategies to cope with stressors. Scales are available to assess individual self-coping strategies (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984); the literature on social support suggests that our own self-strategies may affect the strategies we select and view as effective when we use them with others and may be related to how effective we view the strategies others use when assisting us with coping. No scales were available to measure these two perceptions or coping strategies based on negative social support. The Way I Help Others Cope and the Way Others Help Me Cope scales were modeled after the Lazarus and Folkman scales and also included negative social support coping styles. Favorable measures of internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities are reported.