Progress and issues in the study of coping with stress during childhood and adolescence are reviewed. Definitions of coping are considered, and the relationship between coping and other aspects of responses to stress (e.g., temperament and stress reactivity) is described. Questionnaire, interview, and observation measures of child and adolescent coping are evaluated with regard to reliability and validity. Studies of the association of coping with symptoms of psychopathology and social and academic competence are reviewed. Initial progress has been made in the conceptualization and measurement of coping, and substantial evidence has accumulated on the association between coping and adjustment. Problems still remain in the conceptualization and measurement of coping in young people, however, and aspects of the development and correlates of coping remain to be identified. An agenda for future research on child-adolescent coping is outlined.

Personality psychology addresses views of human nature and individual differences. Biological and goal-based views of human nature provide an especially useful basis for construing coping; the five-factor model of traits adds a useful set of individual differences. Coping-responses to adversity and to the distress that results-is categorized in many ways. Meta-analyses link optimism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to more engagement coping; neuroticism to more disengagement coping; and optimism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness to less disengagement coping. Relations of traits to specific coping responses reveal a more nuanced picture. Several moderators of these associations also emerge: age, stressor severity, and temporal proximity between the coping activity and the coping report. Personality and coping play both independent and interactive roles in influencing physical and mental health. Recommendations are presented for ways future research can expand on the growing understanding of how personality and coping shape adjustment to stress.

The development of a measure of coping and involuntary stress responses in adolescence is described. The Responses to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ) reflects a conceptual model that includes volitional coping efforts and involuntary responses to specific stressful events or specified domains of stress. The psychometric characteristics of the RSQ were examined across 4 domains of stress in 3 samples of adolescents and parent reports obtained in 2 samples. The factor structure of the RSQ was tested and replicated with an adequate degree of fit using confirmatory factor analysis across 3 stressors in 2 samples. Internal consistency and retest reliability for the 5 factors were adequate to excellent. Concurrent validity was established through correlations with another measure of coping, heart rate reactivity, and correlations of self- and parent-reports. Significant correlations with both adolescents' and parents' reports of internalizing and externalizing symptoms were consistent with hypotheses.

Personality may directly facilitate or constrain coping, but relations of personality to coping have been inconsistent across studies, suggesting a need for greater attention to methods and samples. This meta-analysis tested moderators of relations between Big Five personality traits and coping using 2,653 effect sizes drawn from 165 samples and 33,094 participants. Personality was weakly related to broad coping (e.g., Engagement or Disengagement), but all 5 traits predicted specific strategies. Extraversion and Conscientiousness predicted more problem-solving and cognitive restructuring, Neuroticism less. Neuroticism predicted problematic strategies like wishful thinking, withdrawal, and emotion-focused coping but, like Extraversion, also predicted support seeking. Personality more strongly predicted coping in young samples, stressed samples, and samples reporting dispositional rather than situation-specific coping. Daily versus retrospective coping reports and self-selected versus researcher-selected stressors also moderated relations between personality and coping. Cross-cultural differences were present, and ethnically diverse samples showed more protective effects of personality. Richer understanding of the role of personality in the coping process requires assessment of personality facets and specific coping strategies, use of laboratory and daily report studies, and multivariate analyses.

This article considers the role of temperament in the development of depression during childhood and adolescence. The features of depression in young people and aspects of temperament that are most relevant to depression are briefly reviewed. Studies that have tested the direct and indirect associations of temperament and depressive symptoms in young people are summarized. Evidence suggests that the temperamental characteristics of positive and negative emotionality, and to a lesser extent attentional control, are implicated in depressive symptoms. The role of stress, stress responses, and coping are then examined in the association of temperament and depression. Temperamental characteristics may moderate and be moderated by stress responses and coping in their effects on depression. Directions for future research are highlighted.