Petra Buchwald - Professor of Education,
Arts/ Educational Science,
University of Wuppertal, Germany
Esther R. Greenglass, Professor,
Department of Psychology,
York University,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Krys Kaniasty, Ph.D.
Distinguished University Professor
Department Psychology Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Erica Frydenberg PhD
Hon FAPS GAICD
Melbourne Graduate School of Education,
University of Melbourne,
Australia
Kate Moore PhD, FAPS, MHP, MOP
School of Health Sciences and Psychology,
Faculty of Health
Federation University Australia
A Critical View of Social Support and Coping Competencies: Role of Context
Chairs: Esther Greenglass and Erica Frydenberg
York University, Canada University of Melbourne, Australia
Discussant: Esther Greenglass
Overview
According to research, social support and coping help alleviate psychological distress. This symposium consists of four papers that critically examine coping and social support within a stressful context. In one paper, it is stated that cooperation can promote better health outcomes but can also generate stress because it can threaten autonomy. This study reports that collective efficacy fosters pedagogical autonomy in teachers working in cooperative schools and concludes that cooperation and pedagogical autonomy do not conflict with each other, but rather are two complementary dimensions of a cooperative work setting. Another paper investigates social support dynamics among individuals with Type D (distressed) personality. Social support is critically examined and there are three manifestations of support: perceived social support, received social support, and social embeddedness. Results show deficits of Type D persons in several social support domains; particularly they focus on attachment styles, caregiving styles, communal motivation dimensions, and effectiveness in providing social support to others. In another paper personality influences avoidance coping, a strategy associated with greater anxiety. Results showed that higher sensory-processing sensitivity predicted more avoidant coping which had a significant mediation effect on the relationship between sensory-processing sensitivity and social anxiety. Further research in this symposium presents data supporting the idea of developing programmes for preschool children with a strong emphasis on coping. Developing young children’s ability to cope with difficult situations prepares them for improved future psychological well-being. Taken together the research presented here identifies critical dimensions of social support and coping competencies that can predict improved psychological outcomes. As such the papers contribute to an elaboration of theory of the development of coping and social support competencies that can improve mental health outcomes.
Keywords: coping, social support, stress, well-being, children
The importance of collective efficacy for teachers’ autonomy in cooperative school settings
Petra Buchwald1 and Stefanie Morgenroth2
1University of Wuppertal, Germany; 2University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
German schools and school principals in particular are encouraged to develop an atmosphere of openness, trustworthiness and cooperation within their teaching staff in order to prevent stress. However, intensive cooperation itself could be stressful because it threatens one of the key resources of German teachers, that is pedagogical autonomy. Current stress prevention programs for German teachers have yet to identify strategies which promote both, pedagogical autonomy, cooperation and resulting social support. First qualitative results indicated that self-efficacy helps to maintain autonomy in cooperative school settings. We now present quantitative data to verify these results. Forty elementary school teachers completed the Conservation of Resources List for Teachers as well as the self- and collective efficacy scale at three measurement points. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that collective efficacy of teachers (t2) is a significant predictor of autonomy (t3). Neither resources like “safety, resulting from routines”, “recognition for my achievement” and “the feeling, to achieve my pedagogical objectives” at time 1 nor self- efficacy at time 2 explained additional variance of pedagogical autonomy. These results suggest that collective efficacy seems to be very important to foster and maintain pedagogical autonomy in cooperative school settings. Apparently, intensive cooperation and pedagogical autonomy are not two opponents, but rather two complementary aspects in teams at German Schools. The meaning and practical relevance of these results will be discussed with respect to stress prevention programmes at German schools during times of innovations.
Keywords: stress, collective efficacy, autonomy, teacher cooperation
Improving coping skills and promoting social and emotional competence in pre-schoolers: A 5- week COPE-R programme
Erica Frydenberg, Esmerelda Lambe and Danielle Soliman University of Melbourne, Australia
Developing young children’s ability to cope with difficult situations prepares them for future challenges and enables them to experience greater success in life. Positive social interactions and self-regulation of emotions are two key competencies in helping a child cope effectively. This research examines the change in coping strategies used by four to five- year-old preschool children in challenging situations following participation in a five-week teacher-led COPE-R programme focused on developing empathy and prosocial skills. The study utilised a multi-method, multi- informant evaluation of the change in social and emotional competence (Study 1), and coping development (Study 2) between pre-schoolers in the teacher led Programme group and the Comparison group that implemented teacher-led activities that strengthened their sense of community and empathy. In addition to examining correlations between social and emotional competence, and coping (Study 3), programme outcomes were evaluated on rating scales completed by parents and teachers and pre-schoolers’ responses. Results support the importance of early years’ programmes in promoting development of pre-schoolers’ social and emotional competence and coping strategies. Results highlighted the importance of identifying specific learning outcomes when designing a programme, so that activities and language used are intentional in targeting areas of development effectively. These findings contribute to the existing literature and research on coping, and social and emotional development, as well as inform and promote programmes with strong emphasis on various aspects of social, emotional competence and coping to be made available for preschool children.
Keywords: Social emotional competence, self-regulation, coping, preschoolers
It’s even more complicated: Type D personality and social support - Part 2
Krys Kaniasty, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA and Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland Bartosz Pietruszewski, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Kathryn Appolonia,Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA
This presentation will report on a research program investigating social support dynamics among individuals with Type D (distressed) personality. The two defining characteristics of Type D personality – high negative affectivity (NA) and high social inhibition (SI) – can be considered as labilities in developing strong interpersonal relationships. Not surprisingly, many studies report that Type D persons, compared to non-Type D individuals, exhibit lower levels of perceptions of being reliably connected to others. The vast majority of these investigations relied on measures capturing only the perceived (“cognitive”) aspects of social support. However, social support is a multifaceted psychological resource that provides individuals with actual assistance and embeds them into a web of social relationships perceived to be loving, caring, and readily available in times of need. Thus, it is reasonable to at least differentiate among three most dominant manifestations of support: perceived social support, received social support, and social embeddedness. Our earlier studies showed obvious deficits of Type D persons in a wide variety of social support domains including received social support, social embeddedness, sense of companionship, support seeking comfort, and self-appraisals as providers of social support to others. This presentation will report additional empirical examinations that introduced more refined assessments of social support dynamics among people with Type D personality. In particular, these investigations focused on attachment styles, caregiving styles (deactivation and hyperactivation), communal motivation dimensions (general, partner-specific, and unmitigated), and effectiveness in providing social support to others.
Keywords: Type D personality, social support, personal relationships, well-being
Sensory-processing sensitivity: A model to predict social anxiety
Kate Moore and Timothy Campbell
Federation University Australia, Church, Australia.
Sensory-processing sensitivity, a proposed dimension of personality, refers to people’s emotional reactivity and depth of processing to environmental stimuli. Research has consistently concluded that highly sensitive people are more acutely susceptible to experiencing social anxiety. The aim in this study was to test a model proposing that the use of avoidant coping strategies mediates the relationship between sensory-processing sensitivity and social anxiety, and that the relationship between sensory-processing sensitivity and avoidant coping is moderated by the quality of the parental environment experienced in childhood. A sample of 353 adults (260 female, 90 males, M = 29.76 years) was recruited through social networking websites to complete an online survey. Results provided partial support for the model. As hypothesised, higher sensory-processing sensitivity predicted greater use of avoidant coping strategies and increased social anxiety. The use of avoidant coping strategies had a significant mediation effect on the relationship between sensory-processing sensitivity and social anxiety. The hypothesis that the relationship between sensory-processing sensitivity and avoidant coping would be moderated by the parental bonding style experienced in childhood was not supported. These findings suggest that the use of avoidant coping strategies is a characteristic behaviour of highly sensitive people that develops autonomously, and that, consistent with a diathesis-stress perspective, high levels of sensory- processing sensitivity may be a marker of dispositional vulnerability to social anxiety. Subsequent research should be directed at identifying and integrating additional factors that contribute to the relationship between sensory-processing sensitivity, avoidant coping, and social anxiety to build upon the predictive qualities of the partially mediated model so far defined.
Keywords: Sensory-processing sensitivity, social anxiety, coping