This study investigated coping strategies, defined as cognitive and behavioral efforts to deal with stressful situations, and the attributional styles utilized by 8-10 year-old children. The children were interviewed and their responses led to the identification of 100 stressful events, the strategies they employed to deal with theses events, and their causal attributions for the events. The results indicated that the strategies children used more often to deal with conflict were to look for social support and aggressive actions. As an alternative strategy, the children indicated a preference for direct action. Distraction was the main strategy to deal with emotions elicited by the event. Direct action, avoidance, and acceptance strategies were more used in situations involving conflicts with adults, while aggressive actions and seeking social support were more frequent in situations involving peers. No significant differences were identified between coping strategies and attributional styles. The results of this study support the hypothesis that coping strategies are not dispositional and that they seem to be determined by the context of the event
Stressing events; Coping; Attributional style; Children
