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Distinguishing between Passive and Active Prosocial Coping: Bridging Inner-City Women's Mental Health and Aids Risk Behavior

Kent State University, shobfoll{at}kent.edu

Kerstin E.E. Schröder

Kent State University

We examined the coping strategies of 1339, mostly African American (n = 666) and European American (n = 626), single, inner-city women in a cross-sectional study. We expected, and found through cluster analysis, four coping strategies: active-prosocial, active-asocial, passive-prosocial, and passive-asocial. It was hypothesized that women who were both active and prosocial in their general coping strategy would also report the most favorable coping correlates in terms of a broad array of variables, including the stressors they experienced, their personal and social resources, their psychological distress, and their safer-sex behavior. Women who were passive and asocial were predicted to have the poorest outcomes on these same variables. Women who were either active and asocial or passive and prosocial were hypothesized to have intermediary outcomes compared with the first two groups. The findings supported the hypotheses. The results suggest that when active and prosocial coping are linked, they lead to a broad array of positive psychological and behavioral outcomes, and that active coping alone is no more advantageous than prosocial coping alone.

Key Words: AIDS • coping • inner-city women • stress

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 18, No. 2, 201-217 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0265407501182003


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