ANTICIPATORY STRESS - THE RELATION OF LOCUS OF CONTROL, OPTIMISM, ANDCONTROL APPRAISALS TO COPING

This paper examined the locus of control beliefs and optimism as predi ctors of control appraisals and coping associated with three different anticipatory stressful situations (employment decisions, teacher bias , and natural disaster). The 118 undergraduate participants completed measures of locus of control (Rotter I-E), optimism (Life Orientation Test) and control appraisals (Stress Appraisal Measure) 2 weeks prior to completing the Inventory of Coping Schemas to report their coping s trategies used in dealing with each stressor. Regression analyses indi cated that optimism and locus of control were relatively independent p redictors of control appraisals and that control appraisals were gener ally better predictors of coping than either locus of control or optim ism. As expected, somewhat different patterns of significant predictor s were obtained for the three stressors. Results are discussed in term s of the congruence model of effective coping, which predicts relation s among control appraisals and coping for various types of stressful s ituations. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.