COPING, ANDROGYNY, AND ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE

To examine the impact of androgyny and attributional style on coping a bility, a demographic questionnaire, the Zeitlin Coping Inventory, the Bem Sex-role Inventory and the Attributional Style Questionnaire were completed by 301 first-year students at the University of Stellenbosc h. It was found that androgynous female subjects displayed significant ly better coping abilities than female subjects with feminine, masculi ne, or undifferentiated sex-role orientations. No significant differen ce was found between coping abilities of androgynous and masculine mal e subjects, although both androgynous and masculine males showed signi ficantly better coping abilities than males with feminine or undiffere ntiated sex-role orientations. Regarding a specific aspect of coping, namely flexibility of coping style, both male and female subjects with androgynous sex-role orientations displayed significantly more flexib ility in their coping styles than subjects of any other sex-role type. Regarding attributional style, a significant positive correlation was found between good coping ability and an internal, stable, and global attributional style for positive events. A significant positive corre lation was likewise found between good coping ability and an external, unstable, and specific attributional style for negative events. The c onclusion was drawn that androgyny and an adaptive attributional style served as important coping resources.