Distinguishing between passive and active prosocial coping: Bridging inner-city women's mental health and AIDS risk behavior

We examined the coping strategies of 1339, mostly African American (n = 666 ) and European American (n = 626), single, inner-city women in a cross-sect ional study. We expected, and found through cluster analysis, four coping s trategies: 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 copi ng correlates in terms of a broad array of variables, including the stresso rs they experienced, their personal and social resources, their psychologic al distress, and their safer-sex behavior. Women who were passive and asoci al were predicted to have the poorest outcomes on these same variables. Wom en who were either active and asocial or passive and prosocial were hypothe sized to have intermediary outcomes compared with the first two groups. The findings supported the hypotheses. The results suggest that when active an d prosocial coping are linked, they lead to a broad array of positive psych ological and behavioral outcomes, and that active coping alone is no more a dvantageous than prosocial coping alone.