Appraisals of controllability and coping in caregivers and HIV+ men: Testing the goodness-of-fit hypothesis

The authors examined goodness of fit between controllability appraisals and coping in 82 HIV+ and 162 HIV- gay men experiencing the chronic stress of caregiving and 61 HIV+ gay men who were not caregiving. Multiple assessment s of each individual over a 2-year period allowed replication of prior cros s-sectional research examining goodness of fit, as well as the creation of intraindividual goodness-of-fit scores that were then used to examine withi n-person fluctuations in goodness of fit over time and goodness of fit as a n individual difference variable related to adjustment. Results indicate th at the importance of goodness of fit varies for different kinds of coping: The concept was supported for problem-focused coping and, to a lesser exten t, for emotion-focused coping but not for meaning-focused coping. Within-su bject variation in goodness of fit was related to within-subject variation in depressed mood, but between-subjects variation (individual differences) in fit was not associated with depressed mood, suggesting that goodness of fit is better understood as a transactional variable than as a personality or "coping style" variable.