Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2001, Vol. 80, No. 5, 814-833 Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/01/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.80.5.814 Assessing Coping Flexibility in Real-Life and Laboratory Settings: A Multimethod Approach Cecilia Cheng Hong Kong University of Science and Technology This research sought to formulate a theoretically based conceptualization of coping flexibility and to adopt a multimethod approach in assessing this construct. A self-report daily measure and an experiment were designed geared to theoretical and empirical grounds. The new daily measure was used in Study 1 to examine coping flexibility in a life transition. Findings showed individual differences in patterns of coping flexibility across different real-life stressful events. In Study 2, coping flexibility was examined in both real-life and laboratory settings. Results replicated those of Study 1 and further revealed consistency between the self-report and the experiment data. Study 3 extended previous studies by adopting a longitudinal design over a 3-month time span. Participants' flexibility in coping with laboratory tasks was found to predict how flexible they would be in handling real-life stressful events. Coping has been well researched because of its influential role in psychological adjustment. Two major functions of coping— problem management (i.e., problem focused) and emotion regula- tion (i.e., emotion focused)—have been proposed (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; see also Chan, 1994; Parker & Endler, 1996). Previous findings have shown that problem-focused coping strat- egies are generally adaptive in mitigating stress-related distress (e.g., Kim, Won, Liu, Liu, & Kitanishi, 1997; Marx & Schulze, 1991), but these strategies can also elicit distress (e.g., Cheng, Hui, & Lam, 1999, 2000; Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen, & DeLongis, 1986). Emotion-focused coping strategies are generally maladap- tive in magnifying stress-related distress (e.g., Chan & Hui, 1995; Holmes & Stevenson, 1990). However, some studies (e.g., Baum, Fleming, & Singer, 1983; Levenson, Mishra, Hamer, & Hastillo, 1989) have revealed that such strategies can also reduce distress. These inconsistent findings suggest that the same coping strategy can have distinct outcomes in different situations. In light of the evidence revealing little consistency in the use of coping strategies across situations (see, e.g., Compas, Forsythe, & Wagner, 1988; Kaloupek, White, & Wong, 1984), a more complete understanding of coping may require a microanalysis of coping processes in which individuals flexibly deploy different coping strategies in distinct stressful contexts. The adaptive nature of coping flexibility is consistent with both the social-cognitive approach to personality (e.g., Cantor & Flee- son, 1994; Mischel & Shoda, 1995, 1998) and the transactional approach to coping (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, 1987; Pearlin, Preparation of this article was supported by Research Grants Council's Competitive Earmarked Research Grant HKUST6078/99H and Direct Al- location Grant DAG98/99.HSS06. I thank Hon-chung Chan, Ho-ka Chau, Wing-kan Lui, and Violet Sze for research assistance and Mo-ching Chan, William Suen, and Yuk-pui Yau for help in preparing this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cecilia Cheng, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Electronic mail may be sent to c.cheng@ust.hk. Menaghan, Lieberman, & Mullan, 1981). In the social-cognitive approach to personality, individuals are posited as cognitive beings who can discriminate characteristics among different situations and flexibly adjust their behavior according to changing situational constraints (Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Mischel, 1973). Hence, social-cognitive theorists have regarded flexibility as an adaptive personality quality that enables individuals to meet the specific constraints of a variety of situations. In the transactional approach to coping, the construct of coping is conceptualized as a dynamic process. Individuals constantly alter their thoughts and behavior in response to the changes in their appraisals of stressful situations and in the demands of those situations (see Neufeld, 1999, for a discussion). As our environment is ever-changing, adaptiveness of coping flexibility is implied. Despite the emphasis on the adaptive nature of coping flexibility in recent theoretical discussions (see Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997; Miller, Shoda, & Hurley, 1996), not many attempts have been made to examine this construct. A review of the existing literature identifies unexplored conceptual and methodological issues that may hamper the understanding of the coping process. In the literature on coping flexibility, no conceptual definition of this construct has been provided. Apart from the conceptualization of coping flexibility, conceptual overlap is another concern. Ap- parently, coping flexibility may be similar to self-monitoring, which refers to the tendency to monitor one's self-presentation to display socially appropriate behaviors (see Snyder, 1974). A close examination of the nature of these constructs reveals that there should be minimal overlap between them. The variable behavioral patterns of individuals who are high in self-monitoring often do not correspond to these individuals' attitudes about how they should behave (e.g., Snyder, 1974; Snyder & Cantor, 1980). In contrast, coping flexibility should reflect one's attitudes about coping effectively in situations and one's intentions to display situation-appropriate behavior (Cheng, Chiu, Hong, & Cheung, in press; Chiu, Hong, Mischel, & Shoda, 1995). Moreover, the con- struct of coping flexibility should be related to psychological adjustment to stressful situations rather than to the mere intention to give socially desirable answers. In addition, coping, especially 814