(provided by candidate): The goal of this project is to investigate contextual and individual factors that are expected to relate to the coping process in children and adolescents. Although the emerging literature on resiliency has provided some evidence that temperament influences children's adaptation to stress, the current project can determine, by examining detailed assessment of the coping process, how these children react differently to life stressors. Specifically, children's subjective appraisals of stressors, their particular emotional reactions, and use of coping strategies will be examined. Additionally, the comprehensive assessment of children's life stressors allows for children's variability in temperament to be studied within the context of particular types of stressful situations. The data are from the first phase of a larger study investigating how children adapt to life stressors and how parents influence their adjustment across 1.5 years following the exposure to parental job loss. For the proposed project, the sample will include approximately 200 youths (aged 9 to 14 years). Children are interviewed to assess their experiences of stressors and resulting coping responses within the past year. Parents and children provide data on child temperament. The major hypotheses will be tested by examining how child temperament moderates the effects of contextual threat level on children's appraisals, emotions and coping strategies.
