Assessment of multidimensional coping: Task, emotion, and avoidance strategies.

Four studies on the psychometric properties of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) are reported. Study 1 examined the factor structure of the CISS in samples of 832 college students and 483 adults. Strong support was found for the multidimensionality of the CISS, suggesting that the scale independently assesses 3 basic dimensions: task-, emotion-, and avoidance-oriented coping. Study 2 further investigated the construct validity of the CISS by comparing it with 2 measures of basic coping styles. Study 3 also examined the construct validity of the CISS by comparing it with various measures of psychopathology. Study 4 investigated the concurrent validity of the CISS by studying the relationship between crying style (assessed by the CISS) and situation-specific coping responses used in 2 different stressful situations