Coping Flexibility, Potentially Traumatic Life Events, and Resilience: A Prospective Study of College Student Adjustment

Abstract

College has been shown to be a particularly stressful time both due to unique emergent stressors and because of increased vulnerability for exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs). Both of these conditions are associated with heightened risk for the development of stress-related pathology. However, while this period may be particularly challenging, previous work shows most students adapt in a number of heterogeneous ways that result in little or no stress-related symptomatology over the four years of college. There is indication from the coping literature that the ability to flexibly move between multiple coping behaviors may foster resilient outcomes. In this study, we examined trajectories of distress, using Latent Growth Mixture Modeling, and whether flexible coping aids in adaption. Results showed that trajectories were not influenced by exposure to a PTE and that the common outcome was little or no distress over the four years of college. Flexible coping was strongly associated with a resilie...