Project Description (10)

Stress and Coping in College Students

Study Description

Research has shown that various types of coping responses are differentially related to psychological outcomes (Compas et al., 2001). Previously, the Responses to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ) has been validated in children, adolescents and adults across several age and cultural groups (Connor-Smith et al., 2000). In the decade since the original validation of the RSQ, considerable research in emotion regulation has been conducted and has expanded the field’s knowledge of how emotion regulation responses can be considered a part of coping with stress (e.g., Mauss & Gross, 2007; Ray, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2008). The aim of the current study is to revise and expand the RSQ to reflect updates in research in coping and emotion regulation so that the questionnaire fully captures a range of coping and regulation responses to stress that have been researched (Compas, Jaser, & Benson, 2009), validate this revised version of the RSQ (i.e., RSQ-II) in a sample of college students, and examine constructs that are expected to relate to coping in order to expand the field’s knowledge on how coping with stress is related to psychological, emotional, and behavioral functioning in a variety of ways.