Sex, type A/B personality, and the coping strategies of stressors for a college population

The purpose of this study was to determine how Type A and Type B male and female undergraduates perceive the stressfulness of situations and use coping strategies. One hundred eighty-seven undergraduates viewed a video previously rated as highly stressful and completed measures that assessed social desirability, depressive mood, Type A/B behavior patterns, perception of the stressfulness of the video, and coping strategies they would use. It was hypothesized that (1) features of the video which participants' found stressful would differ as a function of the participants' personality but not their sex and that women would have a higher stressfulness rating for the video than men; and (2) there would be main effects for sex and personality regarding what coping strategies would be employed. It was found that women had higher overall stress ratings than men, that men used more problem-focused coping than women, and that Type As used more religiosity coping than Type Bs.