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The structure and properties of the Estonian COPE Inventory

Article  in  Personality and Individual Differences · November 2000

DOI: 10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00240-8

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 Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894
www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

The structure and properties of the Estonian COPE

inventory
T. Kallasmaa*, A. Pulver
Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410, Estonia
Received 4 February 1999; received in revised form 1 November 1999; accepted 12 November 1999

Abstract

The COPE (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989) is a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the
di€erent ways people respond to stress. The present article is about the structure and psychometric
properties of the Estonian dispositional COPE. Compared to the original scales the internal reliabilities
of the adapted scales were entirely satisfactory (i.e. alphas ranged from 0.49 for Restraint Coping to
0.95 for Alcohol/Drug Use). A cluster analysis with 60 items and a second-order factor analysis with 15
primary scales suggested three underlying factors identi®ed as Task, Avoidance, and Social/Emotional.
The three secondary COPE scales were almost independent, except the relation between the Task and
the Social/Emotional scale (r = 0.17, P < 0.001). Women averaged strikingly higher on the Social/
Emotional scale whereas men scored higher on the Task scale. A small group of participants (N = 33)
completed the COPE twice (interval=27 months), the test±retest correlations were r = 0.33 (n.s.) for the
Task, r = 0.61 (P < 0.001) for the Avoidance, and r = 0.62 (P < 0.001) for the Social/Emotional scales,
respectively. The correlations between the Estonian COPE and the Estonian NEO-PI (Pulver, Allik,
HaÈmaÈlaÈinen & Pulkkinen, 1995) demonstrated that the Estonian COPE scales can be meaningfully
viewed in a larger dispositional context marked by the Big Five personality traits. 7 2000 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Coping strategies; COPE inventory; Factor structure; Personality dimensions; NEO Personality Inventory

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +372-7-375-902; fax: +372-7-375-900.

E-mail address: talvi@psych.ut.ee (T. Kallasmaa).

0191-8869/00/$ - see front matter 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 9 1 - 8 8 6 9 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 2 4 0 - 8
882 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894

1. Introduction

In recent years, the dispositional approach to the process of coping with stress has been
remarkable (Carver et al., 1989; Costa, Somer®eld & McCrae, 1996; Hewitt & Flett, 1996; Suls,
David & Harvey, 1996; Watson & Hubbard 1996). The main rationale for this approach is to
view the stable coping styles as manifestations of few dispositions which should explain various
adaptive/maladaptive behaviors. Yet, there is still a debatable question about how many
coping dispositions should be elaborated. The hierarchical structure of coping (Krohne, 1996;
Tobin, Holroyd, Reynolds & Wigal, 1989) allows us to assume that the number of potential
coping dimensions depends mainly on the level of analysis. Therefore, empirically, the main
problem is matching di€erent classi®cations of coping strategies. This problem was recently
investigated by Cook and Heppner (1997) who examined the common constructs underlying
three coping inventories (the COPE, the Coping Strategies Inventory, and the Coping
Inventory for Stressful Situations). They found three general factors across the instruments:
Problem Engagement, Avoidance, and Social/Emotional. The present study focuses on one of
these coping inventories, the COPE, and tests the replicability of the original factor structure in
another language and culture.

1.1. The COPE inventory

The COPE inventory (Carver et al., 1989) is one of the most popular multidimensional
measures of coping styles. Despite the wide use there are few studies that have concentrated on
the psychometric properties and internal structure of the COPE (Clark, Bormann, Cropanzano
& James, 1995; Cook & Heppner, 1997). There is some evidence of the transportability of the
COPE into other languages/cultures, such as Italian (Sica, Novara, Dorz & Sanavio, 1997) and
Croatian (Hudek-KnezÏevicÂ, Kardum & VukmirovicÂ, 1999).
According to Carver et al. (1989), the development of the COPE inventory was more
theoretical or `rational' than empirical. Theoretically, ®ve scales of the inventory were
established as the subdimensions of problem-solving (Active Coping, Planning, Suppression of
Competing Activities, Restraint Coping, and Seeking Social Support for Instrumental
Reasons); another ®ve scales as subdimensions of emotional coping (Seeking Social Support for
Emotional Reasons, Positive Reinterpretation and Growth, Acceptance, Denial, and Turning
to Religion); and three as less useful (Focus on and Venting of Emotions, Behavioral
Disengagement, and Mental Disengagement) coping responses.
Carver et al. (1989) submitted the COPE to a principal-factor analysis with oblique rotation
which yielded 13 scales: Active Coping, Planning, Suppression of Competing Activities, Seeking
Social Support for Instrumental Reasons, Seeking Social Support for Emotional Reasons,
Focus on and Venting of Emotions, Denial, Mental Disengagement, Behavioral
Disengagement, Acceptance, Restraint Coping, Positive Reinterpretation and Growth, Turning
to Religion, and a single-item Alcohol/Drug Use scale. Although the two Social Support scales
loaded together on a single factor, the authors opted to separate them to emphasize the
theoretical distinction between seeking support for advice or for emotional reasons. In the
same vein, the Active Coping and Planning scales also loaded on a single factor but were
 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894 883

separated to amplify the theoretical distinction between planning and actually executing coping
e€orts.
A second-order factor analysis (i.e. using scale totals as the raw data), unfortunately, yielded
inconsistent results. The researchers report on replicating two (Zeidner & Hammer, 1992),
three (Cook & Heppner, 1997; Hudek-KnezÏevic et al., 1999; Ptacek & Dodge, 1995), four
(Carver et al., 1989; Phelps & Jarvis, 1994) and ®ve (Sica et al., 1997) second-order factors.
The comparison of these results has often been problematic because di€erent researchers used
structures based on varying numbers of items and scales.
Exploring the COPE has revealed problems with Turning to Religion and Alcohol/Drug
Use: representing very speci®c coping tactics, the scales have typically failed to load
substantially on the second-order factors (see Carver et al., 1989; Cook & Heppner, 1997;
Phelps & Jarvis, 1994, but see Sica et al., 1997 for opposite evidence). The Humor scale, too,
has sometimes failed to load substantially on the factors (Phelps & Jarvis, 1994). Consequently,
the COPE yields a ®nely di€erentiated assessment of diverse coping strategies, but there is a
lack of consensus in regard to a number of underlying dimensions.
Evidence for reliability of the COPE scales comes mainly from Cronbach alphas which range
from 0.39 (for Mental Disengagement; Fontaine, Manstead & Wagner, 1993) to 0.96 (for
Alcohol/Drug Use; Clark et al., 1995). Initial test±retest reliability ®ndings (8-week correlations
ranged from 0.46 to 0.77 and 6-week correlations ranged from 0.42 to 0.89) indicated that the
self-reports of coping tendencies measured by COPE are relatively stable, `although they do
not in general appear to be as stable as personality traits' (Carver et al., 1989).
Support for convergent and discriminant validity of the COPE is provided by the authors of
the inventory (Carver et al., 1989) and other investigators (Clark et al., 1995; Cook &
Heppner, 1997). Relevant to the present study is the work conducted by Watson and Hubbard
(1996) who demonstrated on a sample of undergraduates that factor scores on the Big Five
personality traits were di€erently related to the COPE scales.

1.2. The aims of the present study

The major reason for undertaking this study was to examine the internal structure and
psychometric properties of the COPE inventory in an Estonian sample. We compared the new
Estonian data with prior studies to investigate the generalizability of the internal structure of
the COPE (i.e. the relations among the coping strategies) across these studies. The second
purpose of the study was to test the validity of the Estonian version of the COPE by relating it
to the measure of the Big Five, the Estonian NEO-PI.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants were 515 undergraduate students (mean age=21 years, SD=2.4), 399 females
and 116 males, who enrolled in various psychology courses at the University of Tartu during
884 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894

1995±1996. All participants completed the Estonian COPE inventory, 428 of them also
completed the Estonian NEO Personality Inventory.

2.2. Inventories

2.2.1. The COPE inventory

The COPE is designed to assess both situational and dispositional coping strategies. In the
present study, we used a dispositional version of the COPE, i.e., while completing the
questionnaire respondents were instructed to respond to items with reference to how they
usually attempt to cope with stress in their lives. Response choices were from 1 (`I usually
don't do this at all') to 4 (`I usually do this a lot'). After the scale's publication in 1989, three
items have been added to the Alcohol/Drug Use scale, and a four-item Humor scale has also
been added to the COPE. These additional items were all included in the version of the COPE
used in the present study, thus making the ®nal item pool of 60 items.
For constructing the Estonian COPE, the original 60 items were translated into Estonian by
the authors of this article. The items were backtranslated into English by a bilingual expert.
The back-translated items were similar in meaning to the original English items.

2.3. The NEO Personality Inventory

The adapted Estonian version (Pulver et al., 1995) of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-
PI; Costa & McCrae, 1989) was used to measure the ®ve major domains of personality:
Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A), and
Conscientiousness (C). The Estonian NEO-PI consists of 181 items that are rated on a ®ve-
point scale ranging from `strongly agree' to `strongly disagree'.

3. Results

3.1. Psychometric properties of the Estonian COPE inventory

As a ®rst step, 15 four-item primary scales were formed following the prescription by the
authors of the inventory. Information concerning the psychometric properties of the primary
COPE scales is presented in Table 1. Scale means and standard deviations are given separately
for males and females. This division makes sense as there appeared to be remarkable gender
di€erences in the reported use of nine coping strategies. The biggest di€erences occurred in
scores of two scales: Seeking Social Support for Emotional Reasons and Focus on and Venting
of Emotions. Consistent with sex roles, these tendencies were stronger among women than
among men. Men reported using more alcohol/drug, humor, and suppression of competing
activities as their usual coping strategies. These di€erences are in good agreement with previous
studies (Carver et al., 1989; Ptacek, Smith & Zanas, 1992; Zeidner & Hammer, 1992). With
respect to scale means, there is another thing that is apparent from Table 1. Namely,
independent of gender, respondents endorsed more items on some coping scales (e.g., Active
Coping, Planning, Positive Reinterpretation and Growth) than others (e.g., Turning to
Religion, Alcohol/Drug Use, Denial). The index of skewness revealed that two of the scales Ð
 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894 885

Alcohol/Drug Use and Turning to Religion Ð were extremely skewed, that is, most
respondents reported no or only little use of alcohol/drugs and turning to religion as their
typical ways of coping with adversities.
Information concerning the internal consistency of the 15 primary scales of the Estonian
COPE comes from the Cronbach alpha reliability coecients (Table 1) that ranged from 0.49
for Restraint Coping to 0.95 for Alcohol/Drug Use. These reliabilities are comparable to those
reported in prior studies (Carver et al., 1989; Hudek-KnezÏevic et al., 1999; Sica et al., 1997).
A small group of participants (N = 33) completed the COPE inventory more than two years
(27 months) later. These test±retest correlations are shown in the last column of Table 1. One
may argue whether these numbers depict the reliabilities of the scales or the stability of self-
reported coping strategies. Yet, in either case it is remarkable that the correlation coecients
vary largely across the 15 scales. The highest values appear for the Humor and Positive
Reinterpretation and Growth scales (r = 0.63, and r = 0.60, P < 0.001, respectively), the
lowest values appear for Planning and Mental Disengagement (r = 0.32, n.s. for both scales).

Table 1
Means, standard deviations, skewness, Cronbach alphas and test±retest correlations for the Estonian COPE scales

Males Females

COPE scales Mean SD Mean SD t-value Skewa Alpha Test±retestb

Primary COPE scales

T: Planning 13.27 1.99 12.90 1.95 1.76 ÿ0.33 0.75 0.32
T: Active coping 11.46 1.99 11.23 1.97 1.11 0.08 0.73 0.35
T: Positive reinterpretation and growth 11.65 2.13 11.55 1.95 0.45 ÿ0.19 0.60 0.60
T: Suppression of competing activities 10.14 1.94 9.34 2.00 3.82 0.08 0.67 0.40
T: Humor 9.67 2.95 8.62 2.78 3.56 0.29 0.93 0.63
A: Behavioral disengagement 6.94 1.84 7.05 1.77 ÿ0.60 0.19 0.64 0.49
A: Denial 6.00 1.78 6.52 1.90 ÿ2.62 0.56 0.65 0.38
A: Mental disengagement 9.14 2.06 10.09 2.13 ÿ4.25 0.11 0.53 0.32
A: Restraint coping 9.79 1.91 9.64 1.93 0.75 ÿ0.26 0.49 0.38
A: Acceptance 10.70 2.42 10.59 2.33 0.44 ÿ0.26 0.71 0.33
S: Seeking social support Ð Emotional 9.17 2.43 11.33 2.66 ÿ7.82 ÿ0.07 0.81 0.51
S: Seeking social support Ð Instrumental 10.16 2.83 11.14 2.55 ÿ3.57 ÿ0.11 0.84 0.50
S: Focus on and venting of emotions 8.56 2.17 9.83 2.36 ÿ5.20 0.28 0.76 0.45
Alcohol/drug use 5.66 2.61 4.95 1.89 3.27 2.05 0.95 0.55
Turning to religion 5.72 2.54 6.72 3.23 ÿ3.05 1.38 0.92 0.59
Secondary COPE scales
Task (T) 56.18 6.82 53.63 6.51 3.67 0.02 0.81 0.33
Avoidance (A) 42.57 5.85 43.88 6.04 ÿ2.08 ÿ0.16 0.73 0.61
Social/emotional (S) 27.89 5.64 32.30 5.89 ÿ7.18 ÿ0.00 0.86 0.62

For males, N = 116; for females, N = 399. Each primary COPE scale consists of four items, range of possible
mean values is 4±16. Capital letter before the primary COPE scale indicates to which secondary scale it belongs. P
< 0.05, P < 0.01, P < 0.001.
a
SE of skewness for all scales is 0.11.
b
Test±retest interval=27 months (N = 33).
886 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894

3.2. Factor structure of the Estonian COPE

3.2.1. Cluster analysis with items

Cluster analysis was performed with 60 items of the COPE. The distance between the
variables was de®ned by Pearson r, and Ward's method was used to determine when two
clusters are suciently similar to be linked together. As is clear from Fig. 1, the data contain a
relatively clear structure, which means that the 60 items tapping 15 distinguishable coping
strategies persist thematically together and join into three distinct branches or clusters. Thus,
there is no doubt that the 15 strategies measured with the COPE could be meaningfully
grouped into a smaller number of coping dispositions.

Fig. 1. Hierarchical tree plot of the 60 items (vertical axes) of the Estonian COPE. Distance measure=1ÿPearson r,
linkage rule=Ward's method.
 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894 887

Fig. 2. Scree plot for the factor analysis on the 15 primary scales of the Estonian COPE. The continuous line
illustrates the results of parallel analysis based on the mean eigenvalues of 10 random data sets.

3.2.2. Factor analyses with scales

When the 15 primary COPE scales were factored using principal components analysis with
varimax rotation, parallel analysis suggested that four factors should be retained (cf. Zwick &
Velicer, 1986). The scree plot for the factor analysis and the results of parallel analysis are
shown in Fig. 2. As is evident from this ®gure, however, the four-factor solution is not the
only possibility: three- and ®ve-factor solutions are considerable alternatives (according to
Cattell's scree test and the Kaiser criterion). Thus, we examined several solutions with three to
®ve factors, and chose the three-factor solution that made the best `sense'.1 Essentially,
evidence of the three-factor solution of the COPE is present at least in a couple of prior studies
(Cook & Heppner, 1997; Hudek-KnezÏevic et al., 1999). Table 2 presents the three-factor
solution (named `initial solution') that accounted for 42% of the total variance. Scale
communalities (also shown in Table 2) revealed that only 5% and 7 % of the variance in
Alcohol/Drug Use and Religion, respectively, was due to these three factors. Therefore, we
repeated the factor analysis omitting these two scales. Again, factors began to level o€ after the
three ®rst factors (which accounted for 47% of the total variance) with successive factors
adding relatively few to the explanation of the total variance. The resultant three-factor
structure (see `®nal solution' in Table 2) appeared to be basically similar to the initial one.
On the basis of this factor solution, three secondary COPE scales were formed: (1) Task, (2)

1
Fourth and ®fth factors were mainly composed of variables that loaded on these factors only secondarily thus
making the interpretation of the respective factors dicult.
888 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894

Table 2
Factor loadings (principal components analysis with varimax-rotation) of the Estonian COPE scales

Initial solution Final solution

COPE scales F1 F2 F3 h2 F1 F2 F3 h2

Planninga 0.70 ÿ0.19 0.26 0.43 0.73 ÿ0.21 0.18 0.43

Active copinga 0.59 ÿ0.38 0.31 0.43 0.61 ÿ0.40 0.26 0.43
Positive reinterpretation and growthd 0.70 0.10 0.04 0.27 0.70 0.08 ÿ0.03 0.27
Suppression of competing activitiesa 0.41 ÿ0.02 0.05 0.14 0.43 ÿ0.04 ÿ0.00 0.14
Humor 0.40 0.12 ÿ0.03 0.14 0.40 0.11 ÿ0.05 0.13
Behavioral disengagementc ÿ0.22 0.63 ÿ0.03 0.21 ÿ0.20 0.63 ÿ0.01 0.21
Denialc ÿ0.11 0.61 0.03 0.16 ÿ0.09 0.61 0.04 0.16
Mental disengagementc ÿ0.04 0.51 0.16 0.14 ÿ0.02 0.51 0.19 0.14
Restraint copingd 0.39 0.61 ÿ0.05 0.29 0.40 0.59 ÿ0.10 0.28
Acceptanced 0.42 0.54 ÿ0.13 0.22 0.42 0.53 ÿ0.15 0.21
Seeking social support Ð Emotionalb ÿ0.04 0.05 0.85 0.47 0.04 0.05 0.86 0.47
Seeking social support Ð Instrumentalb 0.31 ÿ0.04 0.76 0.48 0.37 ÿ0.06 0.74 0.48
Focus on and venting of emotionsb ÿ0.30 0.08 0.66 0.24 ÿ0.22 0.08 0.69 0.23
Alcohol/drug use ÿ0.24 0.06 0.05 0.05

Turning to religion 0.08 ÿ0.00 0.34 0.07

Explained variance 2.30 1.90 2.07 2.32 1.90 1.94
Percentage of total variance 0.15 0.13 0.14 0.18 0.15 0.15

Loadings r0.40 in absolute magnitude are in boldface. h 2 =variable communalities, computed from the respect-
ive three factors.
a
These scales formed one factor in the analysis of dispositional COPE scales conducted by Carver et al. (1989).
b
These scales formed a second factor in the analysis of dispositional COPE scales conducted by Carver et al.
(1989).
c
These scales formed a third factor in the analysis of dispositional COPE scales conducted by Carver et al. (1989).
d
These scales formed a fourth factor in the analysis of dispositional COPE scales conducted by Carver et al.
(1989).

Avoidance, and (3) Social/Emotional.2 The Task scale consists of the scales that are related to
problem- or task-oriented coping: Planning, Active Coping, and Suppression of Competing
Activities. It also incorporates two scales Ð Positive Reinterpretation and Growth and Humor
Ð that have been regarded primarily as emotion management strategies (Carver et al., 1989;
Cook & Heppner, 1997). Importantly, this ®nding is in concert with theoretical arguments,
namely, that positive construction of a stressful situation facilitates approach coping and leads
to continuing problem-focused actions. The Avoidance scale consists of Behavioral
Disengagement, Denial, and Mental Disengagement Ð the strategies that have been regarded
as avoidance-oriented coping strategies. It also included Restraint Coping and Acceptance that
are both conceptually and empirically rather ambivalent. Empirically, these scales have loaded
on the Problem Engagement factor (in the Croatian version), or have formed, together with

2
The labels were chosen from the previous literature. For instance, `Social/Emotional' was used by Cook and
Heppner (1997) to label the factor that combined Social Support and Emotion Management strategies.
 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894 889

Positive Reinterpretation and Growth, a distinct factor (the Acceptance factor in the original
and in the Italian version). We will discuss the conceptual matters later in this article. Finally,
the most easily reproduced scale in prior investigations of the COPE includes two Seeking
Social Support scales and Focus on and Venting of Emotions, and is therefore labeled Social/
Emotional. The three secondary scales were almost independent, shown by near-to-zero
correlations between the scales. Only the Task and the Social/Emotional scales appeared to be
somewhat related (r = 0.17, P < 0.001). Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics of these
secondary scales. As was already evident from the means of 15 primary scales, men scored
higher on the Task and lower on the Social/Emotional scale compared to women. The
secondary COPE scales were internally reliable; test±retest correlations were signi®cant for the
two scales, Avoidance (r = 0.61, P < 0.001) and Social/Emotional (r = 0.62, P < 0.001), but
not for the Task (r = 0.33, n.s.).

3.2.3. Relations between the Estonian versions of the COPE and the NEO-PI
The correlations between the COPE scales (primary and secondary) and the ®ve dimensions
of personality measured by the Estonian NEO-PI are displayed in Table 3, separately for male
and female students. Due to the large number of correlations performed, Bonferroni adjusted
alpha of P < 0.001 was applied to correlation coecients. Altogether, 16 primary COPE scales
correlated signi®cantly with NEO-PI domains, ®ve of these links appeared in both sexes, but
the remaining 11 links were present only in women. As expected on the basis of earlier ®ndings
(McCrae & Costa, 1986; Watson & Hubbard, 1996), N had the strongest links with the COPE
scales, but also three other dimensions Ð E, C, and A Ð had statistically signi®cant and
conceptually meaningful links. Only O had no signi®cant relations with the primary COPE
scales.
Beyond these general links, the data in Table 3 also indicate that the correlations are
conceptually meaningful and similar to those reported by Watson and Hubbard (1996). Of the
®ve personality measures, N is negatively related to the six COPE scales: Positive
Reinterpretation and Growth, Focus on and Venting of Emotions, and Alcohol/Drug Use in
both sexes; and Active Coping, Behavioral Disengagement, and Denial in women only. E is
positively related to Seeking Social Support for Instrumental Reasons in men and women; and
positively to Active Coping, Positive Reinterpretation and Growth, and negatively to
Behavioral Disengagement in women only. C is negatively related to Alcohol/Drug Use in both
sexes; and negatively to Behavioral Disengagement, Focus on and Venting of Emotions and
positively to Active Coping in women only. A is negatively related to Focus on and Venting of
Emotions and positively to Turning to Religion in women but not in men. Contrary to other
studies that have found signi®cant relations between O and Positive Reinterpretation and
Growth (O'Brien & DeLongis, 1996; Watson & Hubbard, 1996) and Active Coping (Watson &
Hubbard, 1996), no signi®cant relations were obtained between O and any of the primary
COPE scales in the present study.
Because the NEO-PI and COPE tap both hierarchical constructs, it may be relevant to
consider the level at which the comparisons are being made. Whereas primary COPE scales tap
speci®c coping strategies when secondary COPE scales assess broader coping styles just as
NEO-PI domain scales tap broad clusters of personality traits. At this broad level it appears
that N and E are the two correlates of secondary COPE scales, whereas O, C, and A are
 890
Table 3
Correlations between the Estonian COPE scales and the NEO-PI domain scales in female and male undergraduatesa

T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894

NEO-PI domain scales

N E O C A

COPE scales F M F M F M F M F M

Primary COPE scales

T: Planning ÿ0.14 ÿ0.15 0.15 0.11 0.08 0.02 0.16 0.10 0.08 0.05
T: Active coping ÿ0.20 ÿ0.26 0.22 0.31 0.11 0.02 0.28 0.27 0.05 0.10
T: Positive reinterpretation and growth ÿ0.31 ÿ0.37 0.22 0.31 0.13 0.10 0.14 0.17 0.12 0.03
T: Suppression of competing activities ÿ0.05 ÿ0.02 ÿ0.02 0.16 ÿ0.07 0.06 ÿ0.00 ÿ0.09 0.03 0.01
T: Humor ÿ0.12 ÿ0.18 0.17 0.24 0.03 0.16 ÿ0.09 0.03 0.03 ÿ0.02
A: Behavioral disengagement 0.28 0.32 ÿ0.28 ÿ0.30 ÿ0.15 ÿ0.01 ÿ0.34 ÿ0.30 ÿ0.05 ÿ0.05
A: Denial 0.18 0.19 ÿ0.04 ÿ0.05 ÿ0.14 ÿ0.00 ÿ0.13 ÿ0.11 ÿ0.11 ÿ0.16
A: Mental disengagement 0.10 0.06 0.05 ÿ0.06 ÿ0.05 0.01 0.03 0.09 ÿ0.11 0.01
A: Restraint coping 0.01 ÿ0.08 ÿ0.07 ÿ0.10 ÿ0.06 ÿ0.05 ÿ0.09 ÿ0.01 ÿ0.02 0.04
A: Acceptance ÿ0.07 ÿ0.07 ÿ0.10 ÿ0.06 ÿ0.15 0.12 0.00 ÿ0.05 0.04 0.10
S: Seeking social support Ð Emotional 0.14 0.06 0.14 0.32 0.11 0.09 ÿ0.05 ÿ0.02 0.02 0.12
S: Seeking social support Ð Instrumental 0.01 ÿ0.12 0.22 0.43 0.05 0.03 0.02 0.03 ÿ0.00 ÿ0.07
S: Focus on and venting of emotions 0.46 0.46 0.09 0.12 0.13 0.25 ÿ0.21 ÿ0.05 ÿ0.20 ÿ0.07
Alcohol/drug use 0.21 0.33 0.00 0.07 0.15 0.27 ÿ0.22 ÿ0.38 ÿ0.08 ÿ0.05
Turning to religion ÿ0.03 ÿ0.02 ÿ0.05 0.14 0.10 ÿ0.01 0.05 0.09 0.25 0.05

Secondary COPE scales

Task (T) ÿ0.25 ÿ0.32 0.24 0.37 0.09 0.13 0.14 0.15 0.10 0.05
Avoidance (A) 0.15 0.13 ÿ0.14 ÿ0.19 ÿ0.19 0.03 ÿ0.16 ÿ0.12 ÿ0.08 ÿ0.01
Social/emotional (S) 0.25 0.14 0.20 0.40 0.12 0.15 ÿ0.10 ÿ0.01 ÿ0.07 ÿ0.01

Capital letter before the primary COPE scale indicates to which secondary scale it belongs. NEO-PI domain scales: N=Neuroticism, E=Extra-
version, O=Openness to Experience, C=Conscientiousness, A=Agreeableness.
a
For males, N = 102; for females, N = 326.

P < 0.001.
 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894 891

almost nonrelated to the secondary COPE scales. The Task scale is negatively related to N and
positively to E in both sexes; the Social/Emotional scale is also related to E in both sexes, but
the correlation with N was signi®cant in women only. Although an association between N and
scales tapping avoidance coping is one of the well-replicated ®ndings in the literature, we found
no evidence of this relationship at the broader level. Instead, the Avoidance scale was
negatively associated with O in women.

4. Discussion

In the present article we report on a structure and psychometric properties of the Estonian
version of the COPE. At ®rst glance, the factor structure of the COPE derived in this study
seems to be quite di€erent from the original one: the second-order factor analysis yielded four
factors in Carver et al.'s (1989) study, whereas a three-factor solution was derived from the
Estonian data. Closer inspection of the factors reveals that no crucial di€erences exist between
the English and the Estonian version of the COPE, especially, if we take into account the fact
that the Estonian COPE included additional Humor and Alcohol/Drug Use scales. In
principle, the three factors of the Estonian COPE are comparable to three out of four second-
order factors obtained with the original version (Carver et al., 1989). For instance, in the
analysis conducted by Carver et al. (1989), one factor (Active Coping) was composed of Active
Coping, Planning, and Suppression of Competing Activities Ð the triplet loaded together on
Factor I (Task) also in the present study; another factor in the original COPE that was
composed of two Seeking Social Support scales and Focus on and Venting of Emotions,
corresponds to our Factor III (Social/Emotional). The only di€erence is con®ned to the
original fourth factor (including Acceptance, Restraint Coping, and Positive Reinterpretation
and Growth) which did not appear in the Estonian COPE. In this study, Positive
Reinterpretation and Growth loaded on Factor I (Task), the remaining two Ð Acceptance and
Restraint Coping Ð loaded predominantly on Factor II (Avoidance), but had sizeable positive
secondary loadings on Factor I (Task). The latter ®nding corresponds precisely to the
theoretical assumptions about the ambiguity of these strategies. Namely, the authors of the
COPE (Carver et al., 1989) de®ne restraint coping as `an active coping strategy in the sense that
the person's behavior is focused on dealing e€ectively with the stressor, but it is also a passive
strategy in the sense that using restraint means not acting' (p. 269); acceptance has by de®nition
also two possible meanings: acceptance of a stressor and `acceptance of a current absence of
active coping strategies' (p. 270).
Taken together, there are several reasons to believe that the Estonian version of the COPE
measures basically the same coping strategies as the original version does. Some other
analogies also emphasize the functional similarity of the original COPE and the adapted
Estonian version. For example, similar to our results, women have scored higher than men in
the tendencies to seek social support and ventilate emotions in a number of previous studies
(Carver et al., 1989; Livneh, Maron, Kaplan & Nave, 1996; Phelps & Jarvis, 1994; Ptacek et
al., 1992; Zeidner & Hammer, 1992).
Beside the present study, several others have reported the results of second-order factor
analyses with the COPE scales (using either original or translated versions) (Carver et al., 1989;
892 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894

Cook & Heppner, 1997; Hudek-KnezÏevic et al., 1999; Phelps & Jarvis, 1994; Sica et al., 1997).
Comparison of these studies suggests that (1) at minimum, three secondary COPE factors are
required for an adequate explanation of the variance in the data; (2) certain scales consistently
load together into one factor, whereas others vary across studies. The most well-replicated
factor comprises two Social Support scales and Focus on and Venting of Emotions (the Social/
Emotional or Emotion-focused coping factor). Yet another two factors appear in most of the
studies: the ®rst incorporates Active Coping, Planning, and Suppression of Competing
Activities (the Task or Problem-oriented coping factor) and the second includes Mental
Disengagement, Behavioral Disengagement, and Denial (the Avoidance or Disengagement
factor). Most inconsistent ®ndings have been reported for Humor, Acceptance, Restraint
Coping, and Positive Reinterpretation and Growth. Humor, for instance, has loaded either on
the Avoidance (in Italian and Croatian versions) or the Task factor (in the present study), or
has failed to load signi®cantly on any of the factors. These results may imply that some coping
strategies are more in¯uenced by sociocultural contexts than others. As an example, Hudek-
KnezÏevic et al. (1999) supposed that the dicult economic and political situation in Croatia
gave rise to the result that Positive Reinterpretation and Growth, Acceptance and Restraint
Coping loaded on the Problem-oriented coping factor in their sample. It looks as if for the
same reason Estonians try to solve their diculties, beside planning and active coping, via
positive reinterpretation of a situation and humor.
Although only a very small group of participants (N = 33) completed the Estonian COPE
twice, the time-interval (27 months) itself indicates the stability of the self-reported coping
strategies and not merely the reliability of the scales. The Avoidance and Social/Emotional
factors yielded acceptable test±retest reliabilities (0.61 and 0.62, respectively), but the Task
factor had a much lower test±retest reliability (0.33) which did not attain signi®cance in the
small test±retest sample. This result may indicate that the task-oriented coping strategies
measured by the COPE are more likely to ¯uctuate over time, depending on the problem
situation, than the other types of coping strategies. This hypothesis certainly needs further
investigation because it is crucial for construct validity of the COPE as a dispositional coping
measure.
Our study repeatedly shows that some primary COPE scales (e.g., Mental Disengagement,
Restraint Coping) have relatively lower alphas than the remaining scales. Other studies on the
COPE have reported low alphas also for Active Coping, Behavioral Disengagement, Denial
(Sica et al., 1997), Mental Disengagement (Fontaine et al., 1993) and Positive Reinterpretation
and Growth (Hudek-KnezÏevic et al., 1999). Low and moderate alphas may partly, at least, be
attributable to a small number of items comprising the scales (4 items per scale) but they may
also re¯ect the existence of distinct strategies within one scale.3
Finally, the correlational data we have reviewed demonstrate that the Estonian COPE scales
can be meaningfully viewed in a larger dispositional context marked by the Big Five
personality traits. It is important to note also that, with some exceptions, the COPE scales had

3
For example, Mental Disengagement includes items: `I sleep more than usual', `I go to movies or watch TV, to
think about it less', `I turn to work or other substitute activities to take my mind o€ things', and `I daydream about
things other than this'.
 T. Kallasmaa, A. Pulver / Personality and Individual Di€erences 29 (2000) 881±894 893

relatively similar personality correlates for men and women. Our results accord with previous
studies which showed that chie¯y N and E are correlated with various coping strategies
(Amirkhan, Risinger & Swickert, 1995; Endler & Parker, 1990; McCrae & Costa, 1986).
Although this indirectly supports the functional similarity between the original and the
Estonian COPE, this does not mean that the other personality dimensions (namely O, C, and
A) are nonrelated to coping strategies. Considering the hierarchical structure of coping
strategies it can be assumed that personality traits are related to coping strategies in ways that
are too complex to be uncovered with simple correlational analysis. Exactly this was recently
demonstrated by David and Suls (1999): using multi-level analysis they showed that several of
the Big Five personality dimensions were associated with various coping strategies. This, in
turn, suggests that personality models constitute the proper framework for investigating coping
strategies. Establishing the exact nature of correspondence between personality traits and
coping styles was not the aim of this study, moreover, it presumes a more sophisticated
analysis than the zero-order correlations.
Likewise, this study gives no empirical proof to the contention that the three coping
dimensions derived from the Estonian COPE (i.e. Task, Avoidance, and Social/Emotional)
represent the dispositions which explain various adaptive/maladaptive behaviors, or that they
remain relatively ®xed across circumstances. To investigate whether the task-oriented,
avoidance-oriented, and social/emotional coping dimensions are applicable to di€erent cultural
contexts, further studies are needed. We assume that the COPE has all psychometrically valid
properties for this purpose.

Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by the Estonian Science Foundation Grant 2479 to
Aleksander Pulver and Grant 3365 to Talvi Kallasmaa. We would like to thank Charles
Carver for his permission to translate and adapt the COPE into Estonian. We also thank JuÈri
Allik, Anu Realo, and the two anonymous reviewers, who provided helpful comments and
suggestions on a previous version of this article.

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