Emotion-Oriented Coping, Avoidance Coping, and Fear of Pain as Mediators of the Relationship Between Positive Affect, Negative Affect, and Pain-Related Distress Among African American and Caucasian College Women

• Published in: The Counseling psychologist Vol. 37; no. 1; pp. 116 - 146
• Main Authors: Lightsey, Owen Richard, Wells, Anita G., Wang, Mei-Chuan, Pietruszka, Todd, Çiftçi, Ayse, Stancil, Brett
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2009; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Affect (Psychology); African Americans; Avoidance behavior; Behavior Modification; Black American people; Bulimia; Cognitive Restructuring; Cognitive Style; College Students; Coping; Effect Size; Emotional Disturbances; Emotions; Fear; Fear & phobias; Females; Hypothesis Testing; Measures (Individuals); Mediation Theory; Negative affect; Negative emotions; Pain; Positive emotions; Psychological distress; Questionnaires; Reliance; Statistical Analysis; Whites; Women
• ISSN: 0011-0000; 1552-3861
• DOI: 10.1177/0011000007312991

The authors tested whether coping styles and fear of pain mediate the relationship between positive affect and negative affect on one hand and pain-related distress (PD) on the other. Among African American and Caucasian female college students, negative affect, fear of pan, and emotion-oriented coping together accounted for 34% of the variance in PD among African American woman and 40% of the variance in PD among Caucasion women. Emotion-oriented coping and fear of pain fully mediated the relationship between negative affect and PD among Caucasian women and partly mediated the relationship between negative affect and PD among African American women. Results suggest that reducing college women's reliance on emotion-oriented coping and their fears of pain may help reduce PD.