Personal Resilience, Cognitive Appraisals, and Coping: An Integrative Model of Adjustment to Abortion

We hypothesized that the effects of personality (self-esteem, control, and optimism) on postabortion adaptation (distress, well-being, and decision satisfaction) would be fully mediated by preabortion cognitive appraisals (stress appraisals and self-efficacy appraisals) and postabortion coping. We f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 1998-03, Vol.74 (3), p.735-752
Main Authors: Major, Brenda, Richards, Caroline, Cooper, M. Lynne, Cozzarelli, Catherine, Zubek, Josephine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abortion
Abortion, Induced - psychology
Adaptation
Adaptation, Psychological
Adolescent
Adult
Attitudes
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitions
Cognitive Appraisal
Coping Behavior
Decision Making
Female
Female Attitudes
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gynecology and obstetrics
Human
Human Females
Humans
Individuality
Individuals
Induced Abortion
Internal-External Control
Longitudinal Studies
Mental health
Motivation
Personality Inventory
Personality Traits
Population
Pregnancy
Psychology and medicine
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Self Concept
Self image
Self-Assessment
Social psychology
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Summary:We hypothesized that the effects of personality (self-esteem, control, and optimism) on postabortion adaptation (distress, well-being, and decision satisfaction) would be fully mediated by preabortion cognitive appraisals (stress appraisals and self-efficacy appraisals) and postabortion coping. We further proposed that the effects of preabortion appraisals on adaptation would be fully mediated by postabortion coping. Results of a longitudinal study of 527 women who had first-trimester abortions supported our hypotheses. Women with more resilient personalities appraised their abortion as less stressful and had higher self-efficacy for coping with the abortion. More positive appraisals predicted greater acceptance/reframing coping and lesser avoidance/denial, venting, support seeking, and religious coping. Acceptance-reframing predicted better adjustment on all measures, whereas avoidance-denial and venting related to poorer adjustment on all measures. Greater support seeking was associated with reduced distress, and greater religious coping was associated with less decision satisfaction.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.735