The effect of anticipatory consistency on perceived stress level of women: coping as a mediator

Borovikov Andrei Vladislavovich Independent researcher, Faculty of Psychology, Saint Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, emb. Makarova street, 6 alohaman1999@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Limanskaia Alina Eduardovna Independent researcher, Faculty of Psychology, Saint Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, emb. Makarova, 6, Faculty of Psychology allimane15@gmail.com

Introduction

The modern world is characterized by growing political, economic and social tensions, and the rapid development of science and technology. All this leads to the fact that a person experiences tension on a daily basis and perceives various situations as stressful. Stress is known to have a significant impact on mental and physical health and on the quality of human life ^{[28, 30]}. There is evidence that women experience more stress than men ^{[10, 15, 24]}. In this regard, it becomes especially important to study the factors and mechanisms associated with distress in women. One of these factors is coping behavior (coping).

Literature review

Coping is the use of cognitive and behavioral strategies to manage the demands of a situation when they are assessed as burdensome or beyond a person's capabilities, or to reduce negative emotions and conflicts caused by stress ^[32].

One of the most influential concepts of coping is the theory of R. Lazarus and S. Folkman. The basic idea of this concept is that individuals constantly evaluate environmental stimuli. This process generates emotions, and when stimuli are assessed as stressful, the resulting distress initiates coping strategies that allow emotions to be controlled and attempts to act directly on the stressor itself. Coping leads to a certain change in a person's relationship with the environment (i.e., the result), which is overestimated as favorable, unfavorable or unresolved. A favorable outcome causes positive emotions, while an unfavorable or unresolved outcome causes distress, prompting a person to consider further options for coping with stress ^[11]. Thus, coping is not only considered as an immediate reaction to stress, but also has an impact on the subsequent change in perceived stress (as a result of coping).

Perceived stress is understood as how much a person evaluates life events as stressful, uncontrollable, and unpredictable ^{[12, 33]}. There are correlations between coping strategies and perceived stress. According to research, problem-oriented and adaptive emotion-oriented strategies (for example, positive reassessment, seeking social support) are negatively associated with the level of perceived stress, while maladaptive and avoidant coping methods are positively associated with stress levels. ^{[13, 17, 20, 26]}.

In the theory of stress and coping, the concept of cognitive assessment is central and suggests that stress cannot be determined solely at the stimulus level, as it depends on how an individual interprets environmental events. The assessment consists of an ever-changing set of judgments about the significance of the flow of events for human well-being. There are three main forms of assessment: primary, secondary and reassessment. The primary assessment is related to the motivational significance of what is happening, that is, whether it is relevant to human well-being. There are three types of primary stress assessment: 1) harm-loss – losses caused; 2) threat – potential or expected losses; 3) challenge – the potential to master something or gain benefits. The secondary assessment is related to resources and coping options and answers the question of whether it is possible to take any actions necessary to improve a person's relationship with a stressful situation ^{[14, 21, 22]}. Later, R. Lazarus develops the idea of secondary assessment. He identifies such a component as expectations about whether events will develop favorably or worsen for any reason, including effective or ineffective coping ^[23]. Thus, the concept of stress and coping emphasizes the role of forecasting processes. As H. Krohne points out, "this concept is based on the idea that emotional processes (including stress) depend on the real expectations that people have about the significance and outcome of a particular meeting" ^[18].

Anticipation is the ability to act and make decisions with temporal and spatial anticipation regarding future events ^{[6, p. 395]}. According to the APA dictionary, this phenomenon is defined as forecasting or anticipating a future event or condition ^[32]. In Russian and foreign literature, there are various concepts related to anticipation or reflecting its individual aspects. For example, the following concepts are often found in foreign literature: expectation, episodic thinking about the future, predictive processes. In Russian science, concepts such as forecasting and anticipation are usually used. ^{[5, 6, 7, 19, 29]}. This diversity is due to the fact that anticipation is a mental phenomenon that permeates almost all spheres of human mental activity ^[6]. Anticipation is involved in various adaptive processes, such as problem-solving, action planning, decision-making, emotional regulation, and others ^{[6, 29]}. At the level of behavior without anticipation, a person would be a reactive, adaptable being, unable to draw conclusions from past experience and learn from their mistakes. Stress-overcoming behavior would be exclusively reactive, without the ability to predict and prevent a problematic situation ^[5]. E. S. Starchenkova notes that anticipating stressful events can help mobilize coping efforts aimed at preparing for them in advance ^[8].

Thus, within the framework of the problem of the relationship between anticipation and coping behavior, it should be said, first of all, that anticipation is involved in the implementation of the preparatory stage in the process of human interaction with stress.

A similar concept is anticipatory consistency — the ability to anticipate the course of events with a high probability, predict the development of situations and their reactions to them, as well as act with temporal and spatial anticipation ^{[7, p. 91]}. V. D. Mendelevich suggested that anticipatory consistency, being part of the personality stabilization system, performs the following functions: prevents and reduces the frequency and severity of stressful factors; forms a forecast regarding the course and possible scenarios of the development of a difficult situation; participates in the selection of adaptation strategies ^[7]. The results obtained during the analysis of correlations between anticipatory viability and coping strategies in different samples are ambiguous. I. Abitov et al. found that students have a common indicator of anticipatory viability, as well as spatial and personality-situational components have negative correlations with coping "escape-avoidance". In addition, a direct connection was found between communicative anticipation and the "problem solving planning" strategy ^[3]. In another study, 104 people (61 women and 43 men) participated, it was found that in the general sample, general anticipation is inversely associated with emotion-oriented coping and is directly related to problem-oriented coping, as well as spatial and temporal components of anticipation are negatively associated with emotion-oriented coping. However, in the female sample, only one inverse relationship was found between temporal anticipatory consistency and emotional coping ^[7]. In I. Abitov's study, anticipatory viability in healthy individuals turned out to be unrelated to any coping strategy ^[2].

There are a sufficient number of publications on coping with stress, where coping has been studied as a mediating variable. ^{[16, 25, 27, 31]}. For example, N. Groth et al. We conducted a systematic review and a two-stage meta-analysis of the research using structural equation modeling. The results showed that maladaptive coping mediates the relationship between the maladaptive locus of control and mental health problems. The authors explain this by the fact that people with a predominantly maladaptive locus of control tend to underestimate the potential positive consequences and the likelihood of receiving a reward as a result of their behavior. These expectations can lead to the development of learned helplessness, which encourages people to use maladaptive coping strategies, which endangers their mental health ^[16]. R. Tindle et al. found that avoidant coping mediates the relationship between psychological flexibility and psychological distress ^[31]. Despite the extensive literature on stress management, we found no studies that examined coping as a mediating variable between anticipation and stress.

Thus, the analysis of the literature revealed a number of problems in the field of coping behavior research. Firstly, there are contradictory results of studies on the relationship between coping and anticipatory consistency, which may be due to the characteristics of the samples. Secondly, although researchers emphasize the role of anticipation in human adaptation to stress, they have found a lack of empirical studies analyzing the relationship between perceived stress, anticipation, and coping strategies.

All this became the basis for setting the goal of the current study – to determine how anticipatory well-being affects perceived stress in women, and whether coping strategies are involved in this relationship.

The following hypotheses have been put forward:

1. Anticipatory well-being in women is negatively related to the level of perceived stress.

2. Coping strategies mediate the relationship between anticipatory well-being and perceived stress in women.

Materials and methods of research.

The work analyzed the data of 305 women who agreed to participate in the study. The average age was 23.67 (±5.14), the age range was from 18 to 44 years. Most of the subjects had higher education (n = 147) or were students of a higher educational institution (n = 113), the rest received general secondary (n = 24) or specialized secondary education (n = 21).

The techniques used. The "Perceived Stress Scale 10" was used to study stress levels. The main purpose of the scale is to determine how stressful people consider the last month of their lives. The study used a general indicator of perceived stress ^[1]. The measurement of anticipatory solvency was carried out using a short version of the anticipatory solvency test. Only the general indicator of the questionnaire was used in the work ^[9]. To evaluate coping strategies, the Coping Strategies questionnaire was used, which includes eight scales: confrontation, distancing, self-control, seeking social support, taking responsibility, escape-avoidance, problem solving planning, and positive reassessment ^[4].

To achieve this goal and verify the empirical hypotheses put forward, an analysis of multiple mediation was conducted. Firstly, correlation analysis using r-Pearson was performed to identify potential mediators. Coping strategies that correlated with both anticipatory well-being and perceived stress were selected as potential mediators. A correlation analysis was performed to assess the multicollinearity between the mediators. Secondly, before building the multiple mediation model, simple mediation models (one mediator) were tested. Mediators that significantly mediated the relationship between anticipatory well-being (independent variable) and perceived stress (dependent variable) were included in the final model of multiple mediation. The analysis was carried out using the Jamovi 2.3.28 statistical program, the Jamovi add–on module "jamm - Advanced Mediation Models 1.2.1". When building mediation models, the Bootstrap Bias-Corrected method was used on 10,000 random subsamples. 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to assess the significance of the effects.

Results

Descriptive statistics are given in table 1.

Table 1 – Descriptive statistics: coping strategies, perceived stress, overall anticipatory viability

It was revealed that anticipatory consistency is associated with perceived stress (r = -0.217; p < 0.01), self-control (r = 0.117; p < 0.05), escape-avoidance (r = -0.238; p < 0.001), problem solving planning (r = 0.295; p < 0.001) and a positive revaluation (r = 0.188; p < 0,001). Perceived stress is associated with taking responsibility (r = 0.251; p < 0.001), escape-avoidance (r = 0.318; p < 0.001), planning a solution to the problem (r = -0.280; p < 0.001) and a positive revaluation (r = -0.139; p < 0,05). Intra-test correlations of coping strategies were weak or moderate (r < 0,49).

Based on the results obtained during the correlation analysis, such coping strategies as "escape-avoidance", "problem solving planning" and "positive reassessment" were chosen as mediators. It has been revealed that the "escape-avoidance" strategy and the "problem solving planning" coping mediate the relationship between anticipatory consistency and perceived stress, and positive reassessment is not a mediator. The results are summarized in table 2.

Table 2 – Mediation analysis

Note. Bootstrap Bias-Corrected (n = 10000).

Escape-avoidance and problem-solving planning were included in the multiple mediation model. A statistically significant overall effect of the influence of anticipatory consistency on the level of perceived stress was revealed (β = -0.2170; p < 0,001). The direct effect indicates that anticipation without mediators has no effect on perceived stress (β = -0.0964; p > 0.05). Escape-avoidance coping (β = -0.0609; p < 0.01) and the "problem solving planning" strategy (β = -0.0598; p < 0.01) statistically significantly mediate the relationship between anticipatory consistency and perceived stress.

Analysis of the model components. A higher anticipatory consistency is associated with a lower severity of escape-avoidance coping (β = -0.2376; p < 0.001), which, in turn, is positively associated with perceived stress (β = 0.2563; p < 0,001). High rates of anticipatory consistency are positively associated with the "problem solving planning" strategy (β = 0.2947; p < 0.001), which is negatively related to perceived stress (β = -0.2027; p < 0,001).

The results of the multiple mediation model are presented in Table 3. The paths of the individual components and the direct effect of the model are shown in Figure 1.

Table 3 – Analysis of multiple mediation

Note. Bootstrap Bias-Corrected (n = 10000). Beta (β) is the standardized size of the effects. AS (abbreviated) – anticipatory consistency.

Figure 1 – Multiple mediation model: "*" - p>0.05; "**" - p<0,001

Discussion

The present study has confirmed that in women, anticipatory consistency helps to reduce perceived stress, but this effect is not direct, but is mediated by coping strategies such as "escape-avoidance" and "problem-solving planning." High anticipatory consistency reduces the severity of perceived stress by reducing the likelihood of actualizing the "escape-avoidance" strategy and increasing coping "problem solving planning".

Anticipatory consistency reflects the ability to anticipate the course of events, predict the development of a situation and one's own reactions to them with temporal and spatial anticipation ^[7]. Taking this into account, a person with a developed anticipation is able to predict that the most adaptive strategy for overcoming a stressful situation will be a purposeful analysis of the situation and possible behaviors, development of a problem resolution strategy and planning. Also, a person with high anticipation is able to anticipate that using avoidance strategies will not lead to effective coping with distress, since in the long run they can lead to the preservation, accumulation and development of a problematic situation.

Based on the results obtained, it can be assumed that anticipatory consistency makes it possible to predict the results of coping behavior even before actualizing specific efforts. Coping strategies act as efforts that have an impact on changing the stress situation.

The results obtained fit into the transactional theory of stress and coping. R. Lazarus et al. emphasized that assessment processes, which include predictive components (expectations), play an important role in the implementation of coping behavior.) ^{[14, 21, 22, 23]}. Anticipatory consistency can be considered as a variable influencing the secondary assessment, which is associated with the choice of certain coping strategies by assessing whether specific coping methods will be effective in reducing distress.

The main limitations of the conducted research can be considered on three grounds. Firstly, although the age of the participants ranged from 18 to 44 years, the average age of the subjects was 23.6 years, and the educational level was quite high. In this regard, the question is raised as to how the data obtained can be transferred to other age groups, as well as to groups with different educational levels. Secondly, out of 8 coping strategies, only 2 coping strategies were included in the final mediation model. However, no direct comparison was made between the models with 8 coping strategies and the more limited model. This limits the ability to assess how changes in the number of mediators may affect the results of the study. Thirdly, the resulting model is based on self-report data, which does not reveal the dynamic nature of coping behavior. Fourthly, the cross-sectional design of the study does not allow interpreting the obtained relationships as causal. Future researchers, taking into account these limitations, for example, can use diary methods of coping assessment to uncover the dynamic characteristics of coping and stress.

Conclusion

A review of the literature revealed a lack of research on the relationship between coping strategies, anticipation, and perceived stress. Existing work, as a rule, focuses on studying these phenomena in isolation, and a comprehensive study of the relationship between the three components — anticipation, coping, and stress — remains insufficiently developed. However, researchers emphasize on a theoretical level that coping behavior with stress is associated with anticipation processes. The analysis of multiple mediation allowed empirical confirmation of this relationship. In particular, it was revealed that:

1. Anticipatory well-being in women is negatively related to the level of perceived stress. This relationship is mediated by coping strategies.

2. The "escape-avoidance" and "problem-solving planning" strategies act as mediators between anticipatory consistency and perceived stress.

3. A high level of anticipatory consistency contributes to the choice of a "problem-solving planning" strategy, which reduces distress and reduces the likelihood of using an "escape-avoidance" strategy associated with increased distress.

Thus, the results obtained confirm the importance of anticipatory consistency as a stress-reducing factor, and coping strategies act as mediators.