Cognitive strategies, situational controllability, and affective state: the case of defensive pessimism and optimism

Abstract

This study assesses the role of two components of situational control, Difficulty and environmental Contingency (responsivity), in the activation-interference of strategies in defensive pessimists and optimists, on the one hand, and their affective and behavioral (performance level) consequences, on the other. For this purpose, we use a 2 (Group: defensive pessimists, optimists) X 2 (Difficulty: high, low) X 2(Contingency: low, high) factorial design. Our aim was to foster a congruent or incongruent environmental control level with each group, with the purpose of assess their influence on anxiety, positive-negative affect, and performance. The results showed that the two components of situational control have different functions in the definition of the quality of coping in defensive pessimists, principally. Specifically, Difficulty establishes the person (valorative style)-environment (controllability) congruence level, while Contingency operates as a moderator of this relation. In this sense, the affective state proves to be an adequate adaptative indicator of the resultant coping.