Mood regulation expectancies, affect intensity, dispositional coping, and depressive symptoms: A conceptual analysis and empirical reanalysis

In a recent article, Flett, Blankstein and Obertinsky (1996, Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 221–228) examined cross-sectional relations between affect intensity, generalized expectancies for negative mood regulation (NMR expectancies), coping dispositions, and depression in a sample of 153 women. However, they did not report partial correlations of affect intensity and NMR expectancies, independent of each other, with coping and depression. Such information is needed for development of models of the coping process which integrate the roles of temperament variables, such as affect intensity, and cognitive-social learning person variables, such as NMR expectancies. Reanalysis of Flett etal.ʹs correlation matrix revealed that affect intensity and NMR expectancies were each independently associated with distinct coping dispositions, but that only NMR expectancies were independently associated with depressive symptoms.