PERSONALITY TRAITS AND MENTALIZATION AMONG ADOLESCENTS AS PREDICTORS OF STRESS COPING STRATEGIES

Stress has many consequences for our well-being, both physically and psychologically.While stress helps us to overcome challenges and to achieve our goals, stress can also have many detrimental health consequences if it continues for a long time (Tollenaar, & Overgaauw, 2020).More knowledge is warranted about differential sensitivity to stressful situations to predict how people will respond to (socially) demanding contexts (Romi, & Ljubeti, 2021).The aim of the research was to examine whether personality traits (activity, aggressiveness/hostility, impulsive sensation seeking, neuroticism/anxiety, sociability) and mentalization (mentalization of self, mentalization of others, motivation for mentalization) can predict stress coping strategies (task-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, avoidance-focused coping) among emerging adults.The sample was convenient and consisted of 291 respondents (Nfemale = 72.5%),high school students and students in Ni, Serbia.The ages of the respondents ranged from 18 to 24 years (M = 19.19years, SD = 1.37).The following instruments were used to operationalize the aforementioned constructs: The ZKPQ questionnaire for measuring basic personality traits, UM mentalization scale and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS).For task-oriented coping with stress, the model explained 18% of the total variance.Significant predictors were activity ( = .21,t = 3.08, p = .002)and motivation for mentalization ( = .29,t = 3.42, p = .001).The model within emotion-focused coping explained 40% of the variance (p < .001),while the significant predictors were aggressiveness ( = .16,t = 2.92, p = .004),neuroticism ( = .56,t = 10.25, p < .001)and mentalization others ( = .14,t = 1.93, p = .050).For avoidance-oriented coping, the model explained 12% of the variance (p < .001).Significant predictors were impulsive sensation seeking ( = .23,t = 3.06, p = .002)and sociability ( = .16,t = 2.17, p = .031).Activity and the need to understand the needs and intentions of others contribute to constructive solutions in stressful situations.On the other side, neuroticism contributes to the greatest extent to the less desirable strategy of overcoming stress that is focused on emotions, which is logical because a disturbed person first tries to regulate emotions, and this does not necessarily lead to a constructive solution, but to the consumption of drugs, withdrawal or self-preoccupation.Considering that the tendency to neuroticism makes it difficult to successfully overcome stress, its regulation through counseling and therapeutic work can significantly contribute to better coping with stress.