Abstract :
This study examines the reliability and validity of a newly developed self-report measure designed
to assess children’s coping strategies in response to everyday rejection experiences. The Survey for
Coping with Rejection Experiences (SCORE) was administered to 225 children and factor analysis
of responses resulted in the conceptually meaningful subscales of active, aggressive, denial, and
ruminative coping. A subset of 95 children also completed a battery of self- (depression, social
anxiety), parent- (internalizing and externalizing problems), and peer- (social preference, aggression,
withdrawal) ratings of socioemotional adjustment. Children’s coping strategies were meaningfully
associated with adjustment measures, although these associations differed for boys and girls in several
instances. Importantly, both aggressive and ruminative coping strategies were positively associated
with internalizing problems even after controlling for the effect of children’s actual sociometric
status. In addition, denial coping emerged as a significant moderator of the relation between status
and adjustment.
