Infant Coping Behaviors: Their Assessment and Their Relationship to Maternal Attributes

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Abstract
Coping, the process through which an individual comes to terms with a challenge or makes use of an opportunity, was operationally defined and examined in 164 one-year-old infants. Infants were assigned to one of five behaviorally defined coping categories on the basis of their ability to utilize the resources of the environment while in a stressful situation with a stranger present. Selected maternal measures assessed at birth, at 3 months and at 8 months of infant age consistently discriminated between coping behaviors which differed in the degree to which the infant made use of nonmaternal resources. The findings support Murphy's hypothesis about the importance of moderate challenge in infancy to the development of coping skills.

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