Five hundred participants completed a short, ten-item measure of coping along with measures of self-esteem, intelligence, belief in a just world (BJW) and conspiracy theories (CT). The scale factored into four recognisable coping styles labelled socio-emotional, cognitive, internalisation and distraction. Correlations showed all factors were related to self-esteem and trait optimism. Regressions onto each factor indicated that self-esteem was the most consistent factor being associated positively with all factors, except internalisation. Younger females with low self-esteem tended to use socio-emotional coping, optimists with high self-esteem cognitive coping, younger, less optimistic people with low self-esteem internalisation and high self-esteem, less intelligent people with BJW distraction as a coping strategy. Implications and limitations are acknowledged.
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