Prisoners from two institutions (a low security and a high security prison) were studied to explore the coping strategies used in stressful situations, and the relationship between prison sentence length and the coping strategies employed. Prisoners completed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Ways of Coping Scale. Coping strategies that focused on emotions, rather than on the source problem, were found to be most often employed. Shorter-term prisoners adopted problem-focused strategies more than longer-term prisoners, while longer-term prisoners adopted emotion-focused strategies more than shorter-term prisoners. These results are discussed with reference to the influence of the environment on coping strategy.
Keywords: Coping strategies; Learned helplessness; Sentence length.