To shed light on cognitive appraisal in children, a scale was developed in Study I and used in Study II to investigate the relationships between cognitive appraisal and coping strategies, with an ultimate goal of informing interventions to promote healthy coping. In Study I, with a sample of 74 universal students and 132 children (67 boys and 65 girls) a 16-item, 4-factor measure of cognitive appraisal in children was developed and confirmed to have satisfactory reliability and validity. Its factor structure was rechecked in Study II, which also found that “commitment” is strongly associated with aggressive coping and “threat” is strongly associated with avoidant coping, in a sample of 1,158 children (596 boys and 562 girls). These results also indicate that interventions that modify cognitive appraisal or teach coping strategies are effective for reducing psychological stress in children.
