UC Davis

How Latino youth cope with stressors may have implications for their adjustment. We examined how a temperamental characteristic (effortful control) and a contextual factor (economic hardship) were associated with Latino youth's coping. Individual differences in effortful control, a core facet of self-regulation, may contribute to coping as effortful control is consistently linked to adaptive behaviors during adolescence. We examined relations of effortful control and economic hardship to active coping in a sample of Mexican-origin youth (N = 674) across three time points (fifth to ninth grades). Although economic hardship negatively predicted coping and effortful control, effortful control positively predicted coping (controlling for prior levels). Findings support a resilience perspective by suggesting that effortful control may contribute to coping and thus counteract the negative effects of economic hardship.