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. 2025 Sep 9.
doi: 10.1007/s10964-025-02252-2. Online ahead of print.

Coping Profiles and Functioning During Emerging Adulthood: A Comparative Person-Centered Longitudinal Approach

Virginie Paquette  1   2 , Adam J Danyluk  3   4 , William Gilbert  5 , Simon A Houle  6   3 , Philippe Lavoie  3   7 , Rayana Eltanoukhi  3 , Alexandre J S Morin  3   8
Affiliations

Coping Profiles and Functioning During Emerging Adulthood: A Comparative Person-Centered Longitudinal Approach

Virginie Paquette et al. J Youth Adolesc. .

Abstract

Young adults use a combination of coping strategies to deal with challenges. Yet, limited research has focused on these combinations, as they differ across different profiles of youth and their implications during the major life transitions of emerging adulthood. Addressing this gap, the present longitudinal person-centered study assesses the nature, stability, predictors (stressful life events, sex), and outcomes (affect, attitude toward life, physical symptoms) of coping profiles during this period. Participants were drawn from a nationally representative Swiss sample of emerging adults (n: 1845; 58.53% females; Mage = 19.44; SDage = 0.62), including subsamples of students (n = 873), and workers (n = 972). Six profiles were replicated over time and across subsamples: (1) Emotion and Avoidance (18.3-25.8% of the sample), (2) Emotion-Oriented (8.7-10.4%), (3) Non-Coping (2.5-3.0%), (4) Task and Avoidance (12.7-16.1%), (5) Average (28.1-41.7%), and (6) Task-Oriented (6.8-25.7%). Profile membership was predicted by dispositional (sex) and situational (life events) factors. Task-oriented profiles displayed the most positive outcomes, whereas non-coping and emotion-oriented profiles, the most negative ones. These findings shed light on the nature of generalizable coping profiles displayed by young adults and identify the task-oriented profiles as the most adaptive for managing the major life transitions of emerging adulthood.

Keywords: Coping; Emerging adulthood; Life transitions; Longitudinal; Person-centered; Profiles.

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Conflict of interest statement

Compliance with ethical standards. Conflict of interest: The authors report no conflict of interests. Ethical Approval: This statement outlines the TREE Study’s compliance with ethical standards: “When the TREE1 cohort was launched, approval by an ethics committee or review board was not required and not common practice in Switzerland. However, the study has, from its very beginning, explicitly adhered to research methods that strictly follow professional ethical guidelines and good scientific practice. Today, TREE data collection, treatment and publication complies strictly and formally with Swiss ethical and data protection legislation”. Informed Consent: This is the TREE Study’s statement regarding informed consent: “Students who participated in PISA 2000 had been asked their explicit consent to be contacted by TREE for a follow-up survey. Students were informed in advance about the purpose and scope of the TREE study and that participation was strictly voluntary. Data are thoroughly anonymized before publication”.

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