Stress is a universal part of life, but how we cope with it can make all the difference. Are you curious about your own coping strategies? This test, grounded in leading psychological theories of stress and coping, offers you a unique opportunity to discover how you respond to life’s challenges. Whether you’re seeking personal insight, academic understanding, or professional development, this test will help you explore the ways you manage stress and adversity.

Why Take This Test?

• Gain Self-Awareness: Understand your personal coping style—do you tackle problems directly, seek support, express your emotions, or use other strategies?
• Evidence-Based Results: The test is built on established psychological research, ensuring your results are both meaningful and reliable.
• Personal Growth: By identifying your strengths and areas for improvement, you can make informed choices to enhance your well-being and resilience.
• Accessible and Inclusive: Available in both English and Dutch, this test is designed for a wide audience, making it easy for anyone to participate.

Who Should Take This Test?

• Anyone interested in psychology or personal development
• Students and professionals seeking to understand their stress responses
• Individuals considering career or educational choices
• People currently facing stressful situations and wanting to learn more about their coping mechanisms
• Anyone who wants to compare their coping style with others or track changes over time

What to Expect

You’ll answer a series of questions about your background and how you typically respond to stress. The test covers a range of coping strategies, including:

• Active problem-solving
• Distraction or avoidance
• Seeking social support
• Expressing emotions
• Comforting behaviors

The questionnaire is straightforward and takes only a short time to complete. After finishing, you’ll receive a personalized overview of your dominant coping styles, along with insights you can use for self-reflection and growth.

Are you ready to discover your unique approach to stress and unlock new paths to resilience? Take the test today—available in both English and Dutch!

Test background 

This stress or problem coping list is based on the theories as described in this URL :

https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/15-2-stress-and-coping/

This test intends to measure reponses to “problems” occuring in a persons life and how someone copes with it, the coping style. The test has 30 items and takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes to complete. 

The three phases as mentioned in the article are further broken down in the following scales which are focussed on how a person behaves when coping with problems. The effect of problems on a persons health or otherwise are not measured with this test. The scales are fairly self explanatory and can be easily correlated to the items. The items have been formulated in such a way that they should have a high correlation to the scales. 

• Active problem resolution; does a person show behaviour to actively solve the problem
• Distract or avoid the problem; does a person distract him/herself from the problem
• Find support; find help for solving the problem
• Express emotion; express emotions when coping with the problem 
• Comforting behaviour; comfort or pamper yourself when experiencing a problem

These scales are a form of subset of the COPE inventory. 

Please note that some scale descriptions might imply a negative load. Like distracting from the problem might implicate that this means the person does not want to solve the problem. On the positive side it might mean that the person manages to live with the problem fairly well. Take this in account when evaluating the test results. 

This test has no norms and that is intentional. The test gives scores on the scales. The highest scoring scales are the most dominant way of coping with problems. 

Click on one of the links below to start this test in the language of your choice. 

You can also copy one of these URLs in an e-mail to a candidate. When the candidate has finished the test a URL is presented that they can forward to a consultant. The consultant can then review the test results with this URL. 

PCS test in English

PCS test in Dutch / Nederlands