An experimental study on the relationship between ambivalence and confrontative coping strategies: the moderating role of self-efficacy
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2025-06-24
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en
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This study examined how emotional experiences with wearable activity trackers influence coping responses and whether self-efficacy moderates these effects. It was expected that ambivalent experiences would increase confrontative coping compared to negative and neutral experiences, while ambivalence was not expected to increase avoidance coping relative to negative experiences. Self-efficacy was expected to strengthen the effect of ambivalence on confrontative coping. An online experiment was conducted with 157 mHealth users, randomly assigned to ambivalent, negative, or neutral scenarios. The manipulation did not produce significant differences in reported ambivalence between conditions, but hypothesis testing was conducted for completeness. Results showed no significant effect of ambivalence on confrontative coping. As expected, ambivalence did not increase avoidance coping compared to negative experiences, but avoidance coping was significantly higher in the negative condition than in the neutral condition. Self-efficacy consistently predicted coping: higher self-efficacy was associated with more confrontative coping, less avoidance coping, and buffered the effect of negative feedback. These findings contribute to understanding coping processes in mHealth contexts and underline the importance of considering self-efficacy when designing digital health feedback.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen