Explicating crisis coping in crisis communication

This study explores coping, a core construct in the cognitive appraisal theory of crisis communication, from the public's perspective. The study proposed and tested the hierarchical framework of publics’ crisis coping that examined the relationship among four types of publics’ crisis coping strategies (i.e., relational thinking, emotional venting, instrumental support, and action). For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 168 individuals from a randomly sampled general public population. The proposed model of crisis coping illustrates tenable data-model fits. Key findings of this study include direct effects of rational thinking on action as well as indirect effects of emotional venting on action through instrumental support. The results shed light on the essential coping facilitator role organizations could play in terms of providing publics with instrumental support in times of crisis and facilitate more constructive public responses in the organizational crisis-handling process.