representing vigilant coping in physical threat situations, vigilant coping in ego threat situations, avoidant coping
in physical threat situations, and avoidant coping in ego threat situations.
Sample
The initial test of the MCI was conducted with 426 West German participants ranging in age from 14 to 76
years ( Krohne, Rosch, & Kursten, 1989 ). An English version of the MCI was also created and tested with native
speaking university students in America and Canada ( N5348; Krohne et al., 2000 ). The mean for the vigilance
subscale was 26.26 ( SD56.59) for men and 28.06 ( SD56.35) for women. The mean for the cognitive avoidance
subscale was 22.95 ( SD55.69) for men and 20.33 ( SD56.91) for women.
Reliability
Internal Consistency
The MCI exhibited Cronbach alpha coefficients between .80 and .88 ( Krohne, 1989; Krohne et al., 1989;
Schumacher, Krohne, & Kohlmann, 1989 ). The English version of the scale also exhibited alpha coefficients of .84
for each subscale.
Test/C0Retest
The English version of the scale yielded acceptable test /C0retest reliability over two weeks of .70 for the vigi-
lance subscale and .84 for the cognitive avoidance subscale ( Krohne et al., 2000 ).
Validity
Convergent/Concurrent
The MCI showed convergent validity in tests of associations with other coping-related measures ( Krohne
et al., 2000 ). Vigilance correlated positively with negative affect ( r5.14 to .18), behavioral inhibition ( r5.19 to
.23), and several subscales from the COPE scale ( Carver et al., 1989 , reviewed later in this chapter) including
planning coping ( r5.19 to .23), active coping ( r5.15 to .22), instrumental social support ( r5.20 to .26), venting
emotions ( r5.23 to .26), and restraint coping ( r5.19 to .24).
Consistent with the observation that the MCI assesses attentional deployment in a similar way to the MBSS
(Miller, 1987 ),Muris et al. (1994) found that the monitoring subscale of the MBSS was highly correlated with the
vigilance subscale of the MCI ( rs..40), and that the blunting subscale of the MBSS was similarly correlated with
the avoidance subscale of the MCI ( rs..50). Within the MCI, the vigilance subscales were strongly positively cor-
related across the physical threat and ego threat scenarios (.60), as were the cognitive avoidance subscales (.57)
(Krohne et al., 2000 ). This finding was replicated by Krohne and Egloff (2005) , who also found positive correla-
tions across scenarios within the vigilance ( r5.59) and avoidance scales ( r5.47).
Divergent/Discriminant
Showing evidence of discriminant validity, vigilance was unrelated to meaningful subscales of the COPE,
including acceptance, and various forms of disengagement (behavioral, mental). In contrast, cognitive avoidance
tended to be uncorrelated with more problem-focused forms of coping, such as active coping and planning. This
scale was also uncorrelated with behavioral activation, or approach ( Krohne et al., 2000 ). Cognitive avoidance
was negatively correlated with negative affect, r52.20 to 2.39 and behavioral inhibition, r52.16 to 2.28)
although not always significantly for the coping variables (e.g., active coping and venting emotions). Finally,
Krohne et al (2000) found that vigilance and cognitive avoidance coping strategies were modestly negatively cor-
related with one another ( r52 .23), a finding replicated by Krohne and Egloff (2005) .
Construct/Factor Analytic
To examine the factor structure of the MCI, Krohne et al. (2000) had 169 students complete the MCI, and con-
ducted confirmatory factor analyses separately for the ego threat and physical threat subscales. For the ego threat
subscale, fit indices demonstrated that the two-dimensional model had good fit to the data. For the physical
threat subscale, the two-dimensional model demonstrated good fit once the model was respecified to allow the
residuals associated with vigilance and cognitive avoidance in the ‘visiting the dentist’ and ‘turbulent flight’
situations to covary. This suggests that for these two scenarios, vigilance and cognitive avoidance were not
completely independent of each other. In another study, Krohne, Schmukle, Burns, Egloff, and Spielberger (2001)
had 720 college students (360 North Americans and 360 Germans) complete the MCI and conducted both329 TRAIT COPING MEASURES
III. EMOTION REGULATION