Mental health professionals, educators, and organizations may soon have a powerful new tool for understanding how people cope with stress. Researchers at TheScoreStudy.com have introduced a landmark assessment method that could revolutionize our approach to emotional wellbeing and resilience.
The Self-Comforting and Coping Scale (SCCS), detailed in the Global Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, represents the first comprehensive framework for measuring how individuals soothe themselves during difficult times. Its practical applications are already being demonstrated through research projects like helping students cope with academic failure, showing promising results in real-world settings.
“Self-comforting is an overlooked but fundamental dimension of coping,” explains Dr. Kennedy Oberhiri Obohwemu, who currently lectures in the UK after beginning his career as a medical doctor in Nigeria. “With the SCCS, we’re not just measuring behavior—we’re fundamentally reshaping our understanding of emotional self-regulation and psychological resilience.”
Dr. Obohwemu’s research breaks new ground by identifying and measuring 13 key dimensions of self-comforting behaviors, ranging from cognitive reframing to mindfulness, and from goal adjustment to self-compassion. Unlike traditional assessment tools that take a broader view of coping strategies, the SCCS zeros in on the specific behaviors people use to comfort themselves.
The development process followed a meticulous multi-stage approach, including extensive literature review, expert consultations, focus group feedback, and rigorous pretesting—all contributing to the scale’s robust psychometric properties. Alongside the scale, Dr. Obohwemu has introduced the Self-Comforting and Coping Theory (SCCT), suggesting that people who actively engage in self-comforting practices tend to cope more effectively with stress and show greater emotional stability.
The implications stretch far beyond academic research. Mental health professionals can now use the SCCS to better understand their clients’ coping mechanisms, while organizations might employ it to help prevent employee burnout. In educational settings, the scale could prove invaluable in supporting student wellbeing, particularly in high-stress academic environments.
Looking ahead, researchers are planning to expand the scale’s applications across different populations and cultures. These future studies will include longitudinal research to track how self-comforting behaviors evolve over time, and cross-cultural validation to ensure the SCCS remains relevant across diverse global communities. While psychologists have long studied various aspects of emotional resilience, this systematic measurement of self-comforting behaviors marks a significant advancement in our understanding of human coping mechanisms.
