Locus of control and styles of coping with stress in students educated at Polish music and visual art schools – a cross-sectional study

Abstract

The article focuses on identifying differences in the locus of control and styles of coping with stress among young students who are artistically gifted within the fields of music and visual arts. The research group includes Polish students (n = 354) of both music and visual art schools who develop their artistic talents in schools placing particular emphasis on professional training of their artistic abilities and competences within the field of music or visual arts respectively. We make an assumption that different types of difficult situations experienced by youth educated at music and visual art schools may generate differences in dominating personal traits as well as in their sphere of emotions. The results of crosssectional research in 2013 confirm the assumption regarding differences among music and visual art school students both with regard to the source of the locus of control, understood as the personality variable, and dominating styles of coping with stress. Moreover, a positive correlation between the tendency towards internal locus of control and a task-oriented style of coping with stress in difficult situations has been observed in music school students.