Wang, Ruogu JasonIncreasingly, involuntary job loss is being seen as a normative career process, though one with significant effects on mental health and well-being. Coping with unemployment has most often been looked at through the lens of job search coping and re-employment outcomes, with fewer studies focused on coping with the psychological challenges of unemployment. This study adapts the social cognitive model of career self-management (Lent & Brown, 2013) to examine social cognitive predictors of well-being and psychological distress during unemployment. The psychometric properties of a revised coping behaviors measure and a new coping self-efficacy measure were examined with an initial sample of 196 unemployed respondents, yielding a 2-factor coping behaviors scale and a 1-factor psychological coping self-efficacy scale. The factor structures of these measures were confirmed in a second sample of unemployed respondents (n = 406) and, along with measures of proactive personality, financial strain, and social support, used to test the social cognitive coping model. The model offered good fit to the data and accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in well-being and psychological distress. Support was also found for most of the hypothesized paths. The study’s implications for practice and future research on coping with unemployment are discussed.enDissertationCounseling psychologycareer self managementjob loss copingjob loss self-efficacysocial cognitive career theory