This meta-analysis examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits and coping strategies, using 2,653 effect sizes from 165 samples and 33,094 participants. Personality was weakly related to broad coping strategies (e.g., engagement or disengagement), but all five traits predicted specific strategies. Extraversion and Conscientiousness predicted more problem-solving and cognitive restructuring, while Neuroticism predicted less. Neuroticism also predicted problematic strategies like wishful thinking, withdrawal, and emotion-focused coping, but also support seeking. Personality more strongly predicted coping in young samples, stressed samples, and samples reporting dispositional rather than situation-specific coping. Daily versus retrospective coping reports and self-selected versus researcher-selected stressors also moderated relations between personality and coping. Cross-cultural differences were present, and ethnically diverse samples showed more protective effects of personality. Richer understanding of the role of personality in the coping process requires assessment of personality facets and specific coping strategies, use of laboratory and daily report studies, and multivariate analyses. Keywords: personality, coping, meta-analysis. Coping has been described as “personality in action under stress” and theorists have suggested that coping ought to be redefined as a personality process. These ideas have been supported by evidence that personality and coping have a shared genetic basis and by correlations between personality and coping exceeding .60. However, the magnitude, and even direction, of correlations between personality and coping has varied across studies. This inconsistency suggests that relations between personality and coping may be more modest than has been assumed or that moderators such as stressor severity, the focus or reporting timeframe of the coping measure, or demographic factors influence relations. Personality and coping were essentially equated in psychodynamic theory, with defense mechanisms conceptualized as stable traits that influenced perceptions of events and dictated consistently adaptive or maladaptive responses. Although most researchers now distinguish between personality and coping, some conceptualizations of coping remain quite broad. For example, trait coping has been defined as “characteristic ways of responding to changes of any type in the environment.” In contrast, the transactional model of stress and coping de-emphasizes the role of stable traits, defining coping as a conscious, intentional, goal-directed response, tailored to the specific demands of a stressor. To best preserve the distinction between personality and coping, in this study we limit coping to conscious, volitional attempts to regulate the environment or one’s reaction to the environment under stressful conditions. Numerous models have been used to describe the structure of coping, with distinctions between problem- and emotion-focused coping, engagement (approach, active) and disengagement (avoidant) coping, and primary (assimilative) and secondary (accommodative) control coping the most widely used. Modern coping research began with the distinction between problem-focused coping, intended to influence the source of stress, and emotion-focused coping, intended to minimize negative emotions through strategies such as emotional expression, supportThis meta-analysis examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits and coping strategies, using 2,653 effect sizes from 165 samples and 33,094 participants. Personality was weakly related to broad coping strategies (e.g., engagement or disengagement), but all five traits predicted specific strategies. Extraversion and Conscientiousness predicted more problem-solving and cognitive restructuring, while Neuroticism predicted less. Neuroticism also predicted problematic strategies like wishful thinking, withdrawal, and emotion-focused coping, but also support seeking. Personality more strongly predicted coping in young samples, stressed samples, and samples reporting dispositional rather than situation-specific coping. Daily versus retrospective coping reports and self-selected versus researcher-selected stressors also moderated relations between personality and coping. Cross-cultural differences were present, and ethnically diverse samples showed more protective effects of personality. Richer understanding of the role of personality in the coping process requires assessment of personality facets and specific coping strategies, use of laboratory and daily report studies, and multivariate analyses. Keywords: personality, coping, meta-analysis. Coping has been described as “personality in action under stress” and theorists have suggested that coping ought to be redefined as a personality process. These ideas have been supported by evidence that personality and coping have a shared genetic basis and by correlations between personality and coping exceeding .60. However, the magnitude, and even direction, of correlations between personality and coping has varied across studies. This inconsistency suggests that relations between personality and coping may be more modest than has been assumed or that moderators such as stressor severity, the focus or reporting timeframe of the coping measure, or demographic factors influence relations. Personality and coping were essentially equated in psychodynamic theory, with defense mechanisms conceptualized as stable traits that influenced perceptions of events and dictated consistently adaptive or maladaptive responses. Although most researchers now distinguish between personality and coping, some conceptualizations of coping remain quite broad. For example, trait coping has been defined as “characteristic ways of responding to changes of any type in the environment.” In contrast, the transactional model of stress and coping de-emphasizes the role of stable traits, defining coping as a conscious, intentional, goal-directed response, tailored to the specific demands of a stressor. To best preserve the distinction between personality and coping, in this study we limit coping to conscious, volitional attempts to regulate the environment or one’s reaction to the environment under stressful conditions. Numerous models have been used to describe the structure of coping, with distinctions between problem- and emotion-focused coping, engagement (approach, active) and disengagement (avoidant) coping, and primary (assimilative) and secondary (accommodative) control coping the most widely used. Modern coping research began with the distinction between problem-focused coping, intended to influence the source of stress, and emotion-focused coping, intended to minimize negative emotions through strategies such as emotional expression, support