In Gross's 1987 study, which pattern was reported most often by those children who were the most dissatisfied with their lives?

• A. reduction
• B. substitution
• C. augmentation
• D. retention

Answer: (A)

When children are most dissatisfied with their lives, the pattern that tends to show up most often is withdrawal or scaling back—the reduction pattern. This means they report cutting back on activities, social involvement, or commitments as a way of coping with their distress. The idea is that under strong dissatisfaction, energy and motivation to engage with life diminish, so the tendency is to reduce rather than replace or add to what they’re doing.

Substitution would involve replacing one activity with another to maintain balance, augmentation would mean taking on more activities to cope, and retention would imply keeping things the same. Those responses are less consistent with the experience of deep dissatisfaction, where the prevailing response is to withdraw or disengage. So the reduction pattern best captures how the most dissatisfied children tend to react.