Coping ProcessChap 4

Adjustment in the 21st CenturyDr. Mehran Rostamzadeh

INTI International UniversityNilai ,2015

Psychology Applied to Modern Life

Learning outcomes

• Describe the variety of coping strategies that people use.

• Understand why it is beneficial to use a variety of coping strategies

• and how these strategies differ in their adaptive value.

The concept of coping

• coping refers to efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress.

• In everyday terms, when we say that someone “coped with her problems,” we imply that she handled them effectively.

• Coping strategies vary in their adaptive value.

• The ability to use multiple strategies (called coping flexibility) has been related to enhanced psychological health and reduced depression, anxiety, and distress (Kato, 2012).

• Flexible copers can differentiate among stressful events in terms of controllability and impact, which is important information to know when choosing a coping strategy (Cheng & Cheung, 2005).

Classifying coping strategies. There are literally hundreds ofcoping techniques.

Carver and Connor-Smith (2010) point to fourimportant distinctions or groupings of coping strategies that haveproved to be meaningful.

Learning outcomes

• Analyze the adaptive value of giving up as a response to stress.

• Describe the adaptive value of aggression as a response to stress, including the research on media violence as catharsis.

• Evaluate the adaptive value of indulging yourself as a response to stress.

• Discuss the adaptive value of self-blame as a response to stress.

• Evaluate the adaptive value of defense mechanisms, including recent work on healthy illusions.

Common Coping patterns of Limited Value

• Giving Up

When confronted with stress, people sometimes simply give up and withdraw from the battle. This response of apathy and inaction tends to be associated with the emotional reactions of sadness and dejection.

Martin Seligman (1974, 1992) has developed a model of this giving-up syndrome that sheds light on its causes.

In Seligman’s original research, animals were subjected to electric shocks they could not escape.

When researchers made similar manipulations with human subjects using inescapable noise (rather than shock) as the stressor, they observed parallel results (Hiroto & Seligman, 1975).

This syndrome is referred to as learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness

Learned helplessness is passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events.

People routinely respond to stress with fatalism and resignation, passively accepting setbacks that might be dealt with effectively.

In adolescents, learned helplessness is associated with disengagement in academics and an increase in depression (Maatta, Nurmi, & Stattin, 2007).

Evans and Stecker (2004) argue that environmental stressors, such as excessive noise, crowding, and traffic often produce a syndrome that resembles learned helplessness.

This explanatory style is associated with poorer physical health and increased depression and anxiety (Wise & Rosqvist, 2006).

Overall, giving up is not a highly regarded method of coping.

Carver and his colleagues (1989, 1993) have studied this coping strategy, which they refer to as behavioral disengagement, and found that it is associated with increased rather than decreased distress.

Acting AggressivelyAggression is any behavior intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally.

Snarls, curses, and insults are much more common than shootings or fistfights, but aggression of any kind can be problematic.

As you learned in Chapter 3, frustration is a major source of stress and psychologists (Dollard et al., 1939) proposed the frustration-aggression hypothesis, which held that aggression is always due to frustration.

Although, decades of research eventually showed that there isn’t an inevitable link between frustration and aggression, but this research also supported the basic idea that frustration does frequently elicit aggression (Berkowitz, 1989).

• Freud theorized that behaving aggressively could get pent-up emotion out of one’s system and thus be adaptive.

• He coined the term catharsis to refer to this release of emotional tension.

• The Freudian notion that it is a good idea to vent anger has become widely disseminated and accepted in modern society. It is “blow off steam” and thereby release and reduce anger.

• However, experimental research generally has not supported the catharsis hypothesis.

• Indeed, most studies find just the opposite: Behaving in an aggressive manner tends to fuel more anger and aggression (Lohr et al., 2007).

• Example: watching a murder on a TV show or fighting a fictional character in a game can release pent-up anger and hostility.

• However, as a coping strategy, acting aggressively has little value.

• Carol Tavris (1982, 1989) points out that aggressive behavior usually backfires because it elicits aggressive responses from others that generate more anger.

• She asserts, “Aggressive catharses are almost impossible to find in continuing relationships because parents, children, spouses, and bosses usually feel obliged to aggress back at you” (1982, p. 131).

Indulging Yourself• Stress sometimes leads to self indulgence.

• For instance, after an exceptionally stressful day, coping with stress by making a beeline for the nearest shopping mall for a spending spree , drinking, smoking, gambling, and drug use.

•Moos and Billings (1982) identified developing alternative rewards as a common response to stress.

• It makes sense that when things are going poorly in one area of your life, you may try to compensate by pursuing substitute forms of satisfaction such as tendency to immerse oneself in the online world of the Internet.

• Kimberly Young (2009) has described a syndrome called Internet addiction, which consists of spending an inordinate amount of time on the Internet and an inability to control online use.

• Internet addiction is associated with increased depression among youth and adults (Morrison & Gore, 2010).

• In fact, connecting with online social support has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety (Leung, 2007).

• However, if a person consistently responds to stress with excessive self indulgence, obvious problems are likely to develop.

Example: Stress induced eating and excesses in drinking and drug use as immediate pleasure may endanger one’s health and gives way to regret, guilt, or embarrassment (Ramanathan & Williams, 2007).

Given the risks associated with self indulgence, it has marginal adaptive value.

Blaming Yourself• The tendency to engage in “negative self-talk” in response to stress has

been noted by a number of influential theorists.

Albert Ellis (1973, 1987) calls this phenomenon “catastrophic thinking” and focuses on how it is rooted in irrational assumptions.

Aaron Beck (1976, 1987) analyzes negative self-talk into specific tendencies.

He asserts that people often (1) unreasonably attribute their failures to personal shortcomings,

(2) focus on negative feedback from others while ignoring favorable feedback,

and (3) make unduly pessimistic projections about the future.

• According to Ellis, catastrophic thinking causes, aggravates, and perpetuates emotional reactions to stress that are often problematic.

researchers have found that self-blame is associated with increased distress and depression for individuals who have experienced traumas such as sexual assault, war, and natural disasters (DePrince, Chu, & Pineda, 2011; Kraaij & Garnefski, 2006).

• For victims of sexual assault specifically, self-blame is associated with greater feelings of shame (Ullman et al., 2007; Vidal & Petrak, 2007).

• Likewise, blaming oneself is related to increased depression and anxiety for those dealing with serious health issues (Hill et al., 2011; Kraaij, Garnefski, & Vlietstra, 2008).

Using Defensive Coping• Defensive coping is a common response to stress and protect a person

from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt.

• What do defense mechanisms defend against? • Above all else, defense mechanisms shield the individual from the

emotional discomfort elicited by stress such as anxiety.

• People are especially defensive when the anxiety is the result of some threat to their self-esteem.

• They also use defenses to prevent dangerous feelings of anger from exploding into acts of aggression.

• Guilt and dejection are two other emotions that people often try to evade through defensive maneuvers.

• How do they work?

Defense mechanisms work through self-deception.

• They accomplish their goals by distorting reality so it does not appear so threatening (Aldwin, 2007).

• Let’s say you’re doing poorly in school and are in danger of flunking out. Initially, you might use denial to block awareness of the possibility that you could fail.

• This tactic might temporarily fend off feelings of anxiety.

• If it becomes difficult to deny the obvious, you might resort to fantasy, daydreaming about how you will salvage adequate grades by getting spectacular scores on the upcoming final exams, when the objective fact is that you are hopelessly behind in your studies.

• Thus, defense mechanisms work their magic by bending reality in self-serving ways (Bowins, 2004).

• Can Defense Mechanisms Ever Be Healthy?• More often than not, the answer is no.

• In fact, defensive coping has been linked to increased negative emotions, depression, and suicide risk (Hovanesian, Isakov, & Cervellione, 2009; Steiner et al., 2007).

• In general, defense mechanisms are poor ways of coping, for a number of reasons.

1) Defensive coping is an avoidance strategy, and avoidance rarely provides a genuine solution to problems.

In fact, Holahan and his colleagues (2005) found that avoidance coping is associated with increased chronic and acute life stressors as well as increased depressive symptoms.

2) Defenses such as denial, fantasy, and projection represent “wishful thinking,” which is likely to accomplish little.

Bolger (1990) found that those who engaged in a lot of wishful thinking experienced greater increases in anxiety than other students as the exam approached. 3) a defensive coping style has been related to poor health,

in part because it often leads people to delay facing up to their problems (Weinberger, 1990).

Example: if you were to block out obvious warning signs of cancer or diabetes and failed to obtain needed medical care, your defensive behavior could be fatal.