Study Guide
Psychology of Adjustment
Chapter 4: Coping Processes
The concept of coping is engaging in efforts to m aster, reduce or tolerate the demands created
by stress.
Your textbook on page 105 lists 14 types of coping strategies. You should be able to name and
describe several of these.
Understand that you can control your thoughts. You can stop them, block them, enhance them,
etc. However, you can seldom control your emotions directly. This is because they respond to
your thoughts, and you must control them through your thoughts.
Many people turn to God as a coping strategy. However, how you picture Him will make a
difference in how effective that is. If you picture yourself talking to an angry judge or neglectful
parent who promoted or allowed the wrong to happen to them, the result is likely to be negative.
Likewise with a stern and unyielding teacher who is giving them a lesson. Turning to a loving
parent or wonderful counselor, however, will yield wisdom, support and hope. It will also foster
a loss of desire for revenge, guilt and self-blame, and loss of fear.
Strategies have different adaptive values.
Giving up can lead to learned helplessness. It is negative and associated with apathy,
depression, and anxiety. It is related to the belief that events are beyond your control and is also
similar to the pessimistic explanatory style that tends to see things as internal (their fault), stable
(likely not to change), and global (affecting many or all situations in their lives).
Giving up, however, may be positive when you realistically likely not to be able to
change anything or when it simply is not worth the pain, time or effort.
Acting aggressively may get you into greater trouble. Aggression is any behavior
intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally. Dollard said that it is the result of
frustration. Freud said that catharsis (“blowing off steam”) would relieve anger. However,
research has not shown this to be the case.
Research has shown that aggression is more likely after frustration if:
you ruminate about being provoked
you have a depleted capacity for self-control
you have been drinking alcohol
you are concerned about security
you have the benefit of anonymity
Media and Violence
Albert Bandura showed in the 1960’s experimental effects from his Bobo doll
experiments that watching aggression causes children to act more aggressively. Other research
on aggression has shown that playing violent video games is not cathartic, but leads to
heightened physiological arousal, more aggressive thoughts, and decreased prosocial behavior.;
Exposure to media violence desensitizes, leads to more aggressive self-views, engenders
feelings of hostility, and automates aggressive responses. Research using PET and CT scans and
MRI’s shows that the brain reacts to virtual violence as if it were real.
Viewing aggression may give one the courage to confront, but that may lead to further
relationship problems.
Indulging yourself
This is decreased impulse control for drinking, smoking, shopping, gambling, drugs, etc.
It may lead to poor health or other problems. We might also include internet addiction which
also includes the strategy of escapism.
Blaming Yourself
This could be called negative self-talk or self-punishment. Albert Ellis calls it catastrophic
thinking which is rooted in irrational assumptions. It is counterproductive and it causes,
aggravates or perpetuates emotional reactions to stress. If may involve thinking that you deserve
this and is associated with intensified PTSD symptoms and increased anxiety and drpression.
Aaron Beck says that those who engage in negative self-talk have specific tendencies to
unreasonably attribute failures to personal shortcomings and to have unduly pessimistic
projections about the future.
Defensive coping
Using Freudian defense mechanisms, largely unconsciously, to protect one’s self from anxiety
and guilt. The following defense mechanisms are in addition to ones we covered in Chapter 1.
denial
fantasy – tending to live in a delusion
intellectualism – becoming objective and emotionally removed
undoing – doing your own penance or atonement
overcompensation
What do they defend against? emotional discomfort, anxiety from threats to self-esteem, guilt
They work through self-deception and distortion of reality. They operate at various levels of
consciousness. They are apparently normal. They are probably not healthy since their use
correlates with negative emotions, depression, and suicide. They are avoidance strategies that
may lead to more stressors; they represent wishful thinking and may lead to poor health due to
delay in facing problems.
Psychologists used to think that an accurate contact and perception of reality was a hallmark of
sound mental health. However, they are now saying that defensive illusions may be adaptive.
Normal people have overly favorable self-images, overestimate the things they can control, and
sometimes have unrealistic optimism. Depressed people are more realistic. However, the
normal ones have lower stress lower cardiovascular response and fare better in progress with
diseases such as AIDS.
The Nature of Constructive Coping
These efforts are judged to be relatively healthful. The involve 1) confronting the problem and
taking conscious action after a rational evaluation of the options; 2) using effort and planning,
3) realistic appraisal of the stress and available coping resources, 40learning to recognize and
manage potentially disruptive emotional reactions, and 5) learning to exert some control over
potentially harmful and/or destructive habitual behaviors.
There are three kinds of constructive coping: appraisal-focused, problem-focused, and emotionfocused.
Appraisal-focused coping involves efforts to see the situation in a different light. Albert
Ellis has a model called ABC. A is the activating event. B is the belief system that says how
devastating the event was and what is likely to happen as a result of it. It is the level B appraisal
that determines the C or emotional consequence. Appraisal-focused coping changes the B,
which Ellis says is often unrealistic because it is based on irrational assumptions such as I must
have love from someone, I must always perform well, people should always be reasonable, etc.
We should learn to spot and dispute these beliefs by listening for words such as should, ought,
always, never, must, etc.
We can use humor to take ourselves or the situation a bit less seriously, or to “dilute” the
negativity of the situation with positive emotion or social interaction.
Finally we could do positive reinterpretation by counting our blessings (Things could be
worse.) or finding the good in the situation.
Problem-focused coping involves using skills and strategies to solve the problem
causing the stress. A systematic approach would be to 1) clarify the problem, 2)brainstorm
alternative courses of action, 3) evaluate the alternatives and select one based on a realistic
assessment of costs and risks, and 4)take action which remaining flexible (Plan B).
If the stress is due to time pressure, we could do time management such as prioritizing, saying
“no”, delegating, and handling papers only once. If it is due to procrastination, we should
analyze the cause and attempt to eliminate it.
Emotion-focused coping involves the skills of emotional intelligence. These are the
ability to perceive and express emotion, use emotion to facilitate thought, understand and reason
with emotion and regulate emotion. It is typically used where appraisal and problem-solving
have not worked and one must “learn to live with it”.
It does not involve inhibiting emotions since those who do this tend to have more physiological
arousal. Emotional disclosure is a better strategy and is associated with improved mood,
immune response and self-perception. It also reduces anxiety and depression. It involves talking
about the problem to a trusted person or writing it down (journaling).
One may need to manage hostility, which involves getting over feelings of being wronged and
someone’s behavior being harmful, immoral or unjust. It may involve increasing empathy or
tolerance. It may involve forgiveness which is counteracting the natural tendencies to seek
revenge or to avoid an offender. This releases the offender from further liability for their
transgressions. It releases the victim from ruminating about the wrong.
Exercise may help. This is best if you really want to and are not forcing yourself, you do it
regularly, and it is aerobic. Exercise gives an outlet for frustration, a distraction, and releases
endorphins (brain chemicals that improve mood).It is correlated with decreases in depression,
anxiety, and hostility and increases in energy and self-esteem.
Meditation is defined as a family of mental exercises where a conscious attempt is made to focus
attention in a non-analytical way. While some types of meditation are associated with religious
practices, it is increasingly used as a secular remedy for stress. It is associated with relaxation,
lowered blood pressure and heart rate and respiration. It involves finding a quiet environment, a
mental device, a passive attitude, and a comfortable position.