Psychology Applied to Modern Life By Weiten

1. Coping Process
Chap 4
Adjustment in the 21st Century
Dr. Mehran Rostamzadeh
INTI International University
Nilai ,2015
Psychology Applied to Modern Life

2. 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.

3. 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).

4. Classifying coping
strategies. There are
literally hundreds of
coping techniques.
Carver and Connor-Smith
(2010) point to four
important distinctions or
groupings of coping
strategies that have
proved to be meaningful.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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).

8. Evans and Stecker (2004) argue that environmental stressors,
such as excessive noise, crowding, and traffic often produce
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.

9. Acting Aggressively
Aggression 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).

10. • 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.

11. • 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).

12. 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).

13. • 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.

14. 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.

15. • 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).

16. 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.

17. • 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).

19. • 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.

20. 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.