Difficulty: Intermediate | Prerequisites: Stress and appraisal (PSY320 Exam 2, Part 1)
This topic picks up directly after the stress and appraisal material. Once a person appraises a situation as stressful, the next question is: what do they do about it? Coping, resilience, and social support are the mechanisms that determine whether stress leads to illness or whether the person weathers it. You need a solid understanding of primary and secondary appraisal, fight-or-flight, and the physiological stress pathways (sympathetic activation, HPA axis) before tackling this section.
Coping is the ongoing process of managing demands that exceed a person's resources, guided by internal resources (optimism, control, self-esteem) and external resources (time, money, social support). Approach-oriented coping outperforms avoidance in the long run. Social support, whether tangible help, information, or emotional comfort, reduces both psychological distress and physiological reactivity to stress.
Stress moderators
Internal and external resources and vulnerabilities that modify how stress is experienced and what effects it has. Think of them as the filters between a stressor and its outcome.
Coping
The thoughts and behaviours used to manage the internal and external demands of situations appraised as stressful. Coping is not a one-off action; it is a set of responses that unfold over time.
Coping styles
Predispositions to cope with stress in particular ways. These are relatively stable patterns a person brings to any stressful situation.
Coping strategies
Specific attempts to address the demands of a particular stressful experience. These are more situational than styles.
Approach-oriented coping
Coping that directly confronts the stressor or the emotions it produces. Better outcomes in the long run than avoidance-oriented coping.
Avoidance-oriented coping
Coping that involves turning away from the stressor, through denial, distraction, or withdrawal. May reduce distress in the short term but tends to produce worse outcomes over time.
Negative affectivity (neuroticism)
A personality variable marked by pervasive negative mood, including anxiety, depression, and hostility. Believed to be implicated in symptom experience, care-seeking behaviour, and possibly illness itself.
Psychological control
The belief that one can determine one's own behaviour, influence one's environment, and bring about desired outcomes. Helps people cope with medical procedures (gastroendoscopic exams, childbirth, chemotherapy) and is more effective when the perception of control is shared with significant others.
Relaxation therapies
A group of techniques for reducing physiological arousal: deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation training, guided imagery, transcendental meditation, yoga, and self-hypnosis.
Coping effectiveness training
An intervention drawing on cognitive-behavioural therapy principles that teaches effective coping skills. Emotional disclosure and expressive writing are components.
Social support
Tangible assistance, information, or emotional comfort that lets people know they are loved, cared for, esteemed, valued, and part of a social network.
Matching hypothesis
The hypothesis that social support is helpful to the extent that the kind of support offered matches the individual's specific needs.
Coping is the process of managing demands that tax or exceed a person's resources. It is guided by:
Internal resources: optimism, personal control, self-esteem
External resources: time, money, absence of simultaneous life stressors, social support
Key distinctions:
Coping styles are stable predispositions (how a person tends to cope across situations). Coping strategies are situation-specific attempts to address a particular stressful experience.
Coping can be problem-focused (directed at solving the problem causing the stress) or emotion-focused (directed at regulating the emotional response to the stressor). People typically use multiple types simultaneously.
Approach-oriented coping outperforms avoidance-oriented coping in the long run. People who confront stressors may pay a short-term price in anxiety and physiological reactivity, but they fare better over time.
What counts as successful coping:
Physiological indicators of arousal are reduced
The person can resume desired activities
The person is freed from psychological stress
Health psychologists assess coping across several dimensions: reducing or eliminating stressors, tolerating or adjusting to negative events, maintaining a positive self-image, maintaining emotional equilibrium, continuing satisfying relationships, enhancing prospects of recovery (if ill), and keeping physiological, neuroendocrine, and immune reactivity low or restoring it to pre-stress levels.
A personality variable marked by pervasive negative mood: anxiety, depression, and hostility. People high in negative affectivity are believed to:
Experience more symptoms (or report more symptoms)
Seek medical treatment more readily
Possibly be more susceptible to illness itself
This is important to distinguish from real illness: a person high in neuroticism may report more symptoms without being sicker.
The belief that one can determine one's own behaviour, influence one's environment, and bring about desired outcomes. Key findings:
Psychological control helps people cope with stressful medical procedures (gastroendoscopic exams, childbirth, chemotherapy)
When the perception of control is shared with significant others (a partner, a family member), the benefit is even greater
Control is a buffer: the more control a person perceives, the less the stressor overwhelms them
A set of techniques for reducing physiological arousal and restoring the body to pre-stress levels:
Deep breathing
Progressive muscle relaxation training
Guided imagery
Transcendental meditation
Yoga
Self-hypnosis
Draws on cognitive-behavioural therapy principles to teach effective coping skills. Two components worth noting: emotional disclosure and expressive writing have both been shown to be helpful in managing stress.
Social support involves tangible assistance, information, or emotional comfort that lets people know they are loved, cared for, esteemed, valued, and part of a social network.
Benefits of social support:
Reduces psychological distress
Can improve health habits
Has clear benefits on physical health
Reduces both psychological and physiological reactivity to stress
Who provides it best:
A close confidant (spouse, close friend, or family member) is especially valuable
Family is particularly important early in life
Support works best when it matches the person's needs (the matching hypothesis) and comes from the person best positioned to provide it
Psychology interventions in this area aim to increase both the quality and quantity of social support available to a person.
Students often assume coping is a single decision or action. Coping is a process that unfolds over time, involving multiple strategies used in combination.
Students sometimes think avoidance coping is always bad. It can reduce distress in the short term (and may be adaptive briefly), but approach-oriented coping produces better long-term outcomes.
Students may confuse coping styles with coping strategies. Styles are stable predispositions; strategies are situation-specific.
Students sometimes think social support is always helpful regardless of type. The matching hypothesis says it only works well when the kind of support offered fits the person's specific needs.
Know the difference between coping styles and coping strategies.
Be able to explain why approach-oriented coping is better long-term than avoidance-oriented coping.
Understand what negative affectivity/neuroticism is and how it complicates symptom reporting.
Know the criteria for successful coping (reduced arousal, resumed activities, freed from psychological stress).
Understand the matching hypothesis and be able to give an example.
Be able to list at least three relaxation therapies.
True or false: Coping styles and coping strategies are the same thing. (False: styles are stable predispositions; strategies are situation-specific.)
Fill in the blank: Social support works best when the type of support offered matches the person's ______ ______. (Specific needs, per the matching hypothesis.)
True or false: People high in negative affectivity always have more physical illnesses. (False: they may report more symptoms without being sicker.)
Fill in the blank: Coping efforts are judged successful when they reduce physiological ______, enable the person to resume ______ activities, and free them from psychological ______. (Arousal, desired, stress.)
Q: What is the difference between coping styles and coping strategies?
A: Coping styles are stable predispositions to cope in particular ways across situations. Coping strategies are specific attempts to address the demands of a particular stressful experience.
Q: What is the matching hypothesis of social support?
A: Social support is helpful to the extent that the kind of support offered matches the individual's specific needs. Mismatched support (e.g. advice when someone needs emotional comfort) is less effective.
Q: Name three internal and three external resources that guide coping efforts.
A: Internal: optimism, personal control, self-esteem. External: time, money, social support (also: absence of simultaneous life stressors).
Q: How does psychological control help people cope with stress?
A: The belief that one can influence outcomes and environment helps people manage stressful medical procedures (gastroendoscopic exams, childbirth, chemotherapy). The benefit increases when control is perceived as shared with significant others.
Q: Why is avoidance-oriented coping considered less effective than approach-oriented coping?
A: Avoidance may reduce distress in the short term, but approach-oriented coping produces better outcomes over time because it addresses the stressor or the emotions directly rather than delaying the confrontation.
This material builds directly on the Stress and Appraisal notes: secondary appraisal is where coping begins. It also feeds into the Using Health Services topic, because negative affectivity affects symptom reporting and care-seeking behaviour. Social support and coping are revisited in later material on chronic illness management, pain, and cardiovascular disease.
Coping, coping styles, coping strategies, approach coping, avoidance coping, problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, stress moderators, negative affectivity, neuroticism, psychological control, perceived control, self-efficacy, optimism, self-esteem, relaxation therapies, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, transcendental meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis, deep breathing, coping effectiveness training, cognitive-behavioural therapy, CBT, emotional disclosure, expressive writing, social support, matching hypothesis, confidant, social network, psychosocial resources, resilience, PSY320, health psychology, Michigan State University