3.2 Flashcards
Coping is
Vers 1: continually changing behavioral and cognitive efforts to manage external and/or internal demands that are appraised as exceeding the individual’s resources.
Vers. 2: Coping as an effortful response as opposed to automatic behavior. These are flexible and malleable rather than stable and unchangeable.
Differing coping strategies in children and adults
Limitations for children in coping include 1) cognitive, affective, expressive or social facets of development
2) lack of experience.
3) environments differ, children have less control over circumstances
Coping and kinds of stress
Distinction between uncontrollable and controllable stressors. Children’s perception of stressor might be different than adults’ however, which is why the controllability of stressors may not have much conceptual utility for understanding their coping. Coping with stress in children may be better studied according to the situational context of the stressor.
The Problem-Focused/Emotion-Focused Coping Model
Classification of coping responses according to their function. The model is based on the Lazarus cognitive appraisal model holding that a person’s assessment of a given situation strongly affects the associated stress level. Problem- focused coping efforts are aimed at modifying the stressor-> changing external situation. Emotion-focused coping efforts are aimed at regulating emotional states that accompany a stressor-> reduce tension and physiological arousal.
Primary/Secondary Control Model
Primary control coping is aimed at influencing conditions or events -> bringing the environment in line with one’s wishes. Secondary control coping is aimed at maximizing one’s goodness of fit with conditions or events as they are, or bringing oneself into line with environmental forces -> psychological adaptation. A third category is relinquished control, defined as the absence of goal-directed activity or coping -> doing nothing/giving up.
Approach Avoidance Model
Approach, active coping, monitoring, sensitization vs. Avoidance, blunting, passive coping, repression. Heavier reliance on avoidance strategies is associated with poorer functioning.
Factor Analytic Models
-Unbiased by theoretical models
-Most have revealed problem-focused or approach-oriented
strategies, such as seeking support, as well as avoidant dimensions or emotion-focused
strategies, such as venting feelings and seeking alternative sources of reward
Convergence of Models
basic distinction between two overarching
groups of coping strategies.
1) more directly, and involve efforts to change or master some aspect of the
individual, their environment, or the relation between them that is perceived as
stressful. This group of strategies have variously been labeled problem-focused coping,
primary control coping, approach coping, monitoring, sensitizing, active coping, and
information-seeking.
2) involves efforts to manage
the negative emotions associated with a stressful event (i.e. aiming to avoid the stressor
and/or control its emotional impact (Compas et al., 1991) has been labeled emotion-
focused coping, primary control coping, avoidance, blunting, repression, passive
coping, and information avoiding.
Preschool vs. Primary school children
School entry is marked by greater use of emotion-focused or cognitive coping strategies. Use of problem- focused strategies declines overall. Reduction is use of avoidance strategies. Also coping strategies become more stressor specific with increasing age.
Coping and Adjustment in Adolescents
Distraction, endurance coping, parental support, problem solving, and social entertainment to be predictive of better adjustment. those studies that defined adjustment as both internalizing and externalizing symptoms revealed better adjustment through use of cognitive coping, practical coping, seeking alternative rewards, and approach strategies of social support, problem solving, and positive reappraisal.
Social developmental factors influencing children’s acquisition of coping abilities include
perceived sense of social acceptance, social comparisons, and perspective- taking ability
Coping strategies associated with better adjustment (less internalizing symptoms)
1) Middle childhood
2) Adolescents
3) Similarities over development
1) cognitive strategies of self-calming and cognitive distraction, as well as problem solving.
2) distraction, endurance, parent support, problem solving, and entertainment.
3) There are more similarities in strategies predictive of adjustment across age groups than there are differences:
- venting or emotional discharge coping and aggression coping were positively related to externalizing symptoms
- Problem solving and rewarding or demanding activities are related to better overall adjustment
- Greater use of approach coping was associated with higher functioning across the board, but with preschool children, engendered more internalizing symptoms.
Key element of the coping-competence model
is language development.
