Week 11

Question 1

What is coping?

Answer 1

Cognitive and behavioural efforts that a person engages in to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person

Question 2

What are the 4 general types of coping?

Answer 2

1. Problem-Focused coping: change situation (stressor or challenge); need to have some lvl of control; active
2. Emotion-Focused coping: changing how you’re relating to that situation; distraction
3. Support-Seeking coping
4. Meaning-Making coping

Question 3

What is meaning-making coping?

Answer 3

• Use of values, beliefs and goals to shape meaning in stressful situations that are not conducive to problem-focused coping
• Making sense of life events
• Reestablishing congruency b/w situational meaning ( the event that happens) and global meaning (how the world works)
• Assimilation: adding new information to an already existing schema (meaning confirimation); + -> + = +
• Accomodation: changing the larger organizing schema to fit the smaller one (meaning revision); + -> - = revision
• Cognitive products = Meanings made

Question 4

What are examples of assimilation?

Answer 4

• Self-blame
• Reinforcing negative beliefs
• Undoing the event: “what ifs”

Question 5

What are examples of accomodation?

Answer 5

• Revising beliefs
• Developing a sense of resilience

Question 6

What are the types of meaning making strategies ?

Answer 6

• Family bonds
• spirituality
• valuing life and personal growth
• impermanence: everything is always changing
• lifestyle changes
• compassion

Question 7

What is religion-based coping?

Answer 7

• use of religious methods to reduce stress
• Tied into meaning-making and positive reappraisal (e.g., emotion-approach coping)
• Caution: negative outcomes occur if use negative, toxic forms of relgiosity such as “God punishing” beliefs

Question 8

What did Harrington (2013) find?

Turning to religion

Answer 8

• Religion significantly predicts subjective well-being
• meaning-making coping mediates/explains this relationship

Question 9

What are the 2 dimensions of coping strategies?

Answer 9

• Problem-focused vs Emotion-focused: Managing the stressor vs manging your perceptions (thoughts, emotions…) of the stressor
• Avoidance vs. Approach: Engagement with vs disengagement from the stressor

Question 10

What is the goodness of fit hypothesis?

Answer 10

Coping is most effective when there is a “good fit” b/w the copoing strategy and the amount of control you can exert over the stressor
* Flexibility is key! (remember neurotic cascade)

Question 11

What did Widows et al., (2005) find?

Bone Marrow study

Answer 11

• Participants: 72 cancer patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation completed questionnairs 6 months post surgery
• Measures: survey including pre-surgery coping strategies and post-traumatic growth
• Results: