Psychology Adjustment Applied to Modern Life

The Concept of Coping

Learning Objectives

  • 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.

Definition of Coping

  • Coping refers to "efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress."
  • General Considerations:
    • People cope with stress in many ways.
    • It is most adaptive to use a variety of coping strategies.
    • Coping strategies vary in their adaptive value.

Common Coping Patterns of Limited Value

Learning Objectives

  • 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.

1. Giving Up

  • People may develop learned helplessness: "passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events."
  • This condition can be transferred to situations where the person is not actually helpless, resulting in passive reactions to stressful events instead of active problem-solving.

2. Cognitive Interpretation of Aversive Events

  • The cognitive interpretation may determine whether individuals feel helpless.
  • Those with a pessimistic explanatory style see aversive events as out of their control, leading to feelings of helplessness and a tendency to give up.
  • This strategy is known as behavioral disengagement and is linked to increased distress.

3. Adaptive Aspects of Giving Up

  • Giving up can be adaptive if goals are unrealistic.
  • It may be more beneficial to view "giving up" as "goal adjustment" in certain circumstances.

4. Acting Aggressively

  • Frustration from stressful events can trigger aggression, defined as "behavior intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally."
  • Individuals often misdirect their aggression towards unrelated persons; Freud referred to this as displacement.

5. The Catharsis Hypothesis

  • Freud suggested that aggressive acts could relieve emotional tension, describing this process as catharsis.
  • Contrarily, research indicates that aggression tends to produce increased anger and aggression instead of decreasing it (Anderson et al., 2001).

6. Indulging Yourself

  • Stress may lead to poor impulse control, resulting in self-indulgent behaviors. Examples include:
    • Excessive eating, drinking, smoking
    • Gambling and drug use
    • Internet addiction: "spending an inordinate amount of time on the Internet and inability to control online use."

7. Blaming Yourself

  • High self-criticism often arises during stress.
  • Albert Ellis referred to this as catastrophic thinking, which involves:
    • Attributing failures to personal shortcomings
    • Focusing excessively on negative feedback
    • Being overly pessimistic about the future.

8. Consequences of Self-Blame

  • According to Ellis, self-blame correlates with:
    • Increased distress and depression among those who have experienced trauma
    • Heightened PTSD symptoms and shame for victims of sexual abuse
    • Increased depression and anxiety among individuals with serious health issues.

9. Using Defensive Coping

  • Defense mechanisms are defined as "largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt."
  • These defenses shield individuals from emotional discomfort stemming from stress but often involve a degree of self-deception and reality distortion.

Common Defense Mechanisms

  • Denial: Refusal to acknowledge unpleasant realities.
  • Fantasy: Fulfilling wishes in imagination.
  • Intellectualization: Detachment in dealing with difficulties.
  • Undoing: Acts of atonement to counteract guilt.
  • Overcompensation: Exaggerating desirable traits to make up for deficiencies.

10. Healthfulness of Defense Mechanisms

  • Although defense mechanisms operate at various consciousness levels and may be considered normal, they generally are not healthy because they are avoidance strategies and linked to poor health outcomes.
  • Optimal margin of illusion: Baumeister theorized that extreme self-deception is maladaptive, whereas small illusions may be beneficial.

The Nature of Constructive Coping

Learning Objectives

  • Describe the nature of constructive coping.
  • Distinguish among the three categories of constructive coping.

Definition of Constructive Coping

  • Constructive coping refers to "efforts to deal with stressful events that are judged to be relatively healthful."
  • It involves:
    • Direct confrontation of problems
    • Sustained effort
    • Realistic appraisals of stress and coping resources
    • Recognizing and managing disruptive emotional reactions to stress (involving exerting control over harmful habitual behaviors).

Categories of Constructive Coping Strategies

  1. Appraisal-focused strategies
  2. Problem-focused strategies
  3. Emotion-focused strategies

Constructive Coping Tactics

Appraisal-Focused Strategies

  • Detecting and disputing negative self-talk
  • Rational thinking
  • Positive reinterpretation
  • Finding humor
  • Turning to religion

Problem-Focused Strategies

  • Active problem solving
  • Seeking social support
  • Enhancing time management
  • Improving self-control
  • Becoming more assertive

Emotion-Focused Strategies

  • Releasing pent-up emotions
  • Distracting oneself
  • Managing hostility and forgiving others
  • Exercising
  • Meditating
  • Using systematic relaxation procedures

Appraisal-Focused Constructive Coping

Learning Objectives

  • Explain rational thinking as an appraisal-focused coping strategy using Ellis’s theory of catastrophic thinking.
  • Discuss the merits of humor in coping with stress, including research on various humor types.
  • Assess positive reinterpretation and benefit-finding as coping strategies.

Ellis's A-B-C Model

  • The model highlights the role of appraisal in coping:
    • A: Activating event (e.g., being stood up on a date)
    • B: Belief systems (irrational vs rational appraisal)
    • C: Consequence (emotional turmoil).

Example of Appraisal:

  • Negative appraisal:
    • Irrational: "This is terrible. I’ll never find anyone. I must be worthless."
    • Rational: "This is unfortunate, but I’ll salvage my weekend."

Roots of Catastrophic Thinking

  • Stemming from assumptions such as:
    • “I must have love and affection.”
    • “I must perform well in everything.”
    • “Others should always be considerate.”

Reducing Catastrophic Thinking

  • Strategies include:
  • Detecting irrational thoughts
  • Disputing assumptions
  • Using humor to defuse situations
  • Positive reinterpretation.

Humor as a Stress Reducer

  • Humor generates more positive appraisals:
  • Promotes positive emotions
  • Fosters positive social interactions leading to reduced stress.

Positive Reinterpretation

  • Recognizes that "things could be worse."
  • Involves searching for "benefit finding" in negative experiences.

Problem-Focused Constructive Coping

Learning Objectives

  • List and describe four steps in systematic problem-solving.
  • Discuss the adaptive value of seeking help as a coping strategy.
  • Describe how time orientation influences time management.

Systematic Problem-Solving Steps

  • Clarify the problem
  • Generate alternative courses of action
  • Evaluate alternatives and select a course of action
  • Take action while maintaining flexibility.

Seeking Help

  • Seeking help from friends or family can be beneficial.
  • Cultural differences exist:
    • In collectivistic cultures (e.g., many Asian cultures), individuals may avoid seeking help to prevent burdening others.

Improving Time Management

  • Stress can often come from time constraints.
  • Individuals may have different time orientations:
    • Future-oriented: Focus on long-term consequences
    • Present-oriented: Less concern for future impacts.

Benefits of Future Orientation

  • Future-oriented individuals tend to:
    • Procrastinate less
    • Meet goals more effectively.

Emotion-Focused Constructive Coping

Learning Objectives

  • Clarify the nature and value of emotional intelligence.
  • Analyze the adaptive value of expressing emotions.
  • Discuss the importance of managing hostility, forgiving others, and effective emotional functioning.

Definition of Emotional Intelligence

  • Emotional intelligence is "the ability to perceive and express emotion, use emotions to facilitate thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion."

Components of Emotional Intelligence

  • Accurate perception of one's own and others' emotions.
  • Understanding the impact of emotions on thought processes.
  • Comprehending complex or contradictory emotions.
  • Regulating negative emotions effectively.

Benefits of High Emotional Intelligence

  • Better social interactions
  • Improved mental and physical health
  • Greater leadership effectiveness
  • Higher likelihood of employing problem-focused coping strategies.

Expressing Emotions

  • Actively suppressing emotions, especially anger, can increase stress.
  • Emotional disclosure enhances mood and health outcomes.

Managing Hostility and Forgiveness

  • Forgiveness is defined as "counteracting tendencies to seek vengeance or avoid an offender."
  • Forgiveness correlates positively with psychological adjustment and well-being.

Benefits of Exercise

  • Regular exercise can lead to greater emotional control and reduced distress.
  • Important rules for beneficial exercise include:
    • Desire to exercise
    • Regular aerobic exercise.

Meditation and Relaxation Techniques

  • Meditation is described as "a family of mental exercises focused on nonanalytical attention."
  • Benefits include reductions in heart rate and anxiety.

Relaxation Procedures

  • Benson’s "relaxation response" involves:
    • A quiet environment
    • A mental device (focus)
    • A passive attitude
    • A comfortable position.

Spirituality as Coping

  • Spiritual involvement is linked to better health and overall coping.
  • However, religious involvement focused on punishment tends to be detrimental to mental health.

Application: Using Time More Effectively

Learning Objectives

  • Explain five common causes of wasted time.
  • Identify the causes and consequences of procrastination.
  • Summarize advice on managing time effectively.

Causes of Wasted Time

  • Inability to set or adhere to priorities
  • Inability to say "no"
  • Inability to delegate responsibilities
  • Inability to eliminate clutter
  • Inability to avoid interruptions
  • Perfectionism.

Procrastination Issues

  • 70-90% of college students procrastinate, with claims of increased efficiency under pressure.
  • Reasons for procrastination include the desire to minimize task time and optimizing efficiency.
  • Procrastinators experience more anxiety and health problems.

Time Management Techniques

  • Monitor time usage
  • Clarify goals
  • Schedule activities
  • Protect prime working hours from interruptions
  • Enhance efficiency by grouping similar tasks and building in downtime.