Coping research: Historical background, links with emotion, and new research directions on adaptive processes

Abstract

The general purpose of this review is to briefly describe the historical foundations of coping research covering how it has evolved, over the past three to four decades, from research founded on a deficit model of stress to research that focused more often on exploring people's capacity to deal with life's circumstances and fulfil their potential. Five topic areas are covered. First, key theoretical underpinnings of coping research are described. Second, links between coping responses and emotion are presented, with an emphasis on how coping can mitigate the individual and environmental impacts of stress. Third, developmental studies of stress and coping are introduced showing how it is functionally important across the age span but may change in form. Fourth, the challenges for measuring coping are considered by describing classic and new approaches to assessment. Finally, later developments in coping research are covered by identifying recent research on proactive coping and dyadic approaches. Overall, this review also illustrates how coping research has traversed the full gamut of the lifespan.Stress and coping have been considered to be the most highly researched fields in psychology. On coping alone, the research efforts between 1980s to the present have yielded 881,436 peer-reviewed journal articles with almost equal amount of publication in the adult (403,132) and child (442,775) areas. There are fewer relating to adolescence (236,925) and with much less on coping in early childhood (136,118). Since the year 2000, there has been a continuing volume of research output with the most notable advances in the child and adolescent arenas. From 2000 onwards, the compliment of publications has not abated in that coping has rendered 661,844 publications with 316,148 for adults and 356,203 for child and again fewer for adolescents (177,226) and early childhood (105,496). The importance of coping for children is manifold in that children and the contexts in which they operate, namely, family, school, and peer group offer, extensive opportunities for enhancing the ways in which they deal with their lives in each of their settings.

Experienced HIV-Related Stigma and Psychological Distress in Peruvian Sexual and Gender Minorities: A Longitudinal Study to Explore Mediating Roles of Internalized HIV-Related Stigma and Coping Styles

“…Some empirical data exists to support these theoretical relationships, although most literature has identified substance use coping as particularly important as an HIV-related maladaptive coping strategy (18, 19, 32, 49) and social support coping as particularly important as an HIV-related adaptive coping strategy (16, 18, 19, 52, 53). It should be noted that another way to classify coping strategies is as problem- or emotion-focused (54). Under this classification, strategies are conceptualized in terms of whether coping is used to mitigate stressors directly (problem-focused) versus reducing negative emotional reactions to the stressors (emotion-focused).…”

Adaptação da Escala de Estratégias deCopingna adolescência numa amostra Portuguesa

“…Tais dados parecem indicar uma maior tendência para a utilização de estratégias adaptativas na forma como lidam com o stress, na linha de estudos anteriores que apontam o uso mais prevalente de estratégias focalizadas nos problemas (Frydenberg, 2014;Lewis & Frydenberg, 2002;McMahon et al, 2013;Penley, Tomaka, & Weibe, 2002). No sentido contrário, parece ser menos utilizadas estratégias de procura como o apoio espiritual, de apoio profissional, uso de drogas ou descarga emocional.…”

“…Estes resultados parecem ir de encontro ao encontrado na literatura, que associa a diminuição do coping funcional, como as respostas emocionais, ao longo da idade (Compas et al, 2001;Frydenberg, 2004Frydenberg, , 2014, seja pela ocorrência de adversidades ou situações de stress que o adolescente não consegue ultrapassar ou outros desafios para a utilização de estratégias adequadas (Campos et al, 2012;Zimmer-Gembeck & Skinner, 2008). A procura de maior autonomia (Zimmer-Gembeck & Skinner, 2011), numa etapa do desenvolvimento em que a distância com a família tende a aumentar e é maior proximidade ao grupo de pares, pode ajudar a explicar a relação negativa com o apoio da família e as experiências de consumo de drogas, tantas vezes associadas à proximidade ou pressão entre os pares (Wills et al, 2001).…”

“…Apesar destas evidências, os estudos têm sido realizados essencialmente sobre jovens e adultos, sendo mais escassa a investigação realizada junto das populações mais jovens (Frydenberg, 2014;Schwarzer & Schwarzer, 1996;ZimmerGembeck & Skinner, 2011). Aliás, grande parte da avaliação do coping tem sido centrada nas orientações dos adultos (e. g., Garcia, 2010) e só depois adaptada para as populações mais jovens, o que contribui para a manutenção de dúvidas e controvérsia quanto à sua conceptualização, dimensionalidade, número e tipo de estratégias mais eficazes (Boubeta, Iglesia, Ongarato, & Liporace, 2011;Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003).…”

Introduction to the special issue

“…This special issue begins with two reviews from experts on stress and coping, especially among children and adolescents (Compas et al., ; Frydenberg, ). Compas et al.…”