Coping styles, paradox, and the cold pressor task

Abstract

The study investigated how coping style differences affected performance on the cold pressor task. Reactions of "monitors" (individuals who prefer having information about stressors) and "blunters" (individuals who avoid cues connected with stressors) were compared, using different instructional sets. The study also assessed the effectiveness of paradoxical intention compared to more traditional cognitive strategies. Monitors and blunters were identified using Miller's recently developed Behavioral Style Scale. All instructional sets improved performance in comparison to a control condition, and individuals generally did better when an instructional set supported their preferred coping style. Paradoxical intention did not show any decided advantage over other strategies. The desirability of designing stress management programs to fit individual coping style patterns is discussed.

The interacting effects of coping styles and situational variables in gynecologic settings: Implications for research and treatment

“…ies, the research has shown that those identified as high monitors or low blunters by the scale typically use information-seeking strategies under threat whereas those identified as low monitors or high blunters typically use distracting strategies [5,16,21]. Findings consistent with this have been obtained with medical populations.…”

Coping styles, opioid blockade, and cardiovascular response to stress

“…Recent studies have treated Monitoring and Blunting as orthogonal (Miller et al, 1988 and have used median splits on both scales to identify high versus low Monitors and high versus low Blunters (Miller, 1987;Miller et al, 1988Miller et al, , 1989. Other studies (Efran et al, 1989;Miller and Mangan, 1983;Steketee et al, 1989) have used the difference between Monitoring and Blunting scores to create median splits, with high scorers being classified as Monitors and low scorers being classified as Blunters. A problem with the latter method is that individuals either high on both scales or low on both scales would tend to be classified as Blunters.…”

Factors Associated with Self-evaluated Severity of Illness and Quality of Life in Male Israeli Asthmatic Soldiers

“…By contrast, soldiers with mild SEDOAD demonstrated a greater inclination to avoid asthmarelated information. The presumably decreased need to be attuned to their illness [24] might have decreased the anxiety and concern of these soldiers, enabling them to be better geared towards improving their overall functioning and quality of life.…”

“…When individuals are faced with an aversive event, their approach towards it can vary along two dimensions, monitoring and blunting [23,24]. Monitoring reflects the extent to which the individual actively chooses to seek information about the nature of an event, and is alert and sensitized to this event.…”