Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Learned Helplessness, Prosocial Behavior, Explanatory Style
8 Feb 2017
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Psych 2035B – Lecture #4
Coping Strategies
• Coping refers to efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress
• We consider four important distinctions or groupings – people select their coping tactics
from a large and varied menu of options
o Problem focused vs emotion-focused coping
▪ Ex. I save money in anticipation of layoffs vs I engage in self-soothing relaxation
exercises to handle the stress brought about by layoffs
o Engagement vs disengagement coping
▪ Ex. I work on finding a new place to live after the divorce vs I refuse to believe that
the divorce is happening
o Meaning-focused coping
▪ Ex. Losing my house and possessions in a fire reminded me of what is truly important
in life – my family and friends
o Proactive coping
▪ Ex. I know that this confrontation with my friend is going to be challenging, so I'm
going to make sure I my thoughts organized before I bring up our issues
• It's most adaptive to use a variety of coping strategies, but most people rely on some coping
strategies more than others
o The ability to use multiple strategies is called coping flexibility, which has been related
to enhanced psychological health and reduced depression, anxiety, and distress
• Flexible copers can differentiate among stressful events in terms of controllability and
impact, which is important information to know when choosing a coping strategy
• Martin Seligman developed a model of this giving-up syndrome that sheds light on its
causes
o In the original experiment he used animals, administered electric shocks using
manipulations
o The results showed that humans became so apathetic and listless that they didn't even try
to learn the escape response
• Learned helplessness is passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive
events
• Seligman's current model proposes that people's cognitive interpretation of aversive events
determines whether they develop learned helplessness
o Specifically, helplessness seems to occur when individuals come to believe that events
are beyond their control
o This belief is particularly likely to emerge in people who exhibit a pessimistic
explanatory style
• Aggression is any behavior intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally
o Snarls, curses, and insults are much more common than shootings or fistfights, but
aggression of any kind can be problematic
• Aggressive responses to frustration are more likely if the person ruminates about being
provoked and if he or she has a depleted capacity for self-control
• Alcohol also plays a role – feelings of security and anonymity in one's personal space also
influence aggressive tendencies
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• Freud theorized that behaving aggressively could get pent-up emotion out of one's system
and thus be adaptive, he coined the term catharsis to refer to this release of emotional
tension
o This was widely accepted in society, but not supported by research – most studies find
the opposite
▪ Behaving in an aggressive manner tends to fuel more anger and aggression
• Anderson and Bushman: violent video games and found that playing these gams was related
to increased aggression, physiological arousal, and aggressive thoughts and to decreased
prosocial behavior
o They found that the relationship between media violence and aggressive behavior was
almost as strong as the relationship between smoking and cancer
o Exposure not only desensitizes people to violent acts, it also encourages aggressive self-
views and automatic aggressive responses and increased feelings of hostility
• Stress sometimes leads to reduced impulse control or self-indulgence
o Developing alternative rewards as a common response to stress
o Psychologists speculate that the general relationship between stress and poor physical
health might be attributable in part to these unhealthy behaviors
• Syndrome of Internet Addiction consists of spending an inordinate amount of time on the
internet and an inability to control online use
o People who exhibit this tend to feel anxious, depressed, or empty when they aren't
online
o It begins to interfere with their functioning at work, at school, or at home, leading victims
to start concealing the extent of their dependence of the internet
o This syndrome doesn't appear to be rare
• When confronted by stress, especially frustration and pressure, people often become highly
self-critical
• The tendency to engage in "negative self-talk" in response to stress has been noted by
theorists
o Albert Ellis called his "catastrophic thinking" and focuses on how it's rooted in irrational
assumptions
o Aaron Beck analyzes it into specific tendencies
▪ Unreasonability attribute their failures to personal shortcomings
▪ Focus on negative feedback from others while ignoring favorable feedback
▪ Make unduly pessimistic projections about the future
• Defensive coping is a common response to stress
• Defensive mechanisms are largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from
unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt
o Denial - refusal to acknowledge or face up to unpleasant realities in one's life
o Fantasy - fulfilling conscious or unconscious wishes and impulses in one's imagination
o Intellectualization - dealing with difficulties by looking at them in a detached, abstract
way, thus suppressing one's emotional reactions
o Undoing - attempting to counteract feelings of guilt through acts of atonement
o Overcompensation - making up for real or imagined deficiencies by focusing on, or
exaggerating, desirable characteristics
o They shield the individual from the emotional discomfort elicited by stress
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
I save money in anticipation of layoffs vs i engage in self-soothing relaxation exercises to handle the stress brought about by layoffs: engagement vs disengagement coping, ex. I work on finding a new place to live after the divorce vs i refuse to believe that the divorce is happening: meaning-focused coping, ex. Losing my house and possessions in a fire reminded me of what is truly important in life my family and friends: proactive coping, ex. I know that this confrontation with my friend is going to be challenging, so i"m going to make sure i my thoughts organized before i bring up our issues. Constructive coping involves confronting problems directly it involves a conscious. It takes effort, using such strategies to reduce stress is an active process that involves: key themes of coping and stress management: effort to rationally evaluate your options in an effort to solve your problems planning stress behaviors.
