Psychology 2035A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Learned Helplessness, Explanatory Style, Shelley E. Taylor
4 Aug 2020
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CHAPTER 4. COPING PROCESSES
The Concept of Coping
- Coping: efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress
Describe the variety of coping strategies that people use.
- Carver and Connor-Smith (2010) classified four groups of coping strategies
· Problem-focused vs. emotion-focused
· Engagement vs. disengagement coping
· Meaning-focused coping
· Proactive coping
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Coping flexibility
, or the ability to use multiple strategies, is more desirable than
consistently relying on the same strategy
Common Coping Patterns of Limited Value
Analyze the adaptive value of giving up and aggression as responses to stress.
- Giving up
· Learned helplessness: passive behaviour produced by exposure to
unavoidable aversive events
· People’s cognitive interpretation of aversive events determine whether
they develop learned helplessness
➢ Helplessness occur when individuals believe that events are beyond
their control
➢ Especially likely to emerge in people who exhibit a pessimistic
explanatory style
· Behavioural disengagement is associated with increased distress
· Giving up is beneficial when goals are unattainable → better health and
lower levels of a key stress hormone
- Acting aggressively
· Aggression: any behaviour intended to hurt someone, either physically or
verbally
· Frustration-aggression hypothesis – aggression is always due to frustration
➢ However, research showed that there isn’t an inevitable link, but
frustration does frequently elicit aggression
· Displacement: diversion of anger to a substitute target
· Catharsis: release of emotional tension
➢ According to Freud, it’s a good idea to vent anger
➢ However, experimental research disproved the catharsis hypothesis →
behaving in an agefgressive manner tends to fuel more anger and
aggression
· Carol Tavris (1982) asserts that aggressive behaviour usually backfires
because it elicits aggressive responses from others and generates more
anger
Evaluate the adaptive value of indulging yourself as a coping response and
describe the Spotlight on Research regarding stress-induced eating.
- Self-indulgence: compensating stressful events by pursuing substitute forms of
satisfaction
· Stress-induced eating
➢ Hyperphagics ate less in a situation of ease, and ate more during the
stressful times
· Stress-induced shopping
➢ Stress increases compulsive consumption, especially for those who are
highly materialistic
· Internet addition: spending an inordinate amount of time on the internet
and an inability to control online use
➢ Feel anxious, depressed, or empty when they’re not online
➢ Excessive gaming, preoccupation with sexual content, obsessive
socializing
➢ Prevalence of internet addiction is around 6% of the population
- Problems arise only when a person consistently responds to stress with
excessive self-indulgence
- Given the risks associated with self-indulgence, it has marginal adaptive value
Discuss the adaptive value of self-blame as a response to stress.
- Catastrophic thinking – coined by Albert Ellis to explain the phenomenon of the
Document Summary
Coping: efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress. Describe the variety of coping strategies that people use. Carver and connor-smith (2010) classified four groups of coping strategies. Coping flexibility, or the ability to use multiple strategies, is more desirable than consistently relying on the same strategy. Analyze the adaptive value of giving up and aggression as responses to stress. Learned helplessness: passive behaviour produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events. People"s cognitive interpretation of aversive events determine whether they develop learned helplessness. Helplessness occur when individuals believe that events are beyond their control. Especially likely to emerge in people who exhibit a pessimistic explanatory style. Behavioural disengagement is associated with increased distress. Giving up is beneficial when goals are unattainable better health and lower levels of a key stress hormone. Aggression: any behaviour intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally. Frustration-aggression hypothesis aggression is always due to frustration.
