PSY 331 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Weight Watchers, Coping With, Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Coping With Stress
Objectives:
• Explain defensive strategies of coping with stress.
• Describe active strategies of coping with groups.
I. Psychological Coping Strategies
A. A cognitive appraisal (or evaluation)is an interpretation of an event that helps determine its
stress impact.
Asks: “How stressful will this event be to me.”
B. Two defensive coping strategies are denial and intellectualization.
Denial is when you decide that an event you experience is not really stressful.
Intellectualization is a way of coping in which you size up a situation without getting
emotionally involved.
Problem: Both strategies may help can help prevent physical stress reactions to stress, but
you are not really dealing with the problem.
C. By viewing situations as a challenge rather than a threat you can deal with stress actively
rather than simply defend against it. Active coping strategies involve changing the
environment or situation to remove the stressor or reduce the stress you feel.
Active Coping Strategies:
1. Hardiness: refers to personality traits of control. These people feel they have the ability to
affect the outcome of a situation. They try to achieve goals and solve problems instead of
fearing them.
2. Escape and Timing: if you are in a stressful situation you can remove yourself by leaving or by
spacing out stressful events over time.
3. Problem Solving: heading the problem head- on may be the best way to cope. Viewing
problems as challenges makes them appear positive. Problem solving means thinking
through a situation in a way that leads to a reasonable decision.
Ex: How could you handle a situation where a major exam is taking place on the same
day as a large project is due in another class?
4. Thinking Style or Explanatory Style: Pessimists vs. Optimists—Martin Seligman found that
optimists tend to outlive pessimists.
5. Progressive Relaxation and Meditation: (Dr. Edmund Jacobson) created a method of relaxation
where a person lies down and tenses and relaxes major muscle groups of the body to
relieve physical stress. He also had participants envision images and letting them go to
relieve mental stress.
6. Biofeedback: use of machines to help train the user to better regulate and reduce stress in the
body.
7. Humor: keeping a sense of humor helps reduce stress as laughing helps reduce tension in the
body. Humor allows people to also maintain a proper perspective on situations.
8. Exercise: physical activity is another constructive way to reduce stress and may help reduce
stress hormones.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Objectives: explain defensive strategies of coping with stress, describe active strategies of coping with groups, psychological coping strategies, a cognitive appraisal (or evaluation)is an interpretation of an event that helps determine its stress impact. Asks: how stressful will this event be to me. : two defensive coping strategies are denial and intellectualization. Denial is when you decide that an event you experience is not really stressful. Intellectualization is a way of coping in which you size up a situation without getting emotionally involved. Problem: both strategies may help can help prevent physical stress reactions to stress, but you are not really dealing with the problem. C. by viewing situations as a challenge rather than a threat you can deal with stress actively rather than simply defend against it. Active coping strategies involve changing the environment or situation to remove the stressor or reduce the stress you feel. Active coping strategies: hardiness: refers to personality traits of control.
