Coping, defined as the thoughts and behaviors used to manage the internal and external demands of situations that are appraised as stressful, has been a focus of research in the social sciences for more than three decades. The dramatic proliferation of coping research has spawned healthy debate and criticism and offered insight into the question of why some individuals fare better than others do when encountering stress in their lives. We briefly review the history of contemporary coping research with adults. We discuss three primary challenges for coping researchers (measurement, nomenclature, and effectiveness), and highlight recent developments in coping theory and research that hold promise for the field, including previously unaddressed aspects of coping, new measurement approaches, and focus on positive affective outcomes.

Coping: Pitfalls and Promise

The tendency to "catastrophize" during painful stimulation contributes to more intense pain experience and increased emotional distress. Catastrophizing has been broadly conceived as an exaggerated negative "mental set" brought to bear during painful experiences. Although findings have been consistent in showing a relation between catastrophizing and pain, research in this area has proceeded in the relative absence of a guiding theoretical framework. This article reviews the literature on the relation between catastrophizing and pain and examines the relative strengths and limitations of different theoretical models that could be advanced to account for the pattern of available findings. The article evaluates the explanatory power of a schema activation model, an appraisal model, an attention model, and a communal coping model of pain perception. It is suggested that catastrophizing might best be viewed from the perspective of hierarchical levels of analysis, where social factors and social goals may play a role in the development and maintenance of catastrophizing, whereas appraisal-related processes may point to the mechanisms that link catastrophizing to pain experience. Directions for future research are suggested.

Theoretical perspectives on the relation between catastrophizing and pain.

A conceptual framework that identifies psychological and behavioral features associated with antecedents, experiences, and consequences of volunteerism is presented, and an inventory that measures 5 specific motivations for AIDS volunteerism is developed and cross-validated. Then a field study of 116 AIDS volunteers is presented in which a helping disposition, volunteer motivations, and social support (as antecedents), and personal satisfaction and organizational integration (as experiences) are used to predict duration of service over 2 1/2 years. Structural equation analyses indicate that dispositional helping influences satisfaction and integration but not duration of service, whereas greater motivation and less social support predict longer active volunteer service. The model is generalized to the prediction of perceived attitude change. Implications for conceptualizations of motivation, theoretical issues in helping, and practical concerns of volunteer organizations are discussed.

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/68/4/671.pdf

Sustained helping without obligation: Motivation, longevity of service, and perceived attitude change among AIDS volunteers.

This study examines the association between marital quality and personal well-being using meta-analytic techniques. Effects from 93 studies were analyzed. The average weighted effect size r was .37 for cross-sectional and .25 for longitudinal effects. Results indicate that several variables moderate the association between marital quality and personal well-being, including gender, participants’ marital duration, source of measurement, data collection year, and dependent variable. These results suggest that longitudinal effects are more likely to be uncovered when using standard measurement and that future research should use samples homogenous in marital length. The longitudinal finding that the strength of the association is stronger when personal well-being is treated as the dependent variable supports previous theorizing.

/pdf/marital-quality-and-personal-well-being-a-meta-analysis-59kpv9ipjs.pdf

Marital Quality and Personal Well‐Being: A Meta‐Analysis

Although there is abundant evidence that perceived availability of support buffers the effects of stressors on mental health, the relatively meager research on support transactions has failed to show an association between actual receipt of support and adjustment to stressors. The authors examined a possible explanation for this inconsistency, that awareness of receiving support entails an emotional cost and that the most effective support is unnoticed by the recipient. Using data from a daily diary study of support provision and receipt in couples, the authors show that many transactions reported by supporters are not reported by recipients. They also show that these invisible support transactions promote adjustment to a major stressor.

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Invisible support and adjustment to stress.

Conventional models of stress and coping are highly individualistic and give little attention to circumstances and involvement with others. A more contextual perspective on wives of patients who had suffered myocardial infarctions was adopted in this study. Wives' distress was related to the character of the infarction, but initial contact with medical personnel and marital quality each had independent contributions. Other analyses related wives' distress to their and the patients' coping. Wives' protective buffering of patients had a positive relationship with their own distress, even though Smith & Coyne (1988) have shown it contributes to patients' self-efficacy. Results suggest the need to acknowledge the limitations on adaptation imposed by health and the health care system. Also, initial conditions set a trajectory for later adaptation and there may be tradeoffs between preserving one's own well-being and contributing to a partner's efficacy.

David A. F. Smith

Papers

Couples coping with a myocardial infarction: a contextual perspective on wives' distress

Social support, interdependence, and the dilemmas of helping.