We identified five patterns of coping in a sample of 603 cancer patients: "seeking or using social support," "focusing on the positive," "distancing," "cognitive escape-avoidance," and "behavioral escape-avoidance." Relationships of these coping patterns to sociodemographic characteristics, medical factors, stress appraisals, psychotherapeutic experience, and emotional distress were tested using correlational and regression techniques. Type of cancer, time since diagnosis, and whether a person was currently in treatment had few or no relationships to coping. The specific cancer-related problem (e.g., pain, fear of future) was also not associated with how individuals coped. Perceptions of its stressfulness, however, were related to significantly more coping through social support and more of both forms of escape-avoidance. Coping through social support, focusing on the positive, and distancing was associated with less emotional distress, whereas using cognitive and behavioral escape-avoidance was associated with more emotional distress. Implications of the results for understanding coping processes and intervention with cancer patients are discussed.

Patterns of coping with cancer.

Symptoms, hassles, social supports, and life events: problem of confounded measures.

Predicting personal debt and debt repayment: Psychological, social and economic determinants.

The purpose of the present study was to identify common stressors and the magnitude of stress reactivity in police officers during the course of general duty police work. Using heart rate as a primary indicator of autonomic nervous system activation, coupled with observed physical activity data collected through 76 full shift ride‐alongs, this study differentiates between physical and psycho‐social stress. The results, confirming previous research based on self‐report data alone, demonstrate that police officers experience both physical and psycho‐social stress on the job, anticipating stress as they go about their work, while suffering anticipatory stress at the start of each shift. The results demonstrated that the highest levels of stress occur just prior to and during critical incidents, and that officers do not fully recover from that stress before leaving their shift. Overall, the results illustrate the need to consider stress reactivity and repressors in the assessment of police officer stress while clearly demonstrating the need for debriefing after critical incidents and increased training in stress management and coping strategies.

Physical evidence of police officer stress

An interactional model of stress that integrates current research on competitive affects and emphasizes the temporal dimensions of the stress process is forwarded. The literature reveals that the study of athletes' affective responses to competition has been narrowly focused on pre-competitive anxiety. Equivocal findings on temporal patterning of competitive anxiety suggest that a fundamental change in the empirical approach is needed because the current conceptualization of anxiety and other complex emotions is imprecise. The analysis of secondary emotions as patterns of discrete basic emotions, as suggested by differential emotions theorists, is proposed for consideration in future research. In this view, competitive anxiety is considered as a set of patterns of emotions rather than a unitary affect. The adoption of this approach could result in better operationalization of competitive anxiety as well as other secondary performance-related emotions. We propose that research on competitive affects should follow two parallel lines. The first should focus on the description of complex emotional states that reflect the idiosyncratic emotional experience and vocabulary of the athlete. The second should examine the sets of basic emotions experienced throughout competition, and focus on individual differences and factors determining those differences. The integration of the two approaches could lead to a better understanding of whether, how and why individuals differ in the interpretation of specific secondary emotions and their effect on performance. Moreover, it would permit the analysis of intra-individual variations in labelling secondary emotions with respect to different competitive contexts and temporal aspects.

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Temporal patterning of competitive emotions: a critical review.

Coping is action directed at the resolution or mitigation of a problematic situation. There are a number of ways in which this may be attempted, and a number of ways of classifying coping strategies. This paper presents a simple schema of six coping themes, ordered in terms of their defensiveness and the degree of attempted personal control which they imply. They comprise rejection, control, resignation, dependency, avoidance and minimization, and characterize the meaning or qualitative 'style' of the individual's response, rather than the formal characteristics of the strategies employed. Data from studies of breast cancer and surgical patients are cited to illustrate the substance of the themes.

J. Lindop

Papers

The concept of coping