Coping (psychology)
Encyclopedia
Coping has been defined in psychological terms by Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus
as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person".
Coping is thus expending conscious effort to solve personal and interpersonal problems, and seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress
or conflict
. Psychological coping mechanisms are commonly termed coping strategies or coping skills. Unconscious or non conscious strategies (e.g., defense mechanisms
) are generally excluded. The term coping generally refers to adaptive or constructive coping strategies, i.e., the strategies reduce stress levels. However, some coping strategies can be considered maladaptive, i.e., stress levels increase. Maladaptive coping can thus be described, in effect, as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to reactive coping, i.e., the coping response follows the stressor. This contrasts with proactive coping, in which a coping response aims to head off a future stressor.
Coping responses are partly controlled by personality (habitual traits), but also partly by the social context, particularly the nature of the stressful environment.
Appraisal-focused strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial
, or distancing oneself from the problem. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such as by seeing the humor in a situation: "some have suggested that humor may play a greater role as a stress moderator among women than men".
People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information
on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress.
Emotion-focused strategies involve releasing pent-up emotions, distracting oneself, managing hostile feelings, meditating or using systematic relaxation procedures. Emotion-focused coping "is oriented toward managing the emotions that accompany the perception of stress".
Typically, people use a mixture of all three types of coping strategies, and coping skills will usually change over time. All these methods can prove useful, but some claim that those using problem-focused coping strategies will adjust better to life
. Problem-focused coping mechanisms may allow an individual greater perceived control over their problem, whereas emotion-focused coping may sometimes lead to a reduction in perceived control (maladaptive coping).
Folkman and Lazarus identified six emotion-focused coping strategies:
and two problem-focused coping strategies: "taking action to try to get rid of the problem is a problem-focused strategy, but so is making a list of the steps to take".
Lazarus "notes the connection between his idea of 'defensive reappraisals' or cognitive coping and Freud's concept of 'ego-defenses'", coping strategies thus overlapping with a person's defense mechanisms.
is when one "reduce[s] the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how [one is] going to cope with it".
Two others are "social coping, such as seeking support from others, and meaning-focused coping, in which the person concentrates on deriving meaning from the stressful experience".
Keeping fit - "when you are well and healthy, when nutrition, exercise and sleep are adequate, it is much easier to cope with stress" - and learning "to lower the level of arousal...by relaxing muscles the message is received that all is well" are also positive techniques.
Arguably, however, the best of all "the methods people use to cope with painful situations...is humor! You feel things to the full...but you master them by turning it all into pleasure and fun!"
While dealing with stress it is important to deal with your physical, mental, and social well being. One should maintain their health and learn to relax if they find themselves under stress. Mentally it is important to think positive thoughts, value oneself, demonstrate good time management, plan and think ahead, and express emotions. Socially one should communicate with people and seek new activities. By following these simple strategies, one will have an easier time responding to stresses in their lives.
, and escape (including self-medication
). These coping strategies interfere with the person's ability to unlearn, or break apart, the paired association between the situation and the associated anxiety symptoms. These are maladaptive strategies as they serve to maintain the disorder.
Dissociation is the inability of the mind to separate and compartmentalize thoughts, memories, and emotions. This is often associated with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Sensitization is when a person seeks to learn about, rehearse, and/or anticipate fearful events in a protective effort to prevent these events from occurring in the first place.
Safety behaviors are demonstrated when individuals with anxiety disorders come to rely on something, or someone, as a means of coping with their excessive anxiety.
Anxious avoidance is when a person avoids anxiety provoking situations by all means. This is the most common strategy.
Escape is closely related to avoidance. This technique is often demonstrated by people who experience panic attacks or have phobias. These people want to flee the situation at the first sign of anxiety.
Religious coping has been found to be the most common coping response, with one study reporting that 17% use religion as a coping response. Women mentioned religious coping more frequently than did men.
Many people think that meditation
"not only calms our emotions, but...makes us feel more 'together'", as too can "the kind of prayer in which you're trying to achieve an inner quietness and peace".
Low-effort syndrome or low-effort coping refers to the coping responses of minority groups in an attempt to fit into the dominant culture. For example, minority students at school may learn to put in only minimal effort as they believe they are being discriminated against by the dominant culture.
In adult cases of "acute and more or less 'traumatic' upsetting events in the life of normal persons", Fenichel stressed that in coping, "in carrying out a 'work of learning' or 'work of adjustment', [s]he must acknowledge the new and less comfortable reality and fight tendencies towards regression, towards the misinterpretation of reality", though such rational strategies "may be mixed with relative allowances for rest and for small regressions and compensatory wish fulfillment, which are recuperative in effect".
Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney "developed her mature theory in which individuals cope with the anxiety produced by feeling unsafe, unloved, and undervalued by disowning their spontaneous feelings and developing elaborate strategies of defence." She defined four so-called coping strategies to define interpersonal relations, one describing psychologically healthy
individuals, the others describing neurotic states.
The healthy strategy she termed "Moving with" is that with which psychologically healthy people develop relationships. It involves compromise. In order to move with, there must be communication, agreement, disagreement, compromise, and decisions. The three other strategies she described - "Moving toward", "Moving against" and "Moving away" - represented neurotic, unhealthy strategies people utilize in order to protect themselves.
Horney investigated these patterns of neurotic needs (compulsive attachments). Everyone needs these things, but the neurotics' need them more than the normal person. The neurotics' might need these more because of difficulties within their lives. If the neurotic does not experience these needs, he or she will experience anxiety. The ten needs are:
In Compliance, also known as "Moving toward" or the "Self-effacing solution", the individual moves towards those perceived as a threat to avoid retribution and getting hurt, "making any sacrifice, no matter how detrimental." The argument is, "If I give in, I won't get hurt." This means that: if I give everyone I see as a potential threat whatever they want, I won't be injured (physically or emotionally). This strategy includes neurotic needs one, two, and three.
In Withdrawal, also known as "Moving away" or the "Resigning solution", individuals distance themselves from anyone perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt - "the 'mouse-hole' attitude...the security of unobtrusiveness." The argument is, "If I do not let anyone close to me, I won't get hurt." A neurotic, according to Horney desires to be distant because of being abused. If they can be the extreme introvert, no one will ever develop a relationship with them. If there is no one around, nobody can hurt them. These "moving away" people fight personality, so they often come across as cold or shallow. This is their strategy. They emotionally remove themselves from society. Included in this strategy are neurotic needs three, nine, and ten.
In Aggression, also known as the "Moving against" or the "Expansive solution", the individual threatens those perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt. Children might react to parental in-differences by displaying anger or hostility. This strategy includes neurotic needs four, five, six, seven, and eight.
further stressed "the development of the personality and of 'ego-strengths'...adaptation to social realities".
has stressed the importance of "the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability....People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life's setbacks and upsets". From this perspective, "the art of soothing ourselves is a fundamental life skill; some psychoanalytic thinkers, such as John Bowlby
and D. W. Winnicott see this as the most essential of all psychic tools."
Object relations theory
has examined the childhood development both of "[i]ndependent coping...capacity for self-soothing", and of "[a]ided coping. Emotion-focused coping in infancy is often accomplished through the assistance of an adult."
In general, such differences as exist indicate that women tend to employ emotion-focused coping and the "tend-and-befriend" response to stress, whereas men tend to use problem-focused coping and the "fight-or-flight" response, perhaps because societal standards encourage men to be more individualistic, while women are often expected to be interpersonal. It is however also important to note that the strictly genetic component of these differences is still debated, and that gender preferences for coping strategies are the result of social conditioning and child-rearing: for instance, males are often encouraged to be independent, while females are expected to comply, which may influence each gender's choice of coping mechanism.
and self-punishment, to handle daily hassles. Stress is often a primary factor in models of illness and disease; and research has shown that people under extreme amounts of stress often exhibit cognitive deficits, illness, increased levels of depression
and anxiety
, lower self-esteem
, bad health, and lack of sleep.
However, college students of both genders who employ problem-solving strategies have better health and increased self-esteem.
, a stress hormone, was found to be elevated in males during stressful situations. In females, however, cortisol
levels were decreased in stressful situations, and instead, an increase in limbic activity was discovered. Many researchers believe that these results underlie the reasons why men administer a fight-or-flight reaction to stress; whereas, females have a tend-and-befriend reaction. The "fight-or-flight" response activates the sympathetic nervous system
in the form of increased focus levels, adrenaline, and epinephrine. However, the "tend-and-befriend" reaction refers to the tendency of women to protect their offspring and relatives. Although these two different reactions are generally associated with their respected genders, one should not assume that females cannot implement a "fight-or-flight" behavior or that males cannot implement a "tend-and-befriend" behavior.
Richard Lazarus
Richard S. Lazarus was a psychologist who began rising to prominence in the 1960s, when behaviorists like B. F. Skinner held sway over psychology and explanations for human behavior were often pared down to rudimentary motives like reward and punishment...
as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person".
Coping is thus expending conscious effort to solve personal and interpersonal problems, and seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
or conflict
Emotional conflict
"Emotional conflicts and the intervention of the unconscious are the classical features of...medical psychology" for C. G. Jung. Equally, 'Freud's concept of emotional conflict as amplified by Anna Freud...Erikson and others is central in contemporary theories of mental disorder in children,...
. Psychological coping mechanisms are commonly termed coping strategies or coping skills. Unconscious or non conscious strategies (e.g., defense mechanisms
Defence mechanism
In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisms are unconscious psychological strategies brought into play by various entities to cope with reality and to maintain self-image. Healthy persons normally use different defences throughout life...
) are generally excluded. The term coping generally refers to adaptive or constructive coping strategies, i.e., the strategies reduce stress levels. However, some coping strategies can be considered maladaptive, i.e., stress levels increase. Maladaptive coping can thus be described, in effect, as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to reactive coping, i.e., the coping response follows the stressor. This contrasts with proactive coping, in which a coping response aims to head off a future stressor.
Coping responses are partly controlled by personality (habitual traits), but also partly by the social context, particularly the nature of the stressful environment.
Types of coping strategies
About 400 to 600 coping strategies have been identified. Classification of these strategies into a broader architecture has not yet been agreed upon. Common distinctions are often made between various contrasting strategies, for example: problem-focused versus emotion-focused; engagement versus disengagement; cognitive versus behavioral. The psychology textbook by Weiten has provided a useful summary of three broad types of coping strategies:- appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive),
- problem-focused (adaptive behavioral), and
- emotion-focused.
Appraisal-focused strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial
Denial
Denial is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.The subject may use:* simple denial: deny the reality of the...
, or distancing oneself from the problem. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such as by seeing the humor in a situation: "some have suggested that humor may play a greater role as a stress moderator among women than men".
People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress.
Emotion-focused strategies involve releasing pent-up emotions, distracting oneself, managing hostile feelings, meditating or using systematic relaxation procedures. Emotion-focused coping "is oriented toward managing the emotions that accompany the perception of stress".
Typically, people use a mixture of all three types of coping strategies, and coping skills will usually change over time. All these methods can prove useful, but some claim that those using problem-focused coping strategies will adjust better to life
Personal life
Personal life is the course of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity. It is a common notion in modern existence—although more so in more prosperous parts of the world such as Western Europe and North America...
. Problem-focused coping mechanisms may allow an individual greater perceived control over their problem, whereas emotion-focused coping may sometimes lead to a reduction in perceived control (maladaptive coping).
Folkman and Lazarus identified six emotion-focused coping strategies:
and two problem-focused coping strategies: "taking action to try to get rid of the problem is a problem-focused strategy, but so is making a list of the steps to take".
Lazarus "notes the connection between his idea of 'defensive reappraisals' or cognitive coping and Freud's concept of 'ego-defenses'", coping strategies thus overlapping with a person's defense mechanisms.
Positive techniques (adaptive or constructive coping)
One positive coping strategy, "anticipating a problem...is known as proactive coping." AnticipationAnticipation (emotion)
Anticipation, or being enthusiastic, is an emotion involving pleasure, excitement, and sometimes anxiety in considering some expected or longed-for good event.-As defence mechanism:...
is when one "reduce[s] the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how [one is] going to cope with it".
Two others are "social coping, such as seeking support from others, and meaning-focused coping, in which the person concentrates on deriving meaning from the stressful experience".
Keeping fit - "when you are well and healthy, when nutrition, exercise and sleep are adequate, it is much easier to cope with stress" - and learning "to lower the level of arousal...by relaxing muscles the message is received that all is well" are also positive techniques.
Arguably, however, the best of all "the methods people use to cope with painful situations...is humor! You feel things to the full...but you master them by turning it all into pleasure and fun!"
While dealing with stress it is important to deal with your physical, mental, and social well being. One should maintain their health and learn to relax if they find themselves under stress. Mentally it is important to think positive thoughts, value oneself, demonstrate good time management, plan and think ahead, and express emotions. Socially one should communicate with people and seek new activities. By following these simple strategies, one will have an easier time responding to stresses in their lives.
Negative techniques (maladaptive coping or non-coping)
While adaptive coping methods improve functioning, a maladaptive coping technique will just reduce symptoms while maintaining and strengthening the disorder. Maladaptive techniques are more effective in the short term rather than long term coping process. Examples of maladaptive behavior strategies include: dissociation, sensitization, safety behaviors, anxious avoidanceAvoidance coping
Avoidance coping, or escape coping, is a kind of generally maladaptive coping, characterized by the effort to escape from having to deal with a stressor.Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms are thought to be the precursor to avoidance coping...
, and escape (including self-medication
Self-medication
Self-medication is a term used to describe the use of drugs or other self-soothing forms of behavior to treat untreated and often undiagnosed mental distress, stress and anxiety, including mental illnesses and/or psychological trauma...
). These coping strategies interfere with the person's ability to unlearn, or break apart, the paired association between the situation and the associated anxiety symptoms. These are maladaptive strategies as they serve to maintain the disorder.
Dissociation is the inability of the mind to separate and compartmentalize thoughts, memories, and emotions. This is often associated with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Sensitization is when a person seeks to learn about, rehearse, and/or anticipate fearful events in a protective effort to prevent these events from occurring in the first place.
Safety behaviors are demonstrated when individuals with anxiety disorders come to rely on something, or someone, as a means of coping with their excessive anxiety.
Anxious avoidance is when a person avoids anxiety provoking situations by all means. This is the most common strategy.
Escape is closely related to avoidance. This technique is often demonstrated by people who experience panic attacks or have phobias. These people want to flee the situation at the first sign of anxiety.
Further examples
Further examples of coping strategies include:- emotional or instrumental support
- self-distraction
- denialDenialDenial is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.The subject may use:* simple denial: deny the reality of the...
- substance use
- self-blame
- behavioral disengagement
- religionReligionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
- indulgence in drugs or alcohol
Religious coping has been found to be the most common coping response, with one study reporting that 17% use religion as a coping response. Women mentioned religious coping more frequently than did men.
Many people think that meditation
Meditation
Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....
"not only calms our emotions, but...makes us feel more 'together'", as too can "the kind of prayer in which you're trying to achieve an inner quietness and peace".
Low-effort syndrome or low-effort coping refers to the coping responses of minority groups in an attempt to fit into the dominant culture. For example, minority students at school may learn to put in only minimal effort as they believe they are being discriminated against by the dominant culture.
Fenichel
Otto Fenichel summarized early psychoanalytic studies of coping mechanisms in children as "a gradual substitution of actions for mere discharge reactions...[&] the development of the function of judgement" - noting however that "behind all active types of mastery of external and internal tasks, a readiness remains to fall back on passive-receptive types of mastery."In adult cases of "acute and more or less 'traumatic' upsetting events in the life of normal persons", Fenichel stressed that in coping, "in carrying out a 'work of learning' or 'work of adjustment', [s]he must acknowledge the new and less comfortable reality and fight tendencies towards regression, towards the misinterpretation of reality", though such rational strategies "may be mixed with relative allowances for rest and for small regressions and compensatory wish fulfillment, which are recuperative in effect".
Karen Horney
In the 1940s, the GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney "developed her mature theory in which individuals cope with the anxiety produced by feeling unsafe, unloved, and undervalued by disowning their spontaneous feelings and developing elaborate strategies of defence." She defined four so-called coping strategies to define interpersonal relations, one describing psychologically healthy
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
individuals, the others describing neurotic states.
The healthy strategy she termed "Moving with" is that with which psychologically healthy people develop relationships. It involves compromise. In order to move with, there must be communication, agreement, disagreement, compromise, and decisions. The three other strategies she described - "Moving toward", "Moving against" and "Moving away" - represented neurotic, unhealthy strategies people utilize in order to protect themselves.
Horney investigated these patterns of neurotic needs (compulsive attachments). Everyone needs these things, but the neurotics' need them more than the normal person. The neurotics' might need these more because of difficulties within their lives. If the neurotic does not experience these needs, he or she will experience anxiety. The ten needs are:
- Affection and approval, the need to please others and be liked
- A partner who will take over one's life, based on the idea that love will solve all of one's problems
- Restriction of one's life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with little, inconspicuous; to simplify one's life
- Power, for control over others, for a facade of omnipotence, caused by a desperate desire for strength and dominance
- Exploitation of others; to get the better of them
- Social recognition or prestige, caused by an abnormal concern for appearances and popularity
- Personal admiration
- Personal achievement.
- Self-sufficiency and independence
- Perfection and unassailability, a desire to be perfect and a fear of being flawed.
In Compliance, also known as "Moving toward" or the "Self-effacing solution", the individual moves towards those perceived as a threat to avoid retribution and getting hurt, "making any sacrifice, no matter how detrimental." The argument is, "If I give in, I won't get hurt." This means that: if I give everyone I see as a potential threat whatever they want, I won't be injured (physically or emotionally). This strategy includes neurotic needs one, two, and three.
In Withdrawal, also known as "Moving away" or the "Resigning solution", individuals distance themselves from anyone perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt - "the 'mouse-hole' attitude...the security of unobtrusiveness." The argument is, "If I do not let anyone close to me, I won't get hurt." A neurotic, according to Horney desires to be distant because of being abused. If they can be the extreme introvert, no one will ever develop a relationship with them. If there is no one around, nobody can hurt them. These "moving away" people fight personality, so they often come across as cold or shallow. This is their strategy. They emotionally remove themselves from society. Included in this strategy are neurotic needs three, nine, and ten.
In Aggression, also known as the "Moving against" or the "Expansive solution", the individual threatens those perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt. Children might react to parental in-differences by displaying anger or hostility. This strategy includes neurotic needs four, five, six, seven, and eight.
Hartmann
Heinz Hartmann focused on the adaptive progression of the ego "through the mastery of new demands and tasks". In his wake, ego psychologyEgo psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical construct called the ego to explain how that is done...
further stressed "the development of the personality and of 'ego-strengths'...adaptation to social realities".
Object relations
Emotional intelligenceEmotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is a skill or ability in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. Various models and definitions have been proposed of which the ability and trait EI models are the most...
has stressed the importance of "the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability....People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life's setbacks and upsets". From this perspective, "the art of soothing ourselves is a fundamental life skill; some psychoanalytic thinkers, such as John Bowlby
John Bowlby
Edward John Mostyn "John" Bowlby was a British psychologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory.- Family background :...
and D. W. Winnicott see this as the most essential of all psychic tools."
Object relations theory
Object relations theory
Object relations theory is a psychodynamic theory within psychoanalytic psychology. The theory describes the process of developing a mind as one grows in relation to others in the environment....
has examined the childhood development both of "[i]ndependent coping...capacity for self-soothing", and of "[a]ided coping. Emotion-focused coping in infancy is often accomplished through the assistance of an adult."
Gender differences
Gender differences in coping strategies are the ways in which men and women differ in managing psychological stress. There is evidence that males often develop stress due to their careers, whereas females often encounter stress due to issues in interpersonal relationships. Early studies indicated that "there were gender differences in the sources of stressors, but gender differences in coping were relatively small after controlling for the source of stressors"; and more recent work has similarly revealed "small differences between women's and men's coping strategies when studying individuals in similar situations."In general, such differences as exist indicate that women tend to employ emotion-focused coping and the "tend-and-befriend" response to stress, whereas men tend to use problem-focused coping and the "fight-or-flight" response, perhaps because societal standards encourage men to be more individualistic, while women are often expected to be interpersonal. It is however also important to note that the strictly genetic component of these differences is still debated, and that gender preferences for coping strategies are the result of social conditioning and child-rearing: for instance, males are often encouraged to be independent, while females are expected to comply, which may influence each gender's choice of coping mechanism.
Maladaptive
Both men and women sometimes employ maladaptive mechanisms, such as avoidanceAvoidance coping
Avoidance coping, or escape coping, is a kind of generally maladaptive coping, characterized by the effort to escape from having to deal with a stressor.Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms are thought to be the precursor to avoidance coping...
and self-punishment, to handle daily hassles. Stress is often a primary factor in models of illness and disease; and research has shown that people under extreme amounts of stress often exhibit cognitive deficits, illness, increased levels of depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
and anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...
, lower self-esteem
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...
, bad health, and lack of sleep.
However, college students of both genders who employ problem-solving strategies have better health and increased self-esteem.
Hormones
Hormones also play a part in stress management. CortisolCortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, more specifically a glucocorticoid, produced by the adrenal gland. It is released in response to stress and a low level of blood glucocorticoids. Its primary functions are to increase blood sugar through gluconeogenesis; suppress the immune system; and aid in fat,...
, a stress hormone, was found to be elevated in males during stressful situations. In females, however, cortisol
Cortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, more specifically a glucocorticoid, produced by the adrenal gland. It is released in response to stress and a low level of blood glucocorticoids. Its primary functions are to increase blood sugar through gluconeogenesis; suppress the immune system; and aid in fat,...
levels were decreased in stressful situations, and instead, an increase in limbic activity was discovered. Many researchers believe that these results underlie the reasons why men administer a fight-or-flight reaction to stress; whereas, females have a tend-and-befriend reaction. The "fight-or-flight" response activates the sympathetic nervous system
Sympathetic nervous system
The sympathetic nervous system is one of the three parts of the autonomic nervous system, along with the enteric and parasympathetic systems. Its general action is to mobilize the body's nervous system fight-or-flight response...
in the form of increased focus levels, adrenaline, and epinephrine. However, the "tend-and-befriend" reaction refers to the tendency of women to protect their offspring and relatives. Although these two different reactions are generally associated with their respected genders, one should not assume that females cannot implement a "fight-or-flight" behavior or that males cannot implement a "tend-and-befriend" behavior.
See also
Further reading
- Susan Folkman and Richard S. Lazarus, "Coping and Emotion", in Nancy Stein et al. eds., Psychological and Biological Approaches to Emotion (1990)