Coping and Copers: What It Is to Cope, Personalities, and Effective and Non-Effective Coping Strategies

Aldwin & Revenson, 1987; Billings & Moos, 1981; DunkelSchetter, Feinstein, Taylor, & Falke, 1992). However, it was posited by Forsythe and Compas (1987) that emotion-focused coping may be more appropriate and effective than problem-focused coping when the stressor is uncontrollable. This is known as the 'goodness of fit' hypothesis. It was supported in a study (Terry & Hynes, 1998) investigating women's coping in relation to a failed IVF attempt, considered a 'lowcontrol stressor'. Problem-appraisal coping (a type of cognitive approach coping) and emotional approach coping were found to be more effective for reducing distress than either problem-management (behavioural approach) or escapist (emotional avoidance)

Police officer’s ability to effectively cope with stress is critical to the safety of society as well as the psychological well-being of the officers. Coping refers to the ability to identify specific sources of stress and the capacity to develop a plan of action to resolve the issue. Despite numerous stressors, the psychological wellbeing of officers is often overlooked or minimised by administrators, supervisors, the public and often times the officers (Collin &Gibbs, 2003; Karaffa &Tuchkov, 2013). Avoidance style coping is characterized by the desire to escape, withdraw, or deny the existence of a stressor. Numerous research in the United States and the United Kingdom (Miller,.L, 2015; Warner,T., 2015; Lieberman,A., Best, S.,Metzler,T.,

The concept of coping has been used to describe components of the process of dealing with chronic and serious health conditions (Aldridge & Roesch, 2007). Although there are many definitions and theoretical models used to understand this construct, it is usually understood as cognitive and/or behavioral efforts to reduce or tolerate situations that are perceived as stressful to an individual (Aldridge & Roesch, 2007). Coping responses are cognitions and actions children and adolescents purposefully engage in to manage and adapt to stress (Compas et al., 2012). Lazarus and Folkman (1984) defined coping as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are

Coping skills. The invocation of coping skills to deal with the stressors is effective in the soldiers, which allows them to not be negatively impacted by traumatic stress (de Visser et al., 2016). It is considered normal to experience stress, and people should learn to utilize it effectively (de Visser et al., 2016). In firefighters, the coping skills associated with perceived social support has positive effect on them whereas coping skills developed based on self-guilt has negative affect in making them resilient to traumatic situations (Meyer et al, 2012).

Stress research and the framework in which personality is studied in relation to the coping process, has recently conceptualized in the ‘‘third generation’’ research (Ebstrup et al, 2011). The framework in regards to the third generation research refers to roles of personality in coping while maintaining strong operational distinctions between coping, personality appraisal, and adaptational outcomes. The issue that arises is that each patient’s tolerance for stress is different. Personality is a factor that is related to how a person handles many life changes and experiences. This relationship is between personality and coping leads to the

As it states in the book, coping is “the thoughts and behaviors used to manage the internal and external demands of situations that are appraised as stressful” (Introduction to Health Behaviors, pg. 135). So, when we are going through a stressful life event, we react in varieties of ways to make the stress go away or make it better. Everyone, reacts to stress differently. There are two type of strategies that concentrated on decreasing the negative emotion a person has after the stressful event, which is called “emotion-focused coping”. Then, there is a second strategy called “problem-focused coping”, that attempts to do something helpful with a stressful situation that may be harming (Introduction to Health Behaviors, pg.140). For example,

Coping is facing something; people cope in various ways. In the coping questionnaire we did, there were fifteen different types of coping strategies. Per that coping scale, the coping strategy I use the most is positive reinterpretation and growth, and also religious coping. I do not like any negative vibes around me, or anything/ anyone that produces negative vibes. I believe I am a positive person and use positivity to resist with negative stress. One thing that gives me positive vibe is my religion. I use prayers and believe in blessings from god to deal with everyday life.

Lack of Hardiness: “Hardiness is a personality style that predicts who will be resilient, thrive and remain healthy under stress versus who is more likely to suffer. Recent work shows that hardiness also influences short- and long-term mental health adjustment to major stressors, including war-related stressors (Bartone, 2008, p.5).

The way I understood these to coping strategies are emotional focused coping is coping with things we cannot physically do anything about like trying out for a team and not making it makes us disappointed. Problem focused coping is ways we deal with things that we can change like ending a bad relationship. It may be an emotion stress but you can make a decision to end it. I actually used the problem focused when I decided to get a divorce. The advantages were that I actually had to make a decision on what to do. The disadvantages were the emotions that came along with a decision.

A potential explanation for this finding may be the role of coping mechanisms on ameliorating emotional distress. For instance, Torres, Driscoll and Burrow (2010) noted that active coping behaviors reported lower levels of stress due to discrimination. Torres and colleagues argued that coping strategies may have a buffering or exacerbating effect on distress associated with discrimination and microaggressions. Torres and colleagues specified that active coping strategies serve a protective function when ascriptions of intelligence or personal ability microaggressions are encountered (Torres, Driscoll and Burrow, 2010). Thus, it is possible that when participants engaged in coping behaviors, this influenced their level of emotional distress.

This table shows how Positivity beyond Disability and Adapting to the Condition fall under the emergent theme Hoping and Coping. According to APA Help Center, having a serious mental disorder is very hard. It is also a hard one especially when the one who have diagnosed is your family member. All the family members may also be affected when that happens. But these family members can help the mentally-ill one by supporting them. They can find some organization to help them (APA Help Center, n.d). In this case, they are bringing their loved one in homecare.

Coping skills are a key factor in making people resilient to stressful situations. They are usually taught based on what type of skills are required to overcome traumatic stress or even reducing the impact of past traumatic experiences, depression or anxiety (Zalta et al., 2016). Several resilience trainings use coping skills as a mechanism to help prepare soldiers or emergency personnel to traumatic experiences they will encounter or have encountered (Meyer et al, 2012; Perez et al., 2015).

I am a very anxious person. Most would not know this about me because I have been able to implement coping skills to keep my anxiety under control. Using my coping skills has allowed me to “keep my cool.” However, on the inside, I am a complete wreck. When I am encountering situations that make me nervous, I feel as though I have to “talk myself down.” I know that this trait was passed down to me from both of my parents whether it was from genetics, the environment, or both.

Coping is the cognitive and behavioral efforts engaged by a person in facing difficulties from nerve-wracking person-environment transaction (Lazarus, 1993; Ntoumanis, Edmunds, and Duda, 2009). Successful coping can lead an individual to healthier quality of life, stable intellectual condition, and lower rate of ailments (Aldwin, 2000; Ntoumanis, Edmunds, and Duda, 2009). Coping styles can also result in progressive changes (eg., adaptation to illness, caregiving responsibilities, and body image

The first type of personality is Type A personalities. They are the most outgoing personality of the two. People who have an intense ambition and are very competitive are categorized as Type A personalities. Time is also a very important concept to Type A’s. They will have an exaggerated time urgency. Many of Type A personalities believe that they must be early to an event or they are considered late. The final way Type A personalities can be categorized is by their outlook. A hostile, cynical outlook is the main characteristic of an A personality (Haupt 2010). Some characteristics of having a hostile outlook are lacking compassion, envious of others and their accomplishments, tendency to always see the worst in others, and aggression (McLeod 2014).