Coping Across The Lifespan Research Paper

Coping did not appear as a term in Psychological Abstracts until 1967. Since that time, research has been voluminous. A search of PsycINFO on ‘coping’ from 1967 to 1998 yielded about 23,000 entries, making it one of the fastest growing areas in psychology (Sommerfield and McCrae 2000). Studies span infancy to oldest age, and examine coping in almost every imaginable life domain, including health, work, finances, family, parenting, school, peers, bereavement, un-employment, and aging, as well as nonnormative life events, like accidents, crime victimization, cultural upheaval, economic downturns, war, and relocation.

1. Definitions

Coping is a process integral to adaptation and development. As an organizational construct, coping includes ‘all those efforts to deal with environmental pressures that [can] not be handled by reflexes or organized skills, but [involve] struggles, trials, persistent focused energy directed toward a goal. So responses to threats and dangers, frustrations and defeats, obstacles, loss, strangeness and the new or unknown, demands from adults and others in the environment, all required study’ (Murphy 1974, p. 71). No consensus exists about a more precise definition. Given the current prominence of transactional views, coping is often defined as ‘constantly changing cog-nitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person’ (Lazarus and Folkman 1984, p. 141). Closely related terms include stress, stressor, stressful life events, defense, challenge, threat, adversity, risk, resilience, mastery, vulnerability, thriving, hardiness, and social support.

Coping incorporates processes from many levels. It reflects evolution; humans come prepared to recognize and react to environmental demands in ways that promote survival. Coping has a tightly integrated physiological, psychological, and social basis. Many features of psychological functioning, such as emotions, motivation, attention, volition, cognition, and communication are organized in ways that allow them to contribute to coping. For example, emotions signal and/organize interactions of adaptive significance. Many aspects of social relationships and cultural systems also contribute to coping. For ex-ample, attachment relationships provide a safe haven of protection during times of distress.

Coping has both normative and individual difference features. Normatively, humans are prepared to cope adaptively. In fact, stress is likely necessary for the kinds of sustained constructive interactions that facilitate development. However, human responsive-ness to stress is also a vulnerability; too much stress can overwhelm and damage people. In addition, there are enormous differences in how physiological, psychological, social, and cultural resources for coping are distributed across individuals and social groups.

Finally, coping is a process that unfolds over time. Coping takes real time; any specific stressful trans-action involves sequences of moment-to-moment interactions. Coping also takes place over episodic time; dealing with demands encompasses a protracted series of specific real-time transactions. As noted by White, ‘Described not inappropriately in military metaphors, adaptation often calls for delay, strategic retreat, regrouping of forces, abandoning of untenable positions, seeking fresh intelligence, and deploying new weapons’ (White 1974, p. 50).

Given its complexity and centrality to adaptation, it is not surprising that coping has been approached from a wide range of theoretical perspectives. It has been defined as a specific person–context transaction, personality in action under stress, a repertoire of strategies, a hierarchically organized set of ego processes, an indicator of competence, a function of emotion, an outcome of temperament, an expression of stress physiology, and a quality of action regulation. Although it has sometimes been suggested that coping is primarily a manifestation of other phenomena, most researchers vigorously argue that coping processes have an independent causal status; more specifically, they maintain that coping makes a material difference to how stressful interactions are resolved and is a key factor influencing long-term mental and physical heath, well-being, and development in the face of adversity.

2. Historical Contexts

Historically, work on coping started well before the 1960s. It has early forerunners in psychoanalytic work on defenses and has been influenced heavily by the study of stress. Work with children and the elderly reflects a focus on development. Theories have been informed by a host of interventions designed to help people of all ages cope more adaptively with trauma and stressful life events. (For historical overviews, see Lazarus 1993, Lazarus and Folkman 1984, Murphy 1974, Parker and Endler 1996, Snyder 1999.)

2.1 Coping And Defense

The concept of defense, as it first appeared in psychology in the early writings of Freud ([1894] 1962), referred to psychological mechanisms (such as repression or projection) used to protect the psyche from disturbing thoughts and emotions, mainly by distorting reality or removing the distressing material from conscious awareness. These ideas were expanded by Anna Freud (1936 1946), who argued that individuals have particular styles of defense which are linked to specific forms of psychopathology.

This formulation influenced several generations of ego-psychologists (e.g., Haan 1977, Valliant 1986, see Cramer 1998). These theorists argued explicitly for a hierarchical model of ego processes, in which some defenses are more mature than others. For example, Haan (1977) posited a three-tiered taxonomy of ego-processes: coping, considered more forward looking, flexible, largely conscious, and attentive to reality; defense, considered to be inherently organized around issues from the past, rigid in operation, unconscious, and distorting of reality; and ego-failure or ‘frag-mentation.’

Many notions from this approach appear in current theorizing. They include the idea that coping occurs in response not only to environmental demands, but also to intrapsychic pressures; that some ways of coping are inherently superior; and that people consistently show characteristic styles of coping with threat that reflect personality or ego development. Moreover, this work introduced several themes which are resurfacing in current discussions of coping, including the idea that some modes of adaptation are unconscious and unintentional, that distortions of reality can be adaptive, and that the self (or ego) and its regulatory functions are central to processes of coping.

2.2 Stress And Coping

A second strand of work on coping emerged from research on stress, a concept prominent in the social and health sciences since the 1930s. Systematic attempts to link stress exposure to specific psycho-logical or somatic outcomes revealed marked individual differences in stress effects. Explicit recognition that living organisms ‘fight back,’ as captured in terms like ‘host resistance,’ galvanized interest in the social and individual factors that determine vulnerability or resistance to the effects of stress. An important branch of this work contributed to the study of coping (Coelho et al. 1974, Lazarus and Folkman 1984, Moos and Billings 1982, Pearlin and Schooler 1978).

The transactional perspective, currently the most prominent view, was articulated by Lazarus and his colleagues, and held that the experience of stress is shaped by interpretations or appraisals of the meaning of environmental demands. Coping itself is seen as a transactional process, iterating with (re)appraisals and environmental changes, and as having two primary functions: to deal directly with the environmental stressor (referred to as problem-focused coping) and to deal with the emotional consequences of the stressful transaction (emotion-focused coping).

The basic tenets of a transactional perspective include the notion that coping does not directly reflect personality but varies in accordance with the situations in which it occurs; that no ways of coping are inherently better; that any stressful event (such as illness or job loss) gives rise to a complex host of specific and changing demands; and that, in order to cope with these, any individual can and does use a wide variety of strategies. Perhaps most critical is the emphasis on coping as a process that changes over time.

Several methodological shifts in research accompanied this new approach. The measurement of coping shifted from clinical assessment to self-report, and efforts were made to unconfound measures of coping from assessment of outcomes. In addition to a focus on coping with traumatic events (e.g., life-threatening illness or victimization), research also came to include the study of chronic stressful conditions, and relatively minor everyday stressors or ‘daily hassles.’ Moreover, research became more specialized by type of stressor (e.g., health problems, work stress, or bereavement). Even within domains, research has become more finely segregated; for example, different medical conditions are often studied separately.

2.3 Coping And Development

Child psychologists have had a long-standing interest in the impact of adversity on children and, since the early 1900s, have attempted to document the effects, for example, of maternal deprivation, serious illness, hospitalization, and wartime conditions, as well as more recent attention to the effects of parental mental or physical illness, unemployment, poverty, and divorce. The first formal study of children’s coping is often traced to Murphy and her colleagues at the Menninger Clinic, who used intensive observations and interviews to conduct an 18-year longitudinal study of ways in which normal children cope (Murphy and Moriarity 1976).

The 1980s witnessed an explosion of quantitative work, sparked by the publication of seminal works on stress and coping in children by Garmezy and Rutter (1983) and by Compas (1987). Although the current wave of research on children closely resembles work on adults, it nevertheless highlights several important themes. It makes evident that coping is inherently shaped by social partners, close relationships, families, and communities (Hetherington and Blechman 1996) and that cognitive coping strategies, so prominent in adults, are not commonly used by children until late childhood. Research on children also encourages a renewed focus on physiological and temperamental antecedents of coping, as well as attention to coping with normative developmental tasks (Wolchik and Sandler 1997).

Finally, a shift in focus to development across the lifespan spurred interest in how adults successively deal with life transitions, social change, and the challenges of aging (Aldwin 1994, Baltes and Baltes 1990, Brandtstadter et al. 1999). Research on successful aging, in documenting that most people maintain a high level of psychological functioning despite objective biological declines and social losses, focuses attention on positive coping strategies, like selection, compensation, planning, and proactive coping. It also highlights the importance of ‘accommodative’ modes of coping which allow people to relinquish goals and withdraw from goal pursuit.

2.4 Interventions To Improve Coping

A relatively distinct strand of work involves psycho-logical and behavioral medicine interventions which have succeeded in helping people deal adaptively with traumatic events and their associated ongoing stressors. In contrast to traditional therapy, these interventions focus on providing information and social support, and on helping people build coping resources and skills for dealing more effectively with particular stressors, such as illness, chronic pain, divorce, or bereavement (Sandler et al. 1997).

3. Research On Coping

Since the advent of the transactional approach, main-stream research has focused on the correlates of coping (Compas et al. 2001). Typical studies examine a single population at a single time, assess self-reported ways of coping (e.g., problem solving, help seeking, avoidance) with either a variety of unidentified stressors or a prespecified narrow class of stressors, and then examine their associations with self-reports of personal and social predictors (e.g., perceived control or social support) and with various outcomes (usually indicators of mental or somatic functioning, such as emotional adjustment or physical symptoms).

This work has identified several clusters of adaptive coping. One is organized around problem solving (information seeking, strategizing, planning, prevention) and seems to be supported by opportunities for control and perceptions of efficacy. A second is organized around relying on trusted others for comfort, discussion, help, advice, and aid; these ways of coping are supported by the presence of warm and caring social partners and the perception that they are available. A possible third cluster is organized around processes of accommodation (negotiation, compromise, prioritizing, and goal setting) and may be supported by a sense of self-determination and autonomy support from others. In addition, several maladaptive ways of coping have been identified, including catastrophizing and panic, social isolation, venting, rumination, blame of self or others, and escape. These ways of coping are exacerbated by certain situational features and interpretational biases. Such reactions to stress are maladaptive because they tend to exhaust personal and social resources and to interfere with recruiting and implementing effective action.

As a body, however, this work has come under attack on both conceptual and methodological grounds. Studies have been criticized for being light on theory, for inconsistent use of coping categories, for relying heavily on self-reports, for using designs that cannot examine change, and for including only a narrow range of short-term outcomes. As noted by Sommerfield and McCrae (2000, p. 620), ‘The seemingly boundless enthusiasm for coping research seen in the 1980s has been replaced by widespread disaffection, intense scrutiny, and corresponding calls for change.’ Cutting-edge re-search has already moved away from this empirical format and reflects the use of several interesting new approaches.

3.1 Categories Of Coping

One factor impeding research has been widespread disagreement about taxonomies of coping. No consensus exists about core categories. Years of exploratory factor analyses have failed to converge on a set of higher-order categories, nor do theorists agree on systems for rational classification. Given the seemingly infinite variety of specific coping responses, even the possibility of identifying a core subset of ways of coping has been questioned.

One promising approach uses theory and confirmatory factor analysis to identify multiple core categories. For example, researchers attempt to identify a finite set of basic adaptive processes and then to classify multiple heterogeneous ways of coping as belonging to a ‘family’ of ways of coping that serve each function. Examples of theories used in these attempts include functionalist theories of emotion, theories of motivation, regulation, primary and secondary control, and ego processes. Such discussions expand on the distinction between problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping and on coping styles (e.g., repression vs. sensitization) as well as reopening discussion of the functions of coping in adaptation.

3.2 Individual Ways Of Coping

One productive empirical strategy has been to make particular categories of coping the focus of detailed process-oriented programs of laboratory and naturalistic research. Such studies have produced relatively well-accepted conclusions about positive ways of coping, such as mastery-oriented thinking, disclosure and discussion, constructive thinking, accommodation, and optimism, and about the generally mal-adaptive consequences of rumination, helplessness, blaming others, catastrophizing, and social isolation. Programs of research on other ways of coping, such as help-or support-seeking, positive illusions, avoidance, denial, and relinquishing control, have produced less conclusive results, including evidence that their effects depend on characteristics of the situations in which they are employed.

It should be noted that almost every activity that is considered a way of coping also has its own well-developed body of research. These include problem solving, information seeking, planning, negotiation, compliance, self-and other-blame, help seeking, social support, opposition, venting, selective optimization, compensation, rumination, disclosure and discussion, primary and secondary control, optimism, and positive illusions. Most of these areas of research are largely independent of work on coping, although some examine the functioning of these processes under stress.

3.3 Coping As A Process

Despite consensus that coping unfolds over time, research methodologies able to capture process are just beginning to (re)appear. These include case studies, ethnographic narratives, interviews, and observations, which were popular decades ago (Folkman 1997, Murphy and Moriarity 1976, Valliant 1986) as well as more recent quantitative methods, such as intra-individual time series analysis (Tennen et al. 2000). Designs are longitudinal, repeating measures over short times (e.g., daily) or over several years, often including markers of the progress of stressful events (e.g., diagnosis and surgery, or caretaking, deterioration, and death of a partner).

For microgenetic approaches, patterns of intra-individual relations among variables (e.g., problem-and emotion-focused coping) across time are determined. Then interindividual difference variables (e.g., depression or optimism) are used to form groups which are compared on their patterns of intraindividual relationships. Observations of coping interactions with social partners (e.g., mothers and their children) can also be used to examine the sequential effects of individual coping efforts and partner reactions over time. Narratives and interviews capture a wider range of experiences and can track their progress over longer intervals. The yield from this labor-intensive research seems promising. For example, such studies already suggest that both generation of and focus on positive experiences are critical in dealing constructively with chronic stress; that depression influences day-to-day reactions to chronic pain; and that maternal interpretations of negative events shape children’s subsequent appraisals and coping.

Additional strategies for capturing coping processes may be suggested by related research, in which fine-grained studies focus on how children and adults deal with certain classes of environmental demands, such as noncontingency, failure, unpredictability, separation, loss, interpersonal conflict, competition, and coercion. Relevant studies come from areas as diverse as learned helplessness, self-efficacy, perceived control, reactance, self-determination, compliance, attachment, interpersonal problem solving, attributional biases, Type-A personality, and self-regulated learning. Many consider the study of coping as a process to be the most important goal of the next generation of coping researchers (Lazarus 1993).

3.4 Coping As Regulation

An explicit theme resurfacing in discussions and research is the notion of coping as an inherently regulatory process (Aspinwall and Taylor 1997, Barrett and Campos 1991). A focus on adaptation suggests that the cognitions, appraisals, motivation, volition, behaviors, and emotions, which are clearly parts of coping, must be assembled into actions which are sequentially coordinated with internal and external conditions. Labels under which such processes are studied include ego functioning (e.g., ego-control and ego-resilience), conscience, functionalist theories of emotion, and theories of volition and regulation of behavior, attention, emotion, and action. Conceptions of coping as a dynamic regulatory process may contribute to the next phase of coping work. Features of the self-involved in recognizing and creating ‘relational meaning’ (Lazarus, 1993) may be studied as integral organizers of regulation.

3.5 Future Directions

‘Stress’ is not inherently damaging to people, and the primary function of coping is not simply to shield people from stressful experiences. Coping is a process which is intrinsic to psychological and relational growth and one which individuals and groups are predisposed to do well. Current interest in positive coping (Snyder 1999) and the study of growth from adversity or transformation in the face of trauma, can be viewed as attempts to conceptualize and study the growth facilitating functions of coping. Analysis of the role of coping in resilience in children (Haggerty et al. 1994) and the relationship of coping and development across the lifespan (Aldwin 1994, Skinner and Edge 1998) may help put these issues in a larger perspective. Future research will likely feature process-oriented studies in both naturalistic and lab settings, using a variety of assessments (interviews, narratives, daily reports, observations) and examining intra-individual relations and change over time. The promise of the area of coping, and its challenge to researchers, is to examine coping as an engine of development or a catalyst for change, to determine if conceptions of coping can provide a process mechanism which ex-plains how people (individually and collectively), in the face of adversity, are able to find and create opportunities for development.

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