Coping assessment

Ellen A. Skinner

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511543579.054

Coping assessment

from Psychology, health and illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2014

Edited by

John Weinman and

Ellen A. Skinner: Affiliation:
Portland State University
Susan Ayers: Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum: Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus: Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman: Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston: Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman: Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West: Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London

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Summary

Introduction

When adversity strikes, when mental and physical functioning and health are at risk, humans ‘fight back’. Humans come with and develop a set of adaptive processes that gives them the potential to fend off disaster, to reshape challenges and to transform stressful experiences into psychological growth. Coping describes some of these adaptive processes (Coelho et al., 1974; White, 1974). Researchers agree that how people cope makes a material difference to the impact which stressful life events (including illnesses and chronic medical conditions) will have on them, both concurrently and long-term. However, the nature of these coping processes and how to assess them remain issues of hot contention.

Overview of the field

In early work, coping and defending were conceptualized as indicators of ego maturity; hence, coping was assessed by clinicians using extensive interviews (e.g. Haan, 1977; Valliant, 1986). As it became uncoupled from ego psychology, coping was seen as a manifestation of personality traits; hence, dispositional coping styles were assessed by questionnaires that tapped one or two dimensions of coping, such as sensitization versus repression. (For historical overviews, see Lazarus, 1993; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Murphy, 1974; Parker & Endler, 1996; Skinner, 2003; Snyder, 1999.)

Starting in the late 1970s, transactional, contextual and process-oriented views of coping appeared, which dominate the field today (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Moos & Billings, 1982; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). From this perspective, coping depicts the ways an individual deals with a specific stressor in a particular context, as the transaction unfolds over time.

Type: Chapter
Information: Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 245 - 250

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511543579.054 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2007

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