Currently, many face stress in everyday life. At work and at home, on public transport, in hospitals, at schools and universities, something is always going wrong. They shout at people, they are denied in various instances, relationships, plans, and often he alth are collapsing. Different people choose different ways of coping with stressful situations.
What is a stress management strategy?
In psychology, those ways that a person chooses for himself to cope with difficulties are called coping strategies. It is believed that coping with a difficult life situation means working in two main directions:
- directly with the problems of the outside world;
- with the consequences of exposure to these problems, "recover."
Lazarus and Folkman categories
Researchers Lazarus and Folkman identified several options for copingstrategies. Their first category is focused directly on working with the problem:
- Confrontation. In other words, a person is trying to "head-on" face the existing difficulties.
- Planning. A person draws up a logical plan of action that will help him overcome his problems.
- The second category of types of coping strategies aims to work with emotions.
- Self-control. A person restrains his feelings, suppresses them in every possible way.
- Escape. Tries to forget, stop thinking about difficulties, distract, fantasize.
- Distancing. Using this coping strategy in behavior, a person tries to reduce the intensity of emotions, downplaying the significance of existing difficulties, rethinking them, sometimes using humor.
- Positive revaluation. Focused on finding the positives in the current situation. A person tries to see in it a lesson, an opportunity for personal development.
The researchers also identified mixed coping strategies as a separate group:
- Taking responsibility for the situation. It involves awareness of one's participation in the circumstances, in a sense - guilt.
- Search for support in society. A person attracts external resources, tries to communicate with those people who can support him.
Pros and cons of different strategies
It is widely believed in Western culture that the habit of taking responsibility for the situation is much more effective than working through the emotions raging inside. This way of solving problems is reallyoften works to improve the situation. However, its use can leave a person emotionally devastated, embittered at the world and at people.
On the other hand, coping strategies like reassessing the situation or running away make you feel better, but they don't completely resolve the stressful situation. A person continues to work with a mentally unbalanced boss, to remain in relationships that deprive him of spiritual strength.
In psychology, the most effective approach is the one that combines several coping strategies at the same time. With the right choice of tactics of behavior in a stressful situation, it is easier for a person to cope with it. To do this, it is important to know the full range of such tactics.
Psychological defense or coping?
Some psychologists distinguish two types of behavior in a difficult situation - coping and psychological defense. As for the first, it involves setting goals, as well as working to achieve them. Psychological protection is one way to coexist with the problem. For example, a poor family might talk about themselves like this: “We are poor people, but honest. We do not need someone else's good, that's why we live in need.”
How stress coping tactics are formed
Mechanisms of coping strategies are often laid in an individual at an unconscious level. Having tried this or that model of behavior, which at least once turned out to be successful, in the future a person develops the habit of resorting to it again and again. In thatIn a sense, the choice of one or another strategy of coping with stress is laid down like a conditioned reflex reaction.
A person every minute of his life learns to interact with the outside world. He constantly tries certain models of behavior in difficult situations. They may be due to his personal experience or cultural and historical traditions. The choice of strategy at a particular point in time depends on the resources that a person has - knowledge, he alth, support of loved ones, etc.
What areas of the personality does coping affect?
Coping strategies of the individual affect three main areas. When an unpleasant situation arises, a person has thoughts that push him to certain actions, provoking various emotional experiences. A large number of strategies for coping with stress have been described in the psychological literature, but in one way or another they relate to these three areas: thinking, emotions, behavior.
Choosing tactics
Features of coping strategies often depend on personal characteristics, the worldview of the individual. Getting into stressful circumstances, a person can take an active position: start studying the available literature on this issue, seek support from relatives or friends.
Another will choose a strategy of behavior that will only reduce the physiological response of his body to a stressful situation. For example, he will start taking drugs or alcohol, smoking, overeating, refusing sleep or, conversely, sleeping too much, going headlong intojob.
Effective and ineffective tactics
Not all coping strategies are equally effective. Despite this, the person continues to use them. Productive tactics in psychology are those that are aimed at resolving difficulties, do not adversely affect a person's he alth, and do not lead to social isolation.
Conversely, the use of unproductive strategies has a negative impact on he alth, leads to a decrease in human activity, spoils relationships with people. You can identify the predominant use of a particular tactic using various methods.
For example, using the indicator of coping strategies by researcher J. Amirkhan, which is given below in this article. However, it also happens that the individual continues to use ineffective coping. This usually happens for the following reasons:
- They have been useful in the past. Several times, with the help of this approach, a person managed to cope with unpleasant circumstances. However, conditions have now changed. Old patterns of behavior are no longer productive, but due to past experience, a person continues to use them.
- Parent experience. It is not uncommon to hear parents teaching a child: "Don't be a wimp, hit him back" (confrontation strategy). Or: "Step away, don't touch" (avoidance tactic). From childhood, a child learns coping strategies of behavior from his mother and father. And they are not always effective.
- Socialstereotypes. Often, how a person should behave is dictated by society. For example, there is a common stereotype that a man should be aggressive in response to stress. However, existing clichés are not effective in all circumstances.
- Personal experience. Behavior patterns that have been formed by a person in various life circumstances.
- Personal features. This includes self-esteem, the level of anxiety of a person, gender, age, belonging to a particular social group. For example, adolescents' coping strategies will be different from adult coping strategies. It is not uncommon for teens to choose to manage stress through socializing with friends or adopt avoidance tactics (such as substance use). A mature person, on the contrary, is more likely to choose a more effective and rational tactic for coping with a difficult life situation. For example, he will draw up an algorithm of actions to solve a problem.
Coping Strategies: Research Methods
In psychology, a large number of tests are used to effectively determine the leading tactics of coping with stress in humans. By completing the test, as well as having a conversation with a specialist, you can determine how useful the options that an individual uses.
One of these tests is the "Lifestyle Index (LSI)", aimed at identifying the leading coping strategy. The technique was developed by R. Plutchik and G. Kellerman.
No less popular is the test developed by E. Heim in 1988. The researcher studied the tactics of coping withdifficult life situation in cancer patients. Currently, in a variety of areas, psychologists use his test to determine individual coping strategies. The questionnaire explores three areas of activity: intelligence, emotions, behavior.
The test developed by J. Amirkhan, presented in this article, also received recognition. The adaptation of the methodology was carried out in 1995 at the Research Institute. V. M. Bekhterev by scientists N. A. Sirota and V. M. Y altonsky. The test is designed to identify basic coping strategies. The questionnaire, as well as the key to it, can be found below.
Instructions before starting the test
This test is used by psychologists all over the world. Domestic experts offer it to both adult subjects and adolescents. Before working with the indicator of Amirkhan's coping strategies, the subject receives the following instruction: “This technique shows how people cope with the difficulties and obstacles that they have to face in life. The form contains questions describing various coping strategies. By reading these questions, you can determine which of the approaches you usually use. In other words, this test is aimed at diagnosing coping strategies. To pass the test, you need to remember one of the serious difficulties that you had to deal with over the past six months, which forced you to spend a lot of effort. When reading the above statements, you must choose one of the three possible options that characterize you: “Agree”, “Disagree”, “Completelyagree.”
Amirkhan's Coping Strategy
The subject must then answer the following questions.
- The first thing I do is look for an opportunity to share my problem with my best friend.
- I try to take actions that will somehow get out of the problem situation.
- First, I search for all possible solutions to the problem, and then I take action.
- I try my best to distract myself from the problem.
- Accept other people's compassion.
- Doing my best to keep other people from seeing that I'm not doing well.
- Discussing my circumstances with other people as it makes me feel more secure.
- I set a series of consistent goals for myself, the achievement of which will help to cope with the situation.
- Carefully weighing all possible options.
- Fantasize about possible life changes.
- Trying to work things out in different ways until I can find the best one.
- Confide my concerns to a close friend or relative who understands me.
- Try to spend more time alone.
- Telling other people about my circumstances, as this allows you to gradually come to a resolution of the problem.
- Thinking about what could be done to improve the situation.
- Fully concentrating on ways to overcome difficulties.
- Contemplating a possible course of action.
- Longer than usualI watch TV, spend time surfing the Internet.
- Seeking help from a close friend or therapist to help me feel better.
- I try to show my best strong-willed qualities in order to fight for what I need in these circumstances.
- Avoid social situations with other people.
- Switching to hobbies, hobbies, sports to forget about the problem for a while.
- Going to a friend to talk about the problem and understand it better.
- Going to see a friend for advice on how best to proceed in this situation.
- Accept sympathy from those people who suffer from a similar hardship.
- Sleep more than usual.
- I dream that life could be different.
- I imagine myself in a movie or book.
- Acting to solve the problem.
- I want to be left alone.
- I gladly accept help from other people.
- I seek peace and comfort from those people who know me well.
- I try to carefully plan my actions, and not act on emotions.
Processing results
After the coping strategies have been diagnosed using the Amirkhan test, you can start counting the results.
- The "Yes" answers in items: 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, 20, 29, 30 refer to the scale called "Difficulty Resolution".
- Yes answers for items: 1, 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 23, 24, 25, 31, 32 are added to the "Search for support in society" scale.
- Answers "Yes" bypoints: 4, 6, 10, 13, 18, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 30 - scale "Avoidance of difficulties."
Subject's "Strongly Agree" scores 3 points;
"Agree" - 2 points;
"Disagree" - 1 point.
Then, the results can be evaluated against the table of norms of the test results.
| Level | Resolving Difficulties | Search for community support | Difficulty avoidance |
| Extremely low | until 16 | until 13 | until 15 |
| Low | 17-21 | 14-18 | 16-23 |
| Medium | 22-30 | 19-28 | 24-26 |
| High | over 31 | over 29 | over 27 |
After analyzing the available coping strategies, we can draw conclusions about the effectiveness of our approach to stressful situations. By combining various tactics, you can successfully cope with a variety of life troubles.
