1.

1 Coping as a Fundamental Adaptive Process 7

maturity, transactional perspectives emphasize the importance of the actual demands

a person is facing, and the impossibility of judging a priori which coping strategies
are adaptive, without knowing the context and the social and personal resources
available. They focus especially on the individual’s appraisal of the significance and
meaning of the stressful encounter. Coping is viewed as a process, taking place in
cycles, iterations, or episodes that unfold over time (Folkman and Lazarus 1985).
A transactional perspective specifies the essential elements of a conceptualization
of coping as an episodic process (see Fig. 1.1) and has guided much of the research
on coping in childhood over the last 30 years. Following work with adults, the vast
majority of this research focuses on individual differences in each of the links in the
coping process. A wide variety of ways of coping have been considered—including
problem-solving, support-seeking, escape, rumination, focus on the positive, dis-
traction, negotiation, direct action, social withdrawal, helplessness—that have been
assessed using a number of methodologies, most commonly open-ended interviews,
observations, reports from parents or teachers, and, for older children and adoles-
cents, self-report questionnaires. Studies have examined how the different ways of
coping are connected to a variety of outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, exter-
nalizing behavior, and adjustment, in an attempt to identify adaptive and maladap-
tive coping strategies (Compas et al. 2001). Complementary studies examine the
predictors or antecedents of different ways of coping, focusing on both individual
characteristics (such as self-efficacy, optimism, or perceptions of the availability of
social support) and characteristics of the social context (such as parental warmth,
provision of instrumental aid, or emotional comfort).
Individual differences in coping. Much has been learned from these decades of
research on individual differences and correlates of coping. Certain ways of coping,
such as problem-solving, effort exertion, negotiation, and focus on the positive,
seem to be “adaptive” in that they are linked with indicators of mental health and
functioning. In contrast, certain ways of dealing with stress, such as escape,
avoidance, rumination, or venting, seem to be maladaptive in that they are asso-
ciated with mental distress, disorder, and poor functioning. The jury is still out
about other ways of coping, such as help-seeking, support-seeking, secondary
control, and emotion-focused coping, which are inconsistent in their connections to
outcomes. A number of individual and social resources for coping have also been

Fig. 1.1 Coping depicted as Personal Resources

a transactional process of
appraising and dealing with
demands
STRESS APPRAISAL COPING OUTCOME

Social Resources