COPING

RESILIENCE
AND SOCIAL
SUPPORT
Coping with Stress, and Resilience
Moderators of Stress Experience (meaning all those things that effect how we experience stress and
the effects it has on us)
• Stress moderators modify how stress is experienced and the effects it has.
• Psychological and social factors that play a role in whether people under stress get ill or stay healthy

Coping (başa çıkma)

• A major moderator of stress!
• Thoughts and behaviors used to manage internal and external demands of situations that are appraised as
stressful
• Internal demands: our expectations of ourselves that maybe unrealistic/ External demands: deadlines etc.
other pressures

Personality and Coping

• We each have distinct personalities (no two individuals will have the exact same constellation of
personality traits, genetik açıdan %100 aynı olan identical twinsler bile distinct personality’lere sahip)
• a unique set of traits partly inherited, partly formed by experiences (some traits like introversion or
extraversion have a slightly more heritability component and tend to not change too much over a person’s
life. Such that if you born with an extremely shy temperament, it’s very unlikely that you become an
extreme extravert in your life. Most of us are somewhere in between. Other traits like consciensciousness
have a less heritable component.)
• Our personalities affect how we cope with stressful events

Negativity, Stress and Illness

Negative affectivity/Neuroticism (olumsuz duygulanım durumu)- 5 Personality Trait’den biri neuroticism
(Openness, Conscienciousness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness= 5 Personality Traits)
• Marked by anxiety, depression and hostility (a person high on neuroticism is going to be more vulnerable
to these feelings)
• Express more distress in many situations
• Relates to poor health outcomes through
o Elevated cortisol levels
o Poor health habits
• Report a larger number of and more severe physical symptoms and seek medical help even when they are
not ill (ex: they have aches and pains, they are real pains, but they are not really ill. This constellation of
negative traits relates to poor health)

Positivity and Coping (positivity facilitates coping)

• Positivity promotes;
o Better physical and mental well-being
as well as
o Specific psychological resources that improve coping (positivity also makes it possible for a person to
seek social support that improves coping)
 Psychosocial Resources
Dispositional Optimism (Scheier & Carver)
• Generalized expectation that the outcomes you desire are actually attainable, and that good outcomes will
occur when confronting problems
• Cope better with stress and have less risk for illness
• Measured with Life Orientation Test (LOT)
• *(We are under a lot of stress and some of us are better able to cope with this stress, because we still have
a sort of an optimistic expectation that “we will be able to achieve what we want”, when we are
confronting problems “we will be able to solve them” rather than being very pessimistic about the
outcomes. This kind of orientation measured with a scale called Measured with Life Orientation Test (LOT).
It is a very short measure with 10 items.)
LOT-R (Scheier, Carver & Bridges, 1994)
Please be as honest and accurate as you can throughout. Try not to let your response to one statement influence your
responses to other statements. There are no "correct" or "incorrect" answers. Answer according to your own feelings,
rather than how you think "most people" would answer.
A = I agree a lot
B = I agree a little
C = I neither agree nor disagree
D = I DISagree a little
E = I DISagree a lot
1. In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.
[2. It's easy for me to relax.] *
3. If something can go wrong for me, it will.
4. I'm always optimistic about my future.
[5. I enjoy my friends a lot.]*
[6. It's important for me to keep busy.]*
7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way.
[8. I don't get upset too easily.] *
9. I rarely count on good things happening to me.
10. Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than bad.
* Filler items (to avoid the person marking all of them like correct or incorrect. Yani kişi her şeyi correct olarak işaretlerse
salladığını anlıyorsun filler itemlar ile)

Psychosocial Resources
• Perceptions of psychological control (“I have some control over my health”) and self-efficacy (I can do what
I set up to do such as “I can drink more water”)
o Improve emotional well-being, coping and health behaviors such as exercise
o Facilitate intervention in treatment settings

• Self-Esteem (how much you like yourself)

o Is associated with lower levels of stress indicators and better health habits
o You like yourself enough to engage in preventive health behaviors

• Conscientiousness
o Competence, order, self-discipline, dutifulness
o If you’re high on conscientiousness, you sort of plan your time, so that you are able to study for your
different midterms and you prepared yourself. Yani sınavdan önceki akşam yetiştirme stresine
girmiyorsun planlı gittiğin için)
 • Easy going nature (related to agreeableness) – Easy going people make good friends, they humour you,
they don’t pick up fights with you.
• Intelligence (it’s not necessarily an emotion related factor, intelligence is also a resource. It makes sense
that, you would use your cognitive skills to seek out. For example, where you might get best help when you
have a problem)
• Emotional stability (as opposed to neuroticism)-> Duygusal denge (they regulate their moods, modlarında
fazla iniş çıkış olmuyor neuroticismdeki gibi. Maybe they have learned to regulate their moods. Sometimes
it takes going to a therapist, it may take time. This is not something necessarily we’re born with. It’s a skill
that we can develop with the help of someone)

• A sense of coherence (Antonovsky)

o Ability to have a sense of identity and a purpose to live a meaningful life even in the worst conditions
o Made survival more likely in Nazi camps (studies with those people who were able to survive Nazi
camps, showed us that having the sense of coherence made survival more likely. Probably makes
survival likely in prison settings etc. Like “this is not going to be forever, “I’m still me”, “I still have
ideals”, “They haven’t crushed my spirit” etc.

• Sense of humor (being able to see something being funny as funny)

• Trust in others (also goes along with agreeableness. People who are agreeable tend to trust other people.
Bu tabi ki herkese, her şeye güvenmek anlamına gelmiyor ama genelde güveniyor yani güvenmeye yatkın)
• Religious beliefs/spirituality (believing in something bigger than yourself at times that you feel like you’re
helpless, you’re vulnerable will take care of you)

Resilience
• Psychological resources also help us bounce back from bad experiences and adapt flexibly to the changing
demands of stressful situations. (Getting up and moving on and being positive, trusting others, coherence…
all those things that we talked about are things that help us stay resilience.
• Talks by resilience researcher Barbara Fredrickson (psychological researcher) can be found on youtube
(done a lot of research on these issues)

Research evidence links positive psychological factors to:

• Better health habits & adherence to health behaviors
• Reduced relapse to addictive behaviors
• More responsiveness to health communication
• Better psychological health (ex. less depression)
• Better physical health (ex. improved immune functioning) and longevity
• More effective coping
• Better recovery from illness & surgery
• Better functioning in chronic illness
• Lower levels of burn-out
• Higher levels of social support availability
 Psychological resources or your personality makes a difference in how you perceive events. For example, there is
a difference between people who are high on negativity or neuroticism and optimism in terms of how much
stress they actually perceive. How stressful they perceive the events to be. For example, people who are higher
on optimism, tend to view events as less threatening. People who are better in terms of positive personality
traits, cope better. They have more adaptive strategies. For example, they are better problem solvers, they are
better able to look for social support. Seeking social support is actually related to personality. Conscientious and
optimistic people are better able to seeks social support. Health habits are influenced by personality. People who
are high on conscientiousness and optimism, internal locus of control have been found in research studies to
engage in more health promoting behaviors. Follow recommended diets for example or other medical advice,
they are better able to overcome barriers to health promoting behaviors. For example; going for a mammogram.
The fact that it may be embarrassing, it might take time, it might provoke certain negative feelings; but people
who are high on conscientiousness are better able to overcome these barriers and finally physiological reactions.
Negative personality traits relate to higher cortisol levels, immune systems’ heightened cardiovascular reactions,
sympathetic nervous system reactions etc.

Coping Style
• Individual differences in how we behave to cope with stress
o More specific than personality, directly relevant to health

• Avoidant (Minimizing) • Approach (Confrontative/Vigilant)

o Maybe beneficial, coping with short term threat o Generally better if stress persists over time
§ Ex. Avoid thinking about the dentist until you § Ex. Ongoing stress on the job
get there
Specific Coping Strategies
• COPE Scale (Carver et al.’89)
- Measures 14 coping strategies
Check out Box 7.3 (Taylor, p.145)

Check out Box 7.4 on Coping with Aids

(Taylor, p.146)

Here are the different strategies: Self destruction, denial, substance-use, use of emotional support, venting,
positive reframing, planning, humor, acceptance, religion, self-blame, use of instrumental support…
So the scale is giving to a person and their asked to look at an item and say “I haven’t been doing this at all” to
“I have been doing this a lot”. For example, “I’ve been refusing to believe that it has happen”-> that relates to
denial etc.

Communal Coping
• Coping processes can also be shared
• It’s not just individual coping that we could be talking about, but there is a such a thing as communal
coping. Theories of coping mostly from a more individualistic perspective, but there is also shared coping
processes.
o Ex. A couple appraising and coping with one partner’s diabetes as the couple’s rather than the
partner’s problem brings more success in treatment. (Diyabette beslenme ve ilaçlara uyma çok
önemli, eğer diyabet çiftin ortak problemiyse daha iyi baş edilir.)

Problem vs Emotion Focused Coping

• Problem focused coping
o Focus is on doing something constructive about the stressful situation
§ planning, action, getting support

• Emotion focused coping

o Focus is on regulating the emotional effects of a stressful situation, to feel better (doing what you can
do to make yourself better)-working through your emotions
§ Denial, distancing, escape behaviors, venting
§ Clarifying, working through one’s emotions can improve adjustment to many chronic conditions

o Generally, problem focused coping is associated with better psychological adjustment and fewer
physical symptoms (effectiveness depends on whether or not there is actually something you can do to
improve the situation; when something is unavoidable, when your situation is untreatable then maybe
you engage in emotion focused coping)
o Emotion focused coping is generally associated with negative adjustment, because avoidance can
prevent you from coming to terms with the experience

o Effectiveness depends on whether or not there is actually an opportunity for improving the situation
§ Ex. When faced with an unavoidable/untreatable situation, denial may be protective for mental
health
o People who are flexible copers, who match their strategies to the type of situation (less ore more under
control) have an advantage
Coping Strategies
• Even when under extreme stress, remain hopeful that things will be OK/improve; but at the same time,
don’t deny the possibility that they will not!
• Hope for the best and let hope to prevail over your emotions, but keep a little piece inside to prepare you
for the worst!
• Most successful copers: try to take control when faced with a stressful event, do not worry about what
they will not be able to control in the future, and do not attempt to repair what is beyond
repair…(relationships maybe beyond repair)
• Solution usually comes from small but realistic steps!
• Ex: As students in our coursework, we benefit from problem focused coping. You manage your time, you
keep up with your readings etc. /Maybe you’re face with the stress of midterms and your parents are
separating what can you do? Hopefully you can talk with the teachers about that ve hocalar sana make-up
exam yapmayı kabul edebilir veya projenin teslim tarihini uzatabilir veya withdrawing from the course. All
of these are coping strategies…
• Ex: Çocuğu doğal yoldan olmayan bir çift çocukları olabilsin diye tedavi yöntemine başvurup, bunun için
uğraşıyorsa bu problem focused coping oluyor. Ama diyelim ki tüm tedavilere ragmen çocukları olmuyorsa
artık emotion focused coping yapmaya başlarlar.
• Yani yapabileceğinizi yapın, yapamayacağınız durumlarda kendinizi iyi hissettirecek şeyler yapmaya çalışın.
• Of course, emotion focused coping sometimes engaging in things that don’t make you feel necessarily very
well; like venting, avoidance…Because avoiding the situation means that you don’t have to think about it,
so rather than feeling bad about the situation you may engage in avoidance, using escape behavior. Ama
avoid etmek daha kötü. For example, cancer patients who don’t express their feelings, are more likely to
experience depression and anxiety etc.

Proactive Coping (ileriye etkili)

• Much coping is proactive: Heading off a stressor
• Requires a set of skills
o Anticipating or detecting potential stressors (basically what you do midterms. “okay, I have 7 exams and
let me start studying know so when the stressor hits, you’re prepared for it”)
o Coping skills for managing them
o Self-regulatory skills, processes through which people control and direct their actions
• Understudied (Taylor)
• Ex: Saving enough money for when you may not be able to have a job is a good strategy. It’s being
proactive. /Planning so that your work doesn’t pile up next week is a way of being proactive.
• Basically people who are able to use different types of coping; problem and emotion focus coping are able
to match their strategies to the needs of the situation are better of.

Coping and External Resources

• Time • Decent job
• Money • Social network
• Education
People with greater resources are generally better able to cope with stressful events!
Ex: Mesela belden aşağısı felç olmuş ama ekonomik durumu iyi olan biri; mesela kişinin evinde iki tane yardımcı
çalışan var ve her gün kişiye fizik tedaviye gelen özel doktoru var. Bu kişi psikolojik açıdan daha iyi durumda
olur, hiçbir şekilde bu tarz imkanları ve durumu olmayan birine göre.
Coping Outcomes
• What constitutes successful coping?
Check out the reading

Coping Interventions
Expressive Writing Paradigm

Emotional Disclosure vs. Inhibition

• Self-disclosure of upsetting experiences is a basic human motive (being able to talk about things, being able
to write about things, taking it outside of ourselves)
• Individuals differ in their ability to acknowledge, tolerate, and make sense of and share negative
experiences in their lives
o Some people are ‘inhibitors’ (bastırıcı kişilik)
• Despite our effort to deny its effect, the experience of the traumatic event may continue to affect us!

Positive health effects of expressive writing (Pennebaker & colleagues)

• Expressive Writing Paradigm in the lab
• Students wrote for 15 mins/4 consecutive nights on either:
o Trivial topics (ex: what did you eat today? What kind of shoes are you wearing? etc.)
o A traumatic event (ex: a relationship breakup, a major fight with a family member)
• Mood & physical symptom measures, & blood pressure taken

• Those who wrote about traumatic events experienced:

o More upset, more negative moods, larger increases in blood pressure in the short run
o But at 4 month follow-up, they
§ Showed signs of better health
§ Reported fewer illnesses and minor health problems such as headaches in the last 4 months
compared to the other group (control group)!
§ Follow-up studies showed improved immune functioning

• Traumatic experiences tend to disrupt our beliefs about ourselves & the world
• Inhibition may lead to health problems through
o Increased isolation and lack of communication with others
o Breakdown in cognitive processing, resulting in obsessive thoughts or rumination
o Increased physiological reactivity

• Written or verbal self disclosure has physical and psychological health benefits
• Self-disclosure facilitates
o A process of self-reconstruction (meaning, coherence, insight into the experience)
o Gaining emotional distance from the event (it doesn’t continued to hurt you, in the way that did before)
o When you think about the therapies -> verbal self-disclosure is what helps us, to take it outside, to deal
with it as best as we can
Coping Interventions
• Affirmation of important self values
• Relaxation training
o Yoga (the type of yoga that is more focused on breathing, on moving with the breath, on remaining
focus and has a healing quality)
• Coping Skills training
o Learn what stress is and how to identify the stressors in our lives
o Acquire and practice skills for coping with stress
o Practice stress management techniques in stressful situations and monitor their effectiveness

Mindfulness Meditation and Mindfulness based Stress Reduction

• Originated by Jon Kabat Zin
• There is actual research about it
• Research on positive effects of 8 week programs:
o Reduced relapse in depression
o Enhanced brain function (self-control, empathy, attention)
o Improved immune functioning
o Reduced aging at the cellular level
o Reduced hypertension

Social Support (an important external coping resource)

‘Information from others that one is loved and cared for, esteemed and valued, and part of a network of
communication and mutual obligation’

Forms of Social Support

• Tangible/Material • Affirmation/Ego Support
• Informational/Guidance • Physical affection
• Emotional

Direct Pathways by which SS affects Health

Biopsychosocial pathways:
• Cardiovascular
o Ex. Lower blood pressure, cholesterol • Neuroendocrine
• Immune o Ex. Lower production of cortisol
o Ex. Greater NK cell activity

Indirect Pathways by which SS affects Health

• Moderates the effect of stress through:
o Its role as a stress buffer
o Better coping
o Facilitating preventive health behavior (such as going for a check up and encouraging us)
What form of SS is most effective?
• Older people who have lost their partner, and people who deal with chronic strain (ex. Alzheimer
caregivers) can benefit much from different types of social support
• *Emotional support from intimate others maybe most helpful (when somebody suffered from earthquake
or somebody dealing with a financial stress, emotional support will benefit that person in some way.)

Matching Support to the Stressor

• ‘Right’ support for a given problem from the ‘right’ person (you may benefit most from getting emotional
support from a very close friend or family member)

Individual Differences?
• Certain personality characteristics (self-disclosure, extroversion, lower social anxiety) and greater social
competence relate to greater effectiveness of both getting & using social support. (Even asking for social
support is not that easy for everyone. Being able to do so is an advantage.)
• Women both receive and provide more social support

Gender Effects?
- Women give& receive more SS than men
- Women benefit more from SS than men
*Negative connection between social support and mortality was stronger for women
- Men benefit more from marriage
*In old age, loss of a spouse has a stronger negative effect on men
Reasons? There are different factors, but women tend to live longer than men approximately 5 years
longer across different cultures.
-Men share more with their wife, women more share with their girl friends
- Men who have lost their wife, are going to have fewer men in their age group, because their male
friends are more likely to passed away compared to a woman who has lost her spouse.
-Kadınlar kendilerine daha iyi bakabiliyorlar, erkekler yemek yapımı vs. de eşine ihtiyaç duyuyor vs.

Social Support and Longevity

• 9 yr. Alameda County study found an
impressive relationship between social
support and longevity!
o Women were found to benefit even
o more from social support than men