Stress and Coping

1
Stress and Coping

• What is stress? The bodies responses to a
  demand or event.
• Hans Selye is the pioneering stress researcher.
• Nonspecific responses are called the general
  adaptation syndrome or GAS and has three stages
  alarm reaction - initial shock followed by
  mobilization of defenses adaptation the body
  accommodates to demands and stress symptoms
  diminish exhaustion the body loses the ability
  to accommodate further.

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Stress and Coping

• Selye discusses chemical messengers that either
  prepare the body for non-stress or the fight or
  flight reaction when we are stressed but if
  called on too often Selye says fight or flight
  can be biologically suicidal.
• Adolescents can interpret situations in ways that
  make either response possible.
• The quality of life is determined not by what
  happens but by ones reaction to it, how the
  adolescent interprets and copes with the
  situation.

3
Stress and Coping

• How do adolescents cope with stress in either
  of two general ways.
• Problem focused coping attempts to change the
  stressful situation (is offensive) and come up
  with a less stressful alternative. This is an
  active approach in which adolescents evaluate the
  information, make decisions and confront the
  problem.

4
Stress and Coping

• Emotion focused coping attempts to minimize the
  impact of stress (is defensive) and is reactive
  rather than active. This approach tries to
  minimize the emotional damage of stress and does
  not work on changing the stressor.
• The way adolescents cope reflect more general
  aspects of their personality.

5
Stress and Coping

• Coping reactions run a continuum from repression
  and denial to hypersensitivity. Middles of the
  range reactions are the most adaptive.
• Openness to information (information oriented),
  with those that seek out relevant information
  usually adopting a problem focused approach.

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Stress and Coping

• Those who are closed to information often rely on
  the standards of others (normative approach) and
  are likely to use an emotion focused approach.
• Those who procrastinate and do nothing when faced
  with stress also use an emotion focused approach
  (avoidant oriented).
• Approaches differ by gender with females more
  likely to use emotion focused and males more
  likely to use avoidant strategies.

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Stress and Coping

• Adolescent concerns remain relatively similar
  across domains of socioeconomics, ethnicity,
  culture, and time spans.
• Despite similarities, there are also differences
  that exist for minorities and non-minorities,
  differences regarding extended families and child
  care responsibilities, intercultural differences
  between adolescents and parents, and
  intergenerational tensions for all adolescents.

8
Stress and coping

• Learning effective coping strategies requires
  training.
• Stress-inoculation training is a program
  developed by Meichenbaum which teaches
  adolescents to cognitively restructure the
  stressful situations to make them less stressful
  and improving the chances of handling them more
  successfully (coping).

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Coping Strategies

• Three elements make up the program
• First, appraising the situation, watching for
  misinterpretations of the situation such as
  overestimating or underestimating potential
  stressors. Adolescents can learn to use their
  intellectual skills to think of all
  possibilities, think logically and abstractly to
  analyze the situation and frequently get more
  information to make interpretation more
  reasonable.

10
Coping Strategies

• Adolescents are likely to make attributional
  errors in which they overestimate the importance
  of dispositional stressors, such as, traits of
  aggressiveness or anger and underestimate the
  importance of situational stressors, such as,
  tensions due to relationships or threats of
  personal violence.

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Coping Strategies

• Adolescents often make a second error, a
  confirmatory error, in which they notice only
  information that confirms their appraisal of the
  situation. This type of error can lead to a
  self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Second, responding to the situation which can be
  as simple as getting additional information or
  advice or even engaging in no action.

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Coping Strategies

• Sometimes adolescents fail to respond effectively
  because less adaptive responses are more
  dominant.
• Effective responses prevent stressful situations
  from occurring. Since individuals create and
  respond to their environments, preventive action
  is possible.
• Adolescents can develop skills that are more
  likely to bring out friendly, helpful behavior in
  others and less likely to bring out aggressive,
  hostile behaviors that are typical of stressful
  situations.

13
Coping Strategies

• Third and finally, managing emotions, which means
  dealing with the emotions caused by the
  situation. Adolescents differ widely in how
  quickly they can get over or manage the emotions
  related to the situation.
• Adolescents who have been trained in the
  stress-inoculation program have lower anxiety,
  less anger, and higher self-esteem.

14
Beyond Coping Caring and Prosocial Behavior

• Research showing the differences in
  self-description of caring adolescents found that
  caring adolescents described themselves in terms
  of their values and ideals. Their parents
  contributed more heavily to their sense of
  themselves while comparison adolescents were more
  likely to look to best friends for their sense
  of themselves. There was no single attribute
  that differentiated the two groups.

15
Caring and Prosocial Behavior

• Research points to the importance of family for
  development of caring behavior. The experience
  of being loved seems essential in developing as a
  caring person.
• Children that are loved and cared for develop a
  sense of trust in the world and believe others
  will care for them and that they are worthy of
  being cared for. As long as at least one caring
  person is in the young persons life, research
  finds children will grow up into caring adults.

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Protective Factors in Adolescence

• Protective factors in an adolescents life help
  them to redefine themselves and change the way
  they know and relate to others.
• Families are one of the most important supportive
  relationships that adolescents have in their
  lives. The dimensions of responsiveness and
  demandingness each relate to healthy development.

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Protective Factors

• Longitudinal research confirms that adolescents
  who experienced fewer family disruptions and had
  warm and emotionally satisfying relationships
  with parents in childhood, were more likely to
  have a greater sense of well being in adolescence
  and avoid serious risk-taking behaviors.
• Family characteristics that illustrate the
  dimensions of responsiveness and demandingness
  for enhancement of youth development are
  Supportive adult network structures (additional
  adults who provide care),

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Protective Factors

• Another supportive adult network, such as an
  intergenerational mentoring program, families who
  used supportive institutions within the community
  (schools and churches) all illustrate
  responsiveness.
• The second dimension, demandingness, can be
  illustrated by parent monitoring of activities
  and friendships and by expecting adolescents to
  assume responsibility for helping with family
  needs.

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Protective Factors

• Family interaction patterns that contribute to
  healthy development are dimensions of
  connectedness, which reflects the degree of
  emotional support and openness to the ideas of
  others, and individuality, which reflects the
  ability to function as an individual within this
  supportive context (to be free to express ones
  own ideas).

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Protective Factors

• Communities that provide protective factors have
  institutions within the community that
  adolescents are part of, such as, churches,
  schools, and community based activities.
  Adolescents who profit most from these
  communities are those that have need for the most
  support and have few personal resources.
• Personal Strengths

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Protective Factors

• Temperament - an easy temperament allows
  adolescents to ride out the daily stresses of
  life. A positive approach allows them to deal
  with problems better and their engaging ways
  allow them to recruit support from others.
• Competence possessing an average intelligence
  provides for better communication with others and
  being in control (internal locus of control) also
  serves as a protective factor.
• Spirituality religious beliefs contribute to an
  adolescents well being and healthy development.

22
Protective Factors

• Love the essential ingredient for healthy
  adolescent development is a basic trusting
  relationship with someone who cares.
• One cannot overestimate the importance of being
  loved.