Coping with Stress: Effective People and Processes C. R. Snyder, Editor OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS COPING WITH STRESS This page intentionally left blank COPING WITH STRESS EFFECTIVE PEOPLE AND PROCESSES Edited by C. R. Snyder 1 2001 1 Oxford NewYork Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota´ BuenosAires Calcutta CapeTown Chennai DaresSalaam Delhi Florence HongKong Istanbul Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sa˜oPaulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Toky Toronto Warsaw andassociatedcompaniesin Berlin Ibadan Copyright(cid:1)2001byOxfordUniversityPress PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystemortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Copingwithstress:effectivepeopleandprocesses/editedbyC.R.Snyder. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindexes. ISBN0-19-513044-8 1. Adjustment(Psychology) 2. Stress(Psychology) I. Snyder,C.R. BF335.S69 2001 155.2'4—dc21 00-041644 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper ToDrewandStaciand TylerandTeresaand othersingle-parentcopingteams This page intentionally left blank Foreword As I was reading Coping with Stress, Ikeptthinkingthatthis book should be in everyone’s survival kit for life in the twenty-firstcentury.Inthepreface,Snyderremindsusofthecommentby thebaseballplayer,YogiBerra,whosaid,“Thefutureain’twhatitusedto be.”Humanswillfacemajorchallengesinthisnewcentury.Thisbookis excitingbecauseitteachesushowwecaneffectivelymeetthesechallenges. Thechaptersinthisbook,takentogether,providetheoryandresearchthat showushowto“cope”adaptivelywiththebigandsmallchallengesoflife. Indeed,thebiggestchallengeofall,ourcertaindeath,isconfrontedinthe chapteronterrormanagementtheory.Snyderandthecontributingauthors doanoutstandingjobofpresentingcutting-edgetheoryandresearchabout the coping process. They take an interdisciplinary approach and utilize conceptsandmethodsfromsocial,personality,clinical,cognitive,lifespan, andcross-culturalpsychologytoilluminatethecopingprocessandhowit cangowrong.SnyderandPulversdoamasterfuljobofprovidingconcep- tualcontinuityacrossthecontributionswiththeirbeginningandconclud- ingchapters.Ineverwillbeabletothinkaboutworkoncopingagainwith- out having the image of Snyder’s “coping machine” flood my mind! The messageofthisbookisoptimistic.Eachofuscanbecomeabettercoping machine.Thetheoryandresearchinthisbookprovideblueprintsforbuild- ingbettercopingmachines. LynY.Abramson This page intentionally left blank Preface Asweareabouttobeginthetwenty-firstcentury,understand- ing the processes of coping with stress, as well as the peo- ple who are facile at such coping, seems rather daunting. When Alvin Toffler published Future Shock in 1971, he argued persuasively, at least to me, that change was occurring at an ever-accelerating pace. Further- more, despite the already enormous impacts of the personal computer and internet in the year 2000, I believe that we have seen only a small sampleoftheirultimateinfluencesonourcultureingeneral,andscience in particular (see Toffler, 1981). As baseball catcher turned philosopher Yogi Berra has told us, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” There is much wisdom inYogi’swords.Wewillbefacingnewandever-changing stressors in our attempts to cope in the fast-paced society of the coming decades. If we do not cope, we will be unable to find our place and get somewhere in that future, much like the car driver poised on the entry ramp of a super highway trying to find an opening in the flow of traffic where there is none. I say these things not to alarm, nor, of course, am I the first to talk this way—for centuries writers have warily describedthe wonderslurking“out there” in the future. AsIcastmythoughtstowardthosetomorrows,Iamdrawnbacktowhat myGrandpaGususedtotellmeaboutthe“olddays.”Everyoneprobably hasanelderwhohasrecountedsimilartalesofyesteryear.Withoutgoing into details, those “good old days” don’t seem so good to me. They were very difficult for the majority, and horrific for a sizable minority of our ancestors. And the stressors they faced stagger the imagination—lacking food and shelter, fighting world wars, and being open to the ravages of contagious diseases. Looking back, the stressors may seem more barbaric than the ones we face today. We owe this in large part to the continual advances in science, technology, medicine,foodproduction,governance,