Coping with Stress Effective People and Processes

335 Pages·01.557 MB·335\335

Coping with Stress:
Effective People and
Processes
C. R. Snyder,
Editor
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
COPING WITH STRESS
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COPING WITH STRESS
EFFECTIVE PEOPLE AND PROCESSES
Edited by
C. R. Snyder
1
2001
1
Oxford NewYork
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Copyright(cid:1)2001byOxfordUniversityPress
PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc.
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Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
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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
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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
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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,