This research is guided by two major theories. First, Transactional Theory, which is a widely accepted theory of coping developed by Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman. Second, the Control Theory developed by Charles Carver and Michael Scheier.
Dr. Richard S. Lazarus is an influential psychologist who had an extensive academic work on how people cope with stress. He rose to prominence in the 1960s, when behaviorists like B. F. Skinner focused on reward and punishment as primary motivators of behavior. Dr. Susan Folkman, is a Professor of Medicine at University of California, Berkeley. They shared an enduring interest on stress, coping and appraisal, and eventually developed the Ways of Coping Questionnaire.
Lazarus and Folkman define coping
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as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p.141). Lazarus discussed the three processes in facing stress : (1) Primary appraisal, which is the process of assessing a stressful event (2) Secondary appraisal, which is the process of bringing to mind a potential response to the threat by evaluating one’s ability to cope, and (3) Coping which is the process of executing that response. This emphasizes the coping function as a person-environment interaction. Coping functions may be directed towards managing the problem causing stress or it may be aimed at handling emotions. The former coping function is called problem-focused coping while the latter is emotion-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Another theoretical basis for this research is the Control Theory of Carver and Scheier.
Charles Carver is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology in University of Miami, Psychology Department. Carver authored a coping measure, the COPE inventory. He collaborated with Michael Scheier who is a Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Carver and Scheier (1981) concertedly conceive the Control theory and its use in the field of clinical psychology.
The Control theory developed by Carver and Scheier stated that human self-regulation can be likened to the operation of self-regulating mechanical or electronic devices (Barone & Maddux, 1997).
Control theorists or cyberneticists view self-regulation as a process of determining goals, and then using those goals as reference values for feedback systems, which act to bring existing states into line with the goals. (Carver and Scheier, 1981, p. 119). Self-regulation complements the coping mechanism as the individual adapts to the changes based on an existing change in the expected, standard or even, ideal situation.
As the client attempts to cope with the circumstance, various aspects of his life may be affected. In some way, the coping response of an individual to a health-related concern may be related to his Quality of Life
(QOL).
Larson, Reed. "IS FEELING "IN CONTROL" RELATED TO HAPPINESS IN DAILY LIFE?" Ammons Scientific. AmSci. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. .
In my own words, I believe that self-control is a deliberate attempt to change the way one thinks and acts about something. For instance, during the month of March, I am on a restricted diet to try to find food triggers to my daily migraines. When I first started, I had to remind myself constantly that at breakfast I wasn’t going to grab a glass of milk, or at lunch, that I wasn’t going to make myself a sandwich. I didn’t realize how hard this was going to be when I first started. There are still times, 15 days after starting, that I am reminded by my mom or dad that I can’t eat certain foods or that I have to pack my own dinner because where we go for dinner won’t have food that I can eat. Every day, I am retraining my mind at how I look at food. I am having to constantly shift my mind away from the long list of food I can’t eat and focus on food that I can. The way that I shift my thoughts of food, is similar to how Erica in Brooks’ book had to shift her thoughts to focus on her tennis match going on. It is a constant rewiring of how the brain looks at the world around us. This process is not easy, and takes a lot of work and time. However, as time progresses, it does get easier. Growing up, I missed a several years of my childhood due to tragedies that occurred. Going through the aftermath of some of the hardships I was facing, I developed an isolated mindset. I thought that if I didn’t get close to people, than I couldn’t get hurt by them as well.
In the analytic dimension we are responsible for achieving control over a behavior. As said in the article it is the ability to turn the behavior on or off, or up and down, at will. The two techniques used to demonstrate consistent control are the “reversal” technique, and the “multiple baseline” technique. The reversal technique is when the experimenter applies a certain...
Weiten, W., Lloyd, Margaret A., Dunn, Dana S., Yost-Hammer, Elizabeth. (2009). Psychology Applied to Modern Life; Adjustment in the 21st Century. (9th ed). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Disease: any abnormal functioning of the body, organs, tissues, or cells that create the inability to function normally
There are two kinds of problem focused coping which are Effective and ineffective problem focused coping. Effective focused coping for example, an individual plans to host Thanksgiving dinner for 27 people, but finds the thought of preparing such a feast extraordinarily stressful. Problem-focused coping has the potential to resolve her stress. By evaluating options, seeking
Lochman, J. E., Boxmeyer, C. L., Powell, N. P., Qu, L., Wells, K., & Windle, M. (2012). Coping
Sandler, I. N., Tein, J. Y., & West, S. G. (1994). Coping, Stress, and the Psychological Symptoms
The purpose of this paper is to review the theory of self-regulation and how it can be applied to practice in health care settings to improve patient outcomes. According to Johnson (1997), more than 25 years of research has influenced the development of the self-regulation theory, which is about coping with healthcare experiences. Health problems have shifted from acute to chronic where it has been identified that personal behaviors are linked to over half of societies chronic health problems (Ryan & Sawin, 2009). As the modern nurse strives to provide specialized care and improve patient outcomes, the utilization of nursing theory continues to gain importance. This theory explains how patients use specific types of information to cope with health care events thus providing a rational for selecting information that can be expected to benefit patients. The concept of self-regulation has been a part of nursing practice in a circumlocutory fashion for years. It has been most commonly referred to as self-management creating considerable ambiguity and overlapping of definitions for that term and self-regulation (SR). For the purpose of this paper these terms will imply that people follow self-set goals introduced by their health care provider.
“Self-concept consists of knowledge, views and evaluation of the self, ranging from miscellaneous facts of personal history to the identity that gives a sense of purpose and coherence to life” (McCrae and Costa, 1996). With self-concept, we learn who we are by observing ourselves and using our cognitive processes to judge and evaluate our behaviour. However, with self-regulation, we are able to use this knowledge and judgment and apply it to future situations and so predicts behaviour and says a lot about our personality. If we are willing to cognitively analyse past situations and apply it effectively to future situations, this means we are changing our behaviour, thus changing our
Do you know what it feels like to have your palms sweat, throat close up, and your fingers tremble? This is the everyday life of someone who lives with anxiety. As soon as I wake up in the morning, I hear my brain freaking out about the day ahead of me. What do I eat for breakfast? What do I do first when I get home from school? What happens if I get in a car crash on my way to school? A million thoughts at one time racing through my head. I never have the time to process all of them. Most mornings, I lay in my bed and have to take a few deep breaths to begin my hectic but not so hectic day. That’s just the beginning. It’s safe to say that I feel that I 'm an anxious person and that I have an anxiety disorder.
The Theory of Caregiver Stress was a significant breakthrough for the reasoning of why caregivers are so deeply affected by this job. “The Theory of Caregiver Stress was derived from the Roy Adaptation Model to use as basis in understanding the relationships among caregivers and the stress faced when caring for a chronically ill relative” (Tsai, 2003). The Theory of Caregiver stress is a middle-range theory used to predict the outcome for stress and other various side effects (Dobratz, 2011). These adverse effects are predicted by: Demographic Characteristics, Burden in Caregiving, Stressful life events, Social Support and Social Roles. Also, because of the multitude of different scenarios and background for both the patient and the caregiver, these categories are necessary to compare and effectively use the results. The theory makes four main assumptions regarding adaption: “environmental change; the caregivers’ perceptions will determine how they will respond to the environmental stimuli; the caregivers’ adaptation is a function of their environmental stimuli and adaptation level, and lastly the caregivers’ effectors are results of chronic caregiving such examples include marital satisfaction and self-...
There are two interrelated subsystems in Roy’s model. The primary or control processes consist of the coping mechanisms or the regulator and cognator. The regulator coping subsystem provides coping mechanisms by way of physiological adaptive modes involving automatic responses through the neural, chemical and endocrine systems (Andrews & Roy, 1991). The cognator coping subsystem provides coping mechanisms by way of four cognitive-emotive channels which are processing, learning, judgment and emotion (Andrews & Roy, 1991). The secondary or effector subsystem consist of four adaptive modes: physiologic/physical needs, self-concept/group identity, role function, and interdependence (Roy & Andrews, 1999). In other words...
The phenomenon of stress is presented in our lives more and more strongly. In the media, on the internet or at the doctor, we hear about it constantly. But what exactly is this phenomenon? “A large number of studies during the past several decades have explored relationships among environmental stimuli, psychological processes and organismic responses. Those studies that have investigated the various ways in which environmental changes or the perceived threat of such changes lead organisms to make specific adaptive responses are often subsumed under the rubric of stress research.”( Field, Mccabe, Schneiderman, 1985).
Mental health refers to the state of individuals psychologically, emotionally and socially. Mental health affects a person’s emotions, feelings, thoughts, and sections when exposed to different situations. Furthermore, mental health is responsible for a person’s reaction to stress and other social conditions. Generally, mental health affects how a person relates to others and their ability to understand and interact with them. Therefore, problems that affect a person’s mental health affect the abilities to socialize, their feelings, moods, reaction to situations. The person experiencing mental health problem may portray different behaviors when confronted with different issues. Mental health issues have several