Coping: Challenging Problems And New Directions

Stress and coping is a most widely subject of modern psychology，Coping is notan independent phenomenon, but a complex, dynamic process, involving therelationship between people, the environment and their interrelationship, which isclosely related to individual physical and psychological health.This paper gave a detailed summary about coping in China and the whole worldin order to conduct a comprehensive understanding on the research status and basicproblems in this area. The study on coping originated from the book PsychologicalStress and Coping Process by Lazarus in1966. On the basis of Freud’s theory ofdefense mechanisms and Selye’s stress theory, process theory of Lazarus wasestablished in the context of the cognitive revolution, being defined as the changingcognition and behavior, managing intra-individual and external tension to deal withthe psychological pressure. Until1980s it became a unique research field gradually.Generation and use of scale had a strong impetus to the research progress of coping.In brief, the common measurement tools of coping applicable to the generalpopulation include WCQ (Ways of Coping Questionnaire), CSI (Coping StrategiesInventory), COPE (Coping Orientationsto Problems Experienced), CISS (Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations), etc., and some other questionnaires tending tocognitive measures in coping process, coping capacity and performance and specialpopulations coping, as well as the questionnaire concerning about daily copingmeasurement of Stone and other researchers.Coping research has already gained fruitful achievements for decades. Despitethese variations, research based on contextual approaches converges on the followingpoints: Coping has multiple functions, including but not limited to the regulation ofdistress and the management of problems causing the distress; Coping is influencedby the appraised characteristics of the stressful context, including its controllability;Coping is influenced by personality dispositions including optimism, neuroticism,and extraversion; Coping is influenced by social resources. many scholars haverealized that the current research in this filed are stagnant, experiencing a bottleneckperiod. In1999Lazarus pointed out that the research number and quality of stressand coping are disproportionate. A lot of criticism and questions on coping focusedon the study design and measurement tools (list). The research of coping needslongitudinal dynamic design, a combination of several measuring methods andin-depth study of some new issues. For a variety of different voices, scholars thoughtconstantly and explored actively, their research showing a diversification and the emergence of a lot of valuable results, but still lack of sufficient attention for someurgent research design and content.Domestic the research types of coping are mainly reflected in the followingaspects: trait theory based on coping, various types of empirical research on contextcharacteristics theory and process theory, the relationship research between coping,mental health and related factors, all kinds of designing and making of coping scale,demographic variables and intervention research of coping. Although the domesticstudy of coping has already had large number of achievements, there are still somenew problems to solve and new direction to explore. Compared with abroad, ourcoping research progress is still slow and the voice of those who criticize andquestion can be used to describe the current domestic research status, showing theurgent need for breakthroughs and innovations in this field.How to confront with this situation and carry on the research? With respect tothis question, we can deeply explore from current research problems and newresearch directions of coping,that is longitudinal exploration and transverseextension, to promote research development of coping.The challenging problems in existing research of coping include research design,measurement, classification and modeling of coping. In the study design section,first,this paper review the ecological thinking of coping research field in decades.Then the article point out thatimproving the ecological validity of the study is the pursuit of contemporary study on theauthenticity.Therefore,we advocate longitudinal dynamic design, focus on the dynamicinteraction and concern situational variables in the studies of coping. In the aspect ofmeasurement,this paper promote the resarch on Ecological Momentary Assessment(EMA) andnarrative approaches based on longitudinal dynamic design and choose the appropriate methodaccording to the research content. Although Ecological momentary assessment（EMA）wascreated in1994,the research about EMA have been active for decades abroad. EMA is not asingle research method, but a paradigm. It emphasizes the research, evaluation, and observationof individuals’ mind and behavior in the real life. EMA breaks through the limitations ofretrospective recall. It emphasizes the real-time data collection and repeated assessment of thereal world, and illustrates the relationship between the natural exist and change in variables. Thusmaximizing ecological validity. The article describes the characteristics, historical development,study design and the issues needed to notice of EMA. The classification of coping should focuson the further research of meaning-focused coping. Cognitive strategies inmeaning-focused coping is positively used and closely related to the generation ofpositive emotions in the coping process, and therefore meaning-focused coping hasgreat adaptive significance. In terms of the modeling of coping,we introuduced some distinctive theoretical model,for example, Experiential Coping Model, Social Problem SolvingCoping Model, Integrative Framework based on the clinical, Stress-coping (mis)matchhypothesis,and emotion modeling involved coping model.On the basis of preliminary studies, thearticle further to construct the ecological models of coping and focus to consider the followingaspects:a various of environmental factors, the interaction of cognition and emotion,the categoryof coping response, the consequences of coping, the overall dynamic interaction,and so on.Moreover, the article propose the need of further improving the construction of ecology model,further proving interaction mechanism between appraisals and secondary appraisalwith emotion，and carrying out the research under the guidance of this model, ecologicalmomentary assessment and ecological momentary interventions of coping。Some othervaluable model for theoretical guidance can also be used according to the needs of the researchcontent.The new directions of coping include Protective Aspects of the Stress Process,Coping at the Dyadic Level, coping and positive emotions. Protective Aspects of theStress Process is a new direction of coping research, referring to that people inadvance adapt in order to prevent or diminish the potential impact of stressful events,Pay attention to the concept of mental resilience and the exploration offuture-oriented proactive coping in Protective Aspects of the Stress Process； Coping at the Dyadic Level mainly means common coping between couples, mutualeffects and actions, what kind of impacts dynamic interaction and mutual influenceof cognition, behavior, emotion and other aspects have on individual coping incoping process；Interest in positive emotion in the stress process has opened a newavenue for coping research. Scholars have observed that positive emotions andnegative emotions are symbiotic in the process of coping, positive emotions arebased on individual assessment, therefore are closely related to meaning-focus.Meaning-focused coping includes benefit finding, benefit reminding, adaptive goalprocesses, reordering priorities and infusing ordinary events with positive meaning.New research in the field of coping contributes to the better coping of individual,reducing the nuisance caused by the stress event from different angles.The last part of this paper clearly points out weak points of research andfollow-up studies, which includes the further improvement of the coping ecologicalmodel, the definition and distinction of related concepts involved in copingecological studies, the corresponding empirical research carried out under theguidance of ecological models and specific studies to new research direction ofcoping. Although there are inherent limitations in coping research, it is believed thatdifficulties and hopes coexist. In future research of this field theoretical research and clinical practice should be better combined in the future and researcher can make anumber of specific and feasible approaches to this problem. The close integration oftheory and practice will always be the direction for researchers in the coping field.