Avoidant Coping Essay

How a person copes with overbearing situations or problems often times tells you a lot about what kind of person he or she may be. “Coping is a fundamental process in cognitive-transactional models of stress, which has been conceptualized as the cognitive and behavioral responses that moderate the effects of stress on outcomes” (Felsten, 1998). Common stressful events include dealing with pain that accompanies with an injury or surgery, your boyfriend breaking up with you, experiencing financial problems, academic problems, or finding out that you have been diagnosed with a chronic illness. It can be anything really. Coping involves cognitive and behavioral strategies used to help you manage your stress efficiently (Martin et al., 2011). A
Research has shown that the use of avoidance strategies carries negative health risks such as higher levels of depression and suicidal thoughts across all ages (Kim, Han, Trksak, & Lee, 2014). Avoidant coping strategies may have the most negative impact on one’s psychological health and well-being. “Among adolescents and younger adults, avoidant coping is a significant predictor of depression” (Boals, vanDellen, & Banks, 2011). During your adolescence years, can be a time of psychological stress (Helgeson, 2012). In your adolescence years, a person is faced with multiple decisions about his or her future that can cause a magnitude of stress on an individual. In a study done by Boals, vanDellen, & Banks (2011), the researchers found that the lack of self-control was significantly related to using avoidant-focused coping. The lower self-control a person has, the higher the rate of avoidant coping. The implications of their study was to provide insight on how stress may affect self-control behaviors. In Gary Felston’s (1998) research, he found that avoidance coping was a powerful predictor of depression in both men and