Coping research: Historical background, links with emotion, and new research directions on adaptive processes

Abstract

The general purpose of this review is to briefly describe the historical foundations of coping research covering how it has evolved, over the past three to four decades, from research founded on a deficit model of stress to research that focused more often on exploring people's capacity to deal with life's circumstances and fulfil their potential. Five topic areas are covered. First, key theoretical underpinnings of coping research are described. Second, links between coping responses and emotion are presented, with an emphasis on how coping can mitigate the individual and environmental impacts of stress. Third, developmental studies of stress and coping are introduced showing how it is functionally important across the age span but may change in form. Fourth, the challenges for measuring coping are considered by describing classic and new approaches to assessment. Finally, later developments in coping research are covered by identifying recent research on proactive coping and dyadic approaches. Overall, this review also illustrates how coping research has traversed the full gamut of the lifespan.

Key words:

• coping
• lifespan
• stress

Stress and coping have been considered to be the most highly researched fields in psychology. On coping alone, the research efforts between 1980s to the present have yielded 881,436 peer‐reviewed journal articles with almost equal amount of publication in the adult (403,132) and child (442,775) areas. There are fewer relating to adolescence (236,925) and with much less on coping in early childhood (136,118). Since the year 2000, there has been a continuing volume of research output with the most notable advances in the child and adolescent arenas. From 2000 onwards, the compliment of publications has not abated in that coping has rendered 661,844 publications with 316,148 for adults and 356,203 for child and again fewer for adolescents (177,226) and early childhood (105,496). The importance of coping for children is manifold in that children and the contexts in which they operate, namely, family, school, and peer group offer, extensive opportunities for enhancing the ways in which they deal with their lives in each of their settings.

Introduction

The aim of this review is to provide researchers and practitioners with some key understandings and benefits from this research output to advance their work. Much of the research in the last decade has focused on how individuals and groups deal with particular problems such as health, trauma, loss, sporting success, and achievement to name a few. The focus in this review is on core theoretical underpinnings of coping research rather than applications or findings relating to a particular population. To date, coping has made an important contribution to our understanding of human endeavour and achievement, and the theoretical insights have enabled both researchers and practitioners to advance well‐being and striving, thus going beyond the original goals of coping research, which was aimed at how individuals reduce stress. The theory has led to measurement and the measurement to individual and group interventions across the lifespan and adds immeasurably to our understanding of the promotion of the quality of life.

In this review, the dominant theories of coping and the relevance and significance of emotions are considered along with development and measurement, which are important features of coping. Some new directions are presented with some consideration of how this vast field might continue to advance. While the purpose of this review is not to focus on practice and outcomes per se, the theoretical insights have informed and continue to inform practice.

The History of Stress and Coping Research

The stress concept

The term ‘stress’ has its origins in physics rather than in psychology and physiology. Essentially, it was a term used in engineering to describe the effect of a mechanical force that places strain or pressure on an object. The physiological theories of stress focus on the arousal that occurs when an organism is under stress or threat and there is a response to the stress that may be adaptive in that there is an attempt to ‘fight’ or ‘flee’ the stress. If the stress persists, there is likely to be a harmful outcome for the organism (Cannon, 1932). Illness is often a result of the exertion or demand that is made on a particular physiological system. However, biological or genetic predisposition may play an important part in illness. Selye (1976, p. 472) described stress as ‘the non‐specific response of the body to any demands made upon it’. Selye makes the distinction between stress that mobilises the individual to effective performance, such as when there is heightened performance that has been labelled ‘eustress’, and stress that is more negative and has been labelled ‘distress’. He observed that the body would respond to any external biological source of stress with a predictable biological pattern in an attempt to restore the body's internal homeostasis. Lazarus (1966), in foreshadowing his theory on coping, describes stress as the mismatch between the perceived demands of a situation and the individual's assessment of his or her resources to deal with these demands. Stresses can be physical such as those pertaining to the environment (like extreme heat or cold), psychosocial stresses (such those experienced when relationships are not working), and daily hassles (such as having a quarrel with one's friend or partner). Early stress researchers such as Holmes and Rahe (1967) identified major life events as stresses. Since the mid‐1960s, and particularly over the past 20 years, there has been interest in how individuals deal with stress; that is coping.

The coping concept

The research history of coping goes back to the beginnings of the psychoanalytic movement at the turn of the nineteenth century, but coping only really began to be viewed as a process in the 1970s and 1980s through the work of theorists such as Pearlin and Schooler (1978), Lazarus and Folkman (1984), Billings and Moos (1984), and Kobasa (1979). These theorists, among others, have developed a range of different approaches to identifying the ways in which coping may be related to given outcomes: some investigated how personality characteristics may be antecedents to coping (Kobasa, 1979; Wheaton, 1983); others assessed how an individual actually copes with stressful events (Billings & Moos); or studied the characteristics of stressful events that individuals experience (Shanan, De‐Nour, & Garty, 1976); and more recently others researched the relative contributions of personality characteristics (Saklofske, Austin, Mastoras, Beaton, & Osborne, 2012; Weigold & Robitschek, 2011).

From the vast body of research two major theoretical but complementary approaches to coping have emerged. The first is the Transactional theory of Richard Lazarus and the second is Stevan Hobfoll's (1989) Conservation of Resources (COR) theory. They function as frameworks within which to understand coping.

The transactional theory of coping

Richard Lazarus launched the field with his seminal book Psychological Stress and the Coping Process (Lazarus, 1966) in which he had an interest in maximising immune functioning and removing harmful effects on the cardiovascular system. However, the impact of his interest in coping had a far wider reach in terms of influencing research agendas and output.

The most frequently cited definition of coping is that of Lazarus and his colleague Susan Folkman (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), who define coping ‘… 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’ (p. 141). This definition addresses the cognitive, affective, and behavioural aspects of the coping process and also focuses on the effort associated with an individual's response. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) also point out that managing stress includes accepting, tolerating, avoiding, or minimising the stressors as well as the more traditional view of coping as mastery over the environment. Moreover, coping is not limited to successful efforts, but includes all purposeful attempts to manage stress regardless of their effectiveness. That is, the coping response is initiated as a response to a stressful event that is personally significant and taxes or exceeds an individual's resources.

There are several key elements of the Lazarus & Folkman (1984), conceptualisation, namely that coping is a transaction between the person and the environment, and appraisal is a feature of the coping process. Coping is a dynamic process that changes over time as it responds to demands, following appraisals, both objective and subjective.

As Folkman (2010, p. 453) recently pointed out ‘coping is a critical point of entry for protecting mental and physical health from the harmful effects of stress’ and while she acknowledges that although the Lazarus and Folkman (1984) model of stress has stood the test of time, it is not free of problems and limitations. It rests on the concept of appraisal, that is, whether a situation is one of stress harm loss or challenge (primary appraisal), whether the individual has the resources to cope (secondary appraisal), and an evaluation of the coping strategy post coping (tertiary appraisal). Appraisals are not necessarily conscious but may occur unconsciously at an automatic level (Lazarus, 1991, 1993), and it addresses two dimensions of coping: emotion focused and problem focused. Additionally, Folkman and Moskowitz (2000) identified meaning focused coping as the third function of coping as distinct from the problem‐ and emotion‐focused conceptualisation that is, problem, emotion and meaning focused coping. The original Ways of Coping (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980) measurement tool was reliant on self‐report and generally emotion was considered from a negative perspective. The revised version addresses both positive and negative emotions (Folkman, Lazarus, Dunkel‐Schetter, DeLongis, & Gruen, 1986) as well as a problem focus, as do other measures such as the COPE (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989) and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (Endler & Parker, 1999). Folkman (2010) highlights the strength of the approach as being the fact that it is individualised and it is preceded by antecedents such as biology, developmental stage, and in a particular setting, with social and material resources (p. 45).

Conservation of resources theory

A complementary and arguably equally important theory, COR (Hobfoll, 1989, 2010), is based on a single motivational tenet that individuals strive to obtain, retain, and protect that which they value. Stress occurs when resources are threatened, actually lost or when the individual invests resources without getting adequate return for effort. When there is adequate return for investment the resource pool is built up and self‐esteem and confidence are boosted.

Resources are defined as objects such as possessions that are valued for their physical nature, but they can often be associated with socioeconomic status (SES) or status in general, personal characteristics (such as seeing things as predictable and happening in one's best interest, being optimistic, mastery), conditions (such as marriage, employment, tenure, promotion), or energies (examples of which are networks, power, money, time, knowledge, etc.) that allow you to obtain other resources. COR theory posits that people do not wait for disaster to strike, they invest in resources, that is, take out insurance; people purchase future protection, for example, by investing time and energy in relationships. In that sense, this aspect of the framework is proactive rather than reactive.

People strive to develop a resource surplus to offset the possibility of future loss. Resource surpluses are likely to be associated with eustress (positive well‐being) rather than distress. Self‐protection is about trying to protect against resource loss. We invest time and energy and love and affection in the expectation of the return of the same. Power and money are important resources that allow us to accumulate other resources. The concept of loss is central to COR theory. It posits that gain is important but secondary to loss. Most severe stressor events are loss events. However, according to COR theory there is the notion that individuals can shift the focus of attention from loss by reinterpreting a threat as a challenge, which can be construed as a positive aspect of coping.

According to Hobfoll (1989) the emphasis of the COR theory is on objective elements of threat and loss and ‘common appraisals’ by people who share a biology and culture. The emphasis is on the circumstances that occur rather than the appraisals. There is an importance placed on losses and gain cycles. While COR theory was born out of trauma and disaster, Hobfoll sees research today as being aligned with positive psychology with a focus on how it contributes to resilience and capacity to thrive beyond surviving. To assist with that thriving, there are ‘caravan passageways’, the environmental conditions that support, foster, enrich, and protect the resources of individuals, families, and organisations, or that detract, undermine, obstruct, or impoverish people's resource reservoirs.

One of Hobfoll's underlying principles is paradoxical, in that resource loss is more potent than resource gain, but the salience of gain increases under situations of resource loss (Wells, Hobfoll, & Lavin, 1999). While it is difficult to predict or identify that which is going to restore the equilibrium, SES is among the best predictors of mental health. Most neighbourhood factors supersede family factors (Rutter, 2000). That is, the importance of socioeconomic factors cannot be disregarded (Steptoe & Feldman, 2001). Additionally, the impact of social support is one of the most robust single markers of resiliency resources, after SES and race are accounted for (Schumm, Briggs‐Phillips, & Hobfoll, 2006). Gains have a positive connotation, but losses are strongly negatively connoted which is consistent with Kahneman and Tversky (1979) who argued that it is more unpleasant to lose than it is pleasant to win.

Coping and Emotions

The relationship between coping and emotion is important in that emotions have been generally seen as interfering with cognitions and coping. Often, emotions appear to dominate and the individual can be described as floundering in a sea of emotions. Historically, coping has been viewed as a response to emotion. In more recent years, there has been a shift where the two are understood to be in a reciprocal dynamic relationship (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). Just as emotion determines how an encounter is appraised, so the outcome in turn determines the individual's emotional state both in the ongoing interaction and in future interactions. Folkman and Lazarus (1988) distinguish this from the Darwinian approach, where emotions, like fear and anger, are thought to come to the aid of the organism in the face of threat and also from the ego psychological approach, which includes reference to cognitive processes like denial, repression, suppression, intellectualisation, and problem solving in an effort to reduce stress and anxiety.

In the coping literature, much of the emotion‐focused conceptualisation of coping has focused on the maladaptive. A more recent functionalist perspective of emotions has focused on the adaptive nature of emotion and how individuals can organise social communication, goal achievement, and cognitive processes from an early age (Ekman, 1994; Mahoney, 1991; Smith, 1991; Thompson, 1994). Thus, emotions are a major organising force with intra and interpersonal regulatory effects. Three theoretical constructs exemplify a functionalist view of emotion in personality research, emotional competence (Saarni, 1990), emotional intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, 1990), and emotional creativity (Averill & Thomas‐Knowles, 1991). All contribute to healthy interpersonal and intrapersonal functioning. Emotional competence is essentially self‐efficacy in the context of ‘emotion‐eliciting social transactions’ (Saarni, 1997, p. 38).

Links between coping and emotions

Coping and emotion regulation are inextricably linked. For example, the same stressor can evoke different emotions and emotions can prompt certain coping responses (Zimmer‐Gembeck, Skinner, Morris, & Thomas, 2012). While much of emotional regulation is unconscious, Eisenberg, Fabes, and Guthrie (1997) describe two types of emotion regulation: one that regulates the internal feeling state and the other are the behavioural concomitants of emotions labelled the emotion‐related behaviour regulation.

Positive emotions and coping

The ‘sea change’ in coping that focuses on the strengths of people and societies rather than on weaknesses (Zautra & Reich, 2010) can be accredited to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) and it has coincided with an increasing attention to well‐being and the benefits of minimising stress so as to cope effectively. There is a growing recognition among Folkman and others of the presence of positive emotions in the stress process (Aspinwall & MacNamara, 2005; Folkman, 1997; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2003; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). There is also an emphasis on positive emotions by Fredrickson and Levenson (1998) with her ‘Broaden and Build’ theory and Lyubomirsky (2010) with her approach to hedonic adaptation. The ‘Broaden and Build’ theory of emotions focuses on positive emotions as a way of broadening resources for coping thus making coping more effective. Additionally, as Lazarus (1991) pointed out then, there are appraisals involved in positive mood states,

… we should not be surprised that performance is better, cognitive activity is much less strained, thoughts and ideas come more easily, and we see others more favorably and open ourselves to them (p. 422).

From Hobfoll's (2010) perspective, because COR theory places secondary emphasis on the importance of gain in contrast to that of loss, 'positive emotions have difficulty being sustained when resource loss is severe or chronic, especially where other key resources such as social support, cannot be brought to bear' (p. 139). The context and circumstance remain all‐important.

The co‐occurrence of positive and negative emotions

The co‐occurrence of positive and negative emotions has been reported in early research. Stone, Kennedy‐Moore, and Neale (1995) using end‐of‐day diaries found that relaxation and direct action were uniquely associated with positive affect, whereas distraction and acceptance were also associated with lower levels of negative affect. Folkman, from her extensive research with caregivers of human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV) acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients, has highlighted that positive and negative emotions can co‐occur in the direst circumstances (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000). Also, there is growing evidence of the links of health‐related recovery and the expression of emotions. For example, breast cancer patients do better if they express emotions (Stanton et al., 2000). The corollary is well established in that those who ruminate and focus on negative emotions are likely to experience increased depression and anxiety (Nolen‐Hoeksema, 2000). The co‐occurrence of both positive and negative emotions has been labelled as dual‐process coping. For example Stroebe and Schut's (1999) Dual Process Model of coping for bereavement describes the bereaved as oscillating between loss and restoration, approach and avoidance, and positive and negative reappraisals (Stroebe, 2001). Psychologists' tendency to focus on one mood state at a time, has obscured the important finding that positive and negative mood states can coexist and that positive ones can inhibit negative mood states under certain circumstances (Greenglass & Fiksenbaum, 2009).

Emotions play a part in appraisals, adaptation, and subsequent development as the individual matures in a psychosocial context.

A Developmental View of Coping

Development and coping

The question is often asked about coping and development. Does coping determine development or vice versa? The likelihood is that it works both ways, in that the ages and stages of human development impact coping and situational determinants play a part as we cope with different situations across the lifespan. Aldwin (2010) points out that the way we cope is also determined by how stress is defined; whether, for example, it is defined, in terms of hassles or traumas. There are individual differences and developmental trajectories of coping. For example, young children are reliant on parents for emotion regulation and become independent self‐regulators at a later stage of development. Neurological development also comes into play in that children are likely to respond differently and utilise different coping resources than those in adolescence or adulthood. Essentially individuals respond to their environments, but they in turn influence their environments (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). There are both normative changes and individual differences (see review by Compas, Connor‐Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen, & Wadsworth, 2001; Zimmer‐Gembeck & Skinner, 2011).

It is now recognised that there is plasticity in developmental processes, which is reflected in brain development and behavioural outcomes (Doidge, 2007; Spear, 2000a, 2000b).

Patterns of coping became more differentiated with age (e.g., Compas, Worsham, & Ey, 1992; Skinner & Zimmer‐Gembeck, 2009). The changes in neurophysiological, cognitive, emotional, attentional, and/or social resources and processes across the lifespan could account for differences in the abilities and ways of coping in children and adults.

While there have been few longitudinal studies in the child area, Eisenberg et al. (1997) found that aggression decreases with age. Generally, those with externalising problems have been found to be more prone to anger and impulsivity and low regulation (Eisenberg et al., 2001). With neurological maturation in adolescence, a more sophisticated problem‐focused coping approach is used, and there is an emergence of humour with boys using more sexual humour while girls cheer themselves up (Fuhr, 2002; Horton, 2002). Effective dyadic coping does not develop until late adolescence. In a longitudinal study of adolescent, coping between the ages of 12 to 18 years confirmed that maladaptive coping skills increase with age and particularly in middle adolescent girls (Frydenberg & Lewis, 2000).

Stress, coping, and aging

Two paradoxes of stress and aging have been noted by Yancura and Aldwin (2009). Although older adults are thought to experience more stress and to be more vulnerable to its adverse effects, they report less stress. The authors conclude that older adults learn to appraise and cope with stress differently and that protects them despite the increased physiological vulnerability. The second paradox is related to the positive aspects of stress in that under certain conditions, stress can have positive or ‘toughening’ effects that can be construed as building resilience. They have investigated the paradoxes from two major longitudinal studies of stress, which are The Normative Aging Study (male veterans aged 22–80 years) and the Davis Longitudinal Study (DLS) (Alumni from 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999). Regardless of the fact that the type of problems change with age, 20% of those over 80 years old could not come up with a single problem in the past week. Boeninger, Shiraishi, Aldwin, and Spiro (2009) suggest that older adults have a more balanced perspective on their stress and are less likely to appraise stress as problematic. They are likely to avoid being upset by minor problems (Aldwin, 2007); they are likely to see the ‘silver lining’ or experienced what Tedeschi (2004) labelled as posttraumatic growth. From the DLS study, only 10% reported negative outcomes while 20% reported positive outcomes and 60% reported mixed outcomes, that is, both positive and negative. At the same time, there is an accumulation of stressors occurring in old age that places considerable pressure on older individuals. As people age, they have to deal with declining physical and psychological attributes like memory losses, decline in vision and hearing, for example. Because losses constitute major stressors in the elderly, they are forced to deal with more and more stressors at this stage of their lives than before. While young people and those in middle age may encounter stressors at some point in their lives, in old age, there tends to be an accumulation of stressors (losses) at a time when one's resilience may also be declining. This is an area worthy of future study.

The measurement of coping

Many coping inventories have been developed over the years. They draw upon the major theoretical models of coping to enable the research insights or clinical interventions to occur. The earliest developments assessed adult ways of coping, with interest in the assessment of how younger people cope arising in the late 1980s when the coping literature turned its attention to coping in childhood (Compas, 1987). In her comprehensive review of coping scales, Carolyn Aldwin (2007) identified 200 references to different coping scales with 51 of these being in the child and adolescent arena.

Descriptions of how people cope are generally provided by individuals or derived from the literature. Although most coping measures ask participants to recall how they cope, the accuracy of self‐report is considered to be a limitation (Todd, Tennen, Carney, Armeli, & Affleck, 2004). Therefore, some researchers use a process approach such as daily diary recordings (Stone, Lennox, & Neale, 1985). Diary studies report mean styles as predicting strategy use (Ptacek, Pierce, & Thompson, 2006) for age group and experience sampling (Csikzentmihalyi & Larson, 1984) to capture proximal stressors, coping efforts, and outcomes closer to their occurrence; and track changes in coping processes (Tennen, Affleck, Armeli, & Carney, 2000).

The descriptions of actions are subsequently grouped according to similarity of concept or ideation. The most common categorisation or grouping of approaches to coping is the dichotomous grouping of strategies by Lazarus and Folkman (1984; Lazarus, 1993), which identifies problem‐ and emotion‐focused coping. Alternative categorisations range from groupings of 8–10 strategies or scales (e.g., Stark, Spirito, Williams, & Guevremont, 1989), to the specificity of 18 strategies that make up the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS) (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993) and 20 in the ACS‐2 (Frydenberg & Lewis, 2011). Strategies have often been grouped to characterise coping styles that represent functional and dysfunctional aspects of coping (Cox, Gotts, Boot, & Kerr, 1985; Frydenberg & Lewis, 1997, 2011; Seiffge‐Krenke & Shulman, 1990). The functional styles represent direct attempts to deal with the problem, with or without reference to others, whereas the dysfunctional styles relate to the use of non‐productive strategies.

Coping has been found to be influenced by person and situation characteristics. Skinner, Edge, Altman, and Sherwood (2003) in a review commented that there are hundreds of coping strategies currently assessed but styles generally are made up of five basic types of strategies: problem solving, support seeking avoidance, distraction and positive cognitive restructuring. Skinner et al. suggested four others (rumination, helplessness and social withdrawal) and one positive, emotion regulation (Newton, 1989; O'Driscoll & Cooper, 1994). There have been debates about definition, measurement, and generalisability of findings. For example, O'Driscoll and Cooper (1994) report little connection between general and specific coping, whereas a close association has been reported by Frydenberg and Lewis (1994, 2002a, 2002b) and Latack (1986).

The numerous reviews of coping measures highlight the similarities and differences, and validity and reliability issues. The measurement tools have been used to extend theory and most significantly guide or evaluate practice. An early review by Schwarzer and Schwarzer (1996) highlighted conceptual issues and those relating to generality and stability. A review by De Ridder (1997) highlighted similar concerns but pointed out that in an ‘inherently variable’ concept like coping, focusing on psychometric quality alone will not solve the problem. Instruments such as COPE (Carver et al., 1989; Hobfoll's Strategic Approaches to Coping (Hobfoll, Dunaboo, Ben‐Porath, & Monnier, 1994) and Frydenberg and Lewis's ACS (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993) and Coping Scale for Adults (CSA) (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1997) recognise that there is consistency and variation in coping, which in the ACS and CSA are is reflected in a general and situation specific forms of coping. Dimensionality has been addressed by many reviewers, particularly by Skinner et al., (2003). In their analysis of 100 assessments of coping, the authors critiqued strategies and identified best practices for constructing category systems. From current systems, a list of 400 ways of coping was compiled. For constructing lower order categories, the authors concluded that confirmatory factor analysis should replace the two most common approaches (exploratory factor analysis and rational sorting). For higher order categories, they recommend that the three most common distinctions (problem‐ vs emotion‐focused, approach vs avoidance, and cognitive vs behavioural) no longer be used. Instead, the authors recommend hierarchical systems of action types (e.g., proximity seeking, accommodation). From analysis of six such systems, 13 potential core families of coping were identified: Problem solving, Support seeking, Escape, Distraction, Cognitive restructuring, Rumination, Helplessness, Social withdrawal, Emotional regulation, Information seeking, Negotiation, Opposition, and Delegation. Future steps involve deciding how to organise these families, using their functional homogeneity and distinctiveness, and especially their links to adaptive processes.

Adolescent coping measures have been reviewed by Garcia (2010). A wide range of stress‐related risks or conditions were examined, including psychological stressors such as eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and depression; physical stressors such as chronic illness, HIV infection, sports participation, violence, or sexual abuse; familial stressors such as domestic violence or inter‐parental conflict; social stressors such as romantic relationships or difficulties in settings such as school, prison, or a homeless shelter; and societal stressors such as discrimination.

In a review of 12 coping measures (nine self‐report and three observational methods) in paediatric populations by Blount et al. 2008), only six met the criteria of ‘well established’ that broaden understanding and guide treatment. Much of the psychometrically valid instruments have been used exclusively for research rather than intervention, yet the tools lend themselves to clinical applications because the very identification of the individual's coping characteristics can lead to reflection and behavioural change.

New Directions

Proactive coping

Much of the coping research to date has focused on past events despite the fact that the concept of loss, threat, harm, or challenge is central to the appraisal theory of coping. However, researchers such Aspinwall and Taylor (1997) refer to future events. For example, how individuals anticipate events as potential stressors, the ways in which we deal with them and the use of feedback is proactive coping (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997; Greenglass, 2002; Greenglass, Schwarzer, & Taubert, 1999). Building resources to offset future losses is captured by Hobfoll's COR theory. Schwarzer and Knoll (2003) distinguish among reactive (event that happened), anticipatory (certain of event that will happen, e.g., job interview), preventative (looking after health for the future), and proactive coping (upcoming challenge). A proactive approach to coping is captured in the Proactive Coping Inventory, which consists of six scales that measure coping from a proactive perspective (Greenglass et al. 1999). For these theorists, proactive coping involves appraisal of demands as challenges, and consists of active coping, self‐efficacy, anticipatory behaviour, and planning and utilises social resources (Greenglass et al., 1999). All these could be termed future‐oriented coping and could be construed as building resilience.

Coping and social support

Social support has been a key index of successful coping and an interest of many researchers (Greenglass & Fiksenbaum, 2009; Lelorain, Tessier, Florin, & Bonnaud‐Antignac, 2012; Thoits, 1986, 1995). In recent years, researchers have linked social support and coping in their theoretical discussions of coping. For example, when discussing proactive coping, Greenglass (2002) notes that there is an integral relationship between social support and coping. Moreover, social support is seen as an essential resource for the development of proactive forms of coping (Greenglass, 2002). This approach recognises the importance of resources in others, which can be incorporated into the behavioural and cognitive coping repertoire of the individual (Greenglass & Fiksenbaum, 2009). Additional research has emphasised the social aspects of coping more from a cultural‐sociological perspective than from coping skills alone (Hobfoll, 2002). Hobfoll considers the communal aspects of coping rather than the common understandings where individual effort is responsible for the desired outcomes. An independent style may be more efficient for the individual, but not necessarily for the group. Hobfoll and colleagues (Hobfoll, Jackson, Hobfoll, Pierce, & Young, 2002) explored the notion that personal agency was more related to individualised action than to social coping and use of social support. They found that self‐mastery was strongly associated with lower levels of anger and depressive mood, as they explained, because there is a cost of connectedness such as, compromise or conforming to group expectations or needs. Nevertheless, those high on communal mastery used less antisocial modes of coping and women reported higher levels of communal coping. Overall, the conclusion from three separate studies was that ‘communal mastery appears to be related to greater concern for others, less alienation from social relationships, and more close attachments to a supportive social network from which satisfaction can be derived’ (Hobfoll, 2002, p. 71). Hobfoll concludes that the overreliance on personal agency in the stress literature limits our understanding of the role of attachment and relationships in a cultural context.

Dyadic coping

An extension of the focus on community and the notion of support from individuals or collectives is dyadic coping. Much of the research in this field has addressed couples in the context of married life. Issues of spousal support in the context of marital or step‐parenting conflict, chronic pain, illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and cancer have been reported extensively (Coyne & Smith, 1991; Englbrecht et al., 2012; King & DeLongis, 2013). Overall, there is strong evidence of empathic coping contributing to relationship building (Herzberg, 2013; O'Brien, DeLongis, Pomaki, Puterman, & Zwicker, 2009) and a way of reducing marital tension. De Longis and O'Brien (1990), in their treatment of how families cope with Alzheimer's disease, discuss how interpersonal factors may be important as predictors of the individual's ability to cope with the situation. They talk about the importance of drawing on the resources of others for coping with difficult situations. More recently, researchers are beginning to unpack the relationship between individual and dyadic coping. For example, Herzberg (2013) found that while there are mutual influences in a couple relationship on ‘pragmatic’ coping, that is not the case for emotion‐related coping.

While dyadic coping has emerged as a response to health and relational issues, like much of coping research in the post‐Lazarus era religious coping and meaning making have emerged as a response to trauma. For some researchers such as Ross, Handal, Clark, and Wal (2009), religiousness and non‐self‐directedness are predictive of psychological adjustment. Others, like Park (2011), highlight that at times of trauma and major life stress that are less amenable to problem solving, ‘implicit religiousness’ is incorporated into a religious meaning–making model where spirituality plays a part. There are many ‘faces’ of religious coping and Emery and Pargament (2004) consider the challenges of later life where the majority of adults claim that they incorporate religion and spirituality into their coping repertoire.

The future

New technologies have provided new opportunities for coping research to go beyond behavioural observation, self‐report, real‐time recording of behaviours to brain imaging and the recording of functional changes in the brain. Some research has been referenced earlier in this review. From a treatment sense, Nechvatal and Lyons (2013), in a systematic review of 49 reports of exposure therapy and the brain, found 15 studies that meet their criteria and where efficacy was established for exposure therapy. As Folkman (2010) recently concluded,

The continuous and rapid development of new technologies and the concurrent new development of multidisciplinary fields of enquiry open the way to new theoretical models, new hypotheses and new discoveries (p. 3).

Notwithstanding that there is considerable promise in extending our understanding of behavioural change through neuroscience, the field as a whole has yet to embrace this approach for research and practice.

Concluding Remarks

While there has been significant progress to date, there is promise of new directions in the future. To date, we know that coping research is well able to describe individuals and groups in context, albeit generally through self‐report. Although this approach can contribute towards our understanding of human behaviour, there are still many unanswered questions that relate to achievement and adjustment in different cohorts, in diverse contexts. The groups that are less well researched are the early years (see Yeo, Frydenberg, Northam & Deans, 2014, in this volume), the elderly and non‐Western communities. More importantly, however, our measurement tools and insights can help us impact change collectively and individually both from an educational perspective and from one that is clinically addressing particular needs. Future collaborations between coping and neuroscience researchers hold promise in that regard.

Hobfoll himself is a strong critique of the fact that many a priori coping predictions do not work out. If the Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) conceptualisations are accepted general problem‐focused coping is good and emotion‐focused coping is bad. We have come a long way since then with our various categorisations that go beyond the two conceptualisations. It can also be seen that predicting individual behaviour in all circumstances is unlikely to be achievable given the concomitance of factors that impact an individual in a context. Unlike Selye's (1976) view of stress as biological we now see it as both psychological (appraisal) and situational.

Coping research was directly born out of stress research but as the decades have progressed coping has moved closer into the realm of positive psychology with positive emotions, health, and well‐being and issues around being proactive rather than reactive coming to the fore. Theorists such as Hobfoll (2010) consider the links between what he has been doing and what the positive psychology researchers are focusing on. The importance of context and supportive environments, whether they be for individuals or for groups is now well understood. Positive appraisals and the building up of resources, including coping skills per se are a key elements to healthy development. Categorisation issues remain but are less important in that it is unlikely that we would ever reach agreement on nomenclature and categorisation. Categorisation provides the tools for research and practice in that it identifies key constructs that practitioners can use as part of skill building. How these insights have informed practice is evidenced by the wealth of publications in the practice arena. While universal interventions are relatively few, targeted interventions are most common whether it be for a particular health conditions such as diabetes, grief, trauma and loss, or achievement and success. The measurement tools guide intervention and assist with evaluation of outcomes. Regardless of the high volume of research output relating to coping the transactional and resource, theories remain dominant. These theories are complementary and most other developments are variants of these two dominant theories.