What is Coping in a Stressful Context?

People respond very differently to stress. We all know people who throw up their hands in despair when the slightest thing goes wrong with their plans, yet we know others who seem able to meet setbacks and challenges with equanimity, bringing their personal and social resources to bear on the problem at hand. The impact of any potentially stressful event is substantially influenced by how a person appraises it.

Any new event or change in the environment prompts the individual to make primary appraisals of the significance of the event, an event may be judged to be positive, neutral, or negative in its implications for the self. If an event is judged to be negative, it will be further judged in terms of the harm or loss that has already been done, he future threat associated with the event, and the potential challenge of the event-that is, the perception that gain, growth, pr master may result from dealing with the event.

At the same time that primary appraisals are undertaken, the individual is also making secondary appraisals of his or her ability to cope with the potentially stressful event. Secondary appraisal is the evaluation of one's coping resources and options to determine whether hey will be sufficient to overcome the harm and threatening the event represents.

Coping is the process of managing demands (external or internal_ that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person. "Coping consists of efforts, both action-oriented and intrapsychotic to manage (that is , master, tolerate, reduce, minimize) environmental and internal demands and conflicts among them."
This definition of coping has several important aspects.

First, the relationship between coping and a stressful event is a dynamic process. Coping is a series of transactions between a person who has a set of resources, values, and commitments and a particular environment with its own resources, demands, and constraints. Thus, coping is not a onetime action that someone takes, rather, it is a set of responses, occurring over time, by which the environment and the person influence each other. For example, the impending breakup of a romantic relationship can produce a variety of reaction, ranging from emotional responses, such as sadness or indignation, to actions, such as efforts at reconciliation or attempts to find engrossing, distracting activities. These coping efforts will, in turn, be influenced by the way the partner in the relationship responds. With encouragement from the partner, the person may make renewed efforts at reconciliation, whereas anger or rejection may drive the person further away.