Stress Health And Well Being Thriving in the 21st Century 1st Edition By Rick Harrington – Test Bank

Stress Health And Well Being Thriving in the 21st Century 1st Edition By Rick Harrington – Test Bank

Chapter 10: Cognitive and Behavioral Approaches

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. One of the first theoretical groupings of coping strategies, suggested by Folkman and Lazarus (1980), splits coping strategies into the two broad-based categories. ____ coping involves dealing with the perceived cause of the distress whereas ____ coping entails managing the distress caused by the problem.

a.

Emotion-focused; problem-focused

b.

Problem-focused; emotion-focused

c.

Social support seeking; meaning-making

d.

Meaning-making; social support seeking

ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

2. Planning that uses mentally oriented problem-focused coping is a form of ____ coping.

a.

active cognitive

c.

avoidance

b.

active behavioral

d.

meaning-making

ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

3. Trying harder that employs action oriented problem-focused coping is a form of ____ coping.

a.

active cognitive

c.

avoidance

b.

active behavioral

d.

meaning-making

ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

4. ____ coping is a form of emotion-focused coping that may involve using cognitive or behavioral strategies.

a.

Active cognitive

c.

Avoidance

b.

Active behavioral

d.

Meaning-making

ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

5. The statement “I went on as if nothing had happened” is a strategy of avoidance coping called ____ that can be adaptive.

a.

restraint coping

c.

escape avoidance

b.

denial

d.

distancing

ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

6. Examples of ____ include “confided your fears and worries to a friend or relative,” “sought reassurance from those who know you best,” and “went to a friend for advice on how to change the situation.”

a.

problem-focused coping

c.

meaning-making coping

b.

emotion-focused coping

d.

support seeking

ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

7. ____ is a category of coping that uses our values, beliefs, and goals to shape meaning in stressful situations that are generally not conducive to the use of problem-focused coping such as long-term caregiving for a loved one with dementia or loss of a loved one.

a.

Meaning-making coping

c.

Social support seeking

b.

Emotion-focused coping

d.

Active coping

ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

8. ____ cover broad areas “such as fairness, justice, luck, control, predictability, coherence, benevolence, and personal vulnerability” and global goals “ideals, states, or objects that people work toward being or achieving or maintaining, such as relationships, work, wealth, knowledge, and achievement.”

a.

Global truths

c.

Global beliefs

b.

Situational beliefs

d.

Global meaning

ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

9. The ____ process of adding new information (i.e., the situational meaning) to an already existing schema or cognitive framework (i.e., one’s global meaning) is more common than the ____ process of changing the larger organizing schema (i.e., one’s global meaning) to fit the smaller one (i.e., the situational meaning).

a.

acceptance; accommodation

c.

accommodation;assimilation

b.

assimilation; acceptance

d.

assimilation; accommodation

ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

10. ____ is a specific type of coping strategy in which one thinks about and decides on future actions for dealing with the problem.

a.

Planning

b.

Active coping

c.

Seeking social support for instrumental reasons

d.

Positive reinterpretation and growth

ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

11. ____ is a specific type of coping strategy in which one intentionally sets aside other projects to focus on the problem.

a.

Restraint coping

c.

Suppression of competing activities

b.

Mental disengagement

d.

Denial

ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

12. ____ is a specific type of coping strategy in which one deliberately waits until the time is right to act.

a.

Restraint coping

c.

Suppression of competing activities

b.

Mental disengagement

d.

Denial

ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

13. ____ is a specific type of coping strategy in which one reduces efforts to act on the stressor.

a.

Acceptance

c.

Mental disengagement

b.

Behavioral disengagement

d.

Denial

ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

14. ____ is a distorted thinking category in which one takes a specific example and sees it as global. “It never ends. I got bad news today, but then again, my life is nothing but bad news.”

a.

Overgeneralization

c.

All-or-nothing thinking

b.

Magnification or minimization

d.

Jumping to conclusions

ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

15. ____ is a distorted thinking category in which one exaggerates or downplay the importance of something. “My stomach hurts. It must be appendicitis.” “Yes I smoke but I’ll outlive all you nonsmokers.”

a.

Overgeneralization

c.

Discounting the positives

b.

Magnification or minimization

d.

Mental filter

ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

16. ____ is a distorted thinking category in which one makes absolutistic statements.

a.

All-or-nothing thinking

c.

“Should” statements

b.

Jumping to conclusions

d.

Magnification or minimization

ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

17. ____ is a distorted thinking category in which one uses negative labels about oneself or others rather than describing the event. “If I wasn’t such a weak person, I would have stood up to her.”

a.

Blame

c.

Discounting the positives

b.

Emotional reasoning

d.

Labeling

ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

18. People who realize ____ are able to cultivate positive expectations when they see connections between their efforts and outcomes. In order to do this, they must challenge pessimistic causal attributional explanatory styles.

a.

learned optimism

c.

restraint coping

b.

active coping

d.

positive reinterpretation

ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: Learned Optimism

19. ____ are cognitions that address the “Why?” question. For example, we may ask ourselves “why did the bad event happen?”

a.

Primary appraisals

c.

Control attributions

b.

Secondary appraisals

d.

Causal attributions

ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: Learned Optimism

20. Recent research indicates that human ____ hormone may play a role in the bonding process for women with their pet dogs, but not for men and their dogs.

a.

parathyroid

c.

norepinephrine

b.

oxytocin

d.

dopamine

ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies

SHORT ANSWER

1. Provide two definitions of coping.

ANS:

Recall from Chapter 1 that coping refers to the effective use of resources and strategies to deal with internal or external demands (Coyne & Holroyd, 1982). Another definition of coping is “the efforts we take to manage situations we have appraised as being potentially harmful or stressful” (Kleinke, 2007, pp. 290-291).

PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

2. In general, how effective is avoidance coping for dealing with minor or transient irritations? For serious or chronic problems?

ANS:

In general avoidance, coping is effective as a strategy for dealing with minor or transient irritations such as those that may soon go away on their own. However, for serious or chronic problems, avoidance coping only brings temporary relief from distress. It is not an effective long-term strategy.

PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

3. What is global meaning?

ANS:

Global meaning is a product of our system of core values, beliefs, and goals that we use to interpret our experiences of the world.

PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

4. Describe the 50-item Ways of Coping scale. What coping strategies does this inventory measure?

ANS:

The 50-item Ways of Coping scale that measures eight types of coping was one of the first checklist coping inventories (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980, 1988b). This inventory measures coping strategies labeled confrontive coping, distancing, self-controlling, seeking social support, accepting responsibility, escape-avoidance, planful problem solving, and positive reappraisal.

PTS: 1 REF: Measurement of Coping Strategies

5. What issues arise in retrospective coping inventories? How do researchers attempt to get around these problems?

ANS:

Retrospective coping inventories suffer from the same issues discussed in Chapter 4 regarding inventories that ask for recall of stressful life events. That is, people often have difficulty remembering events accurately and may have memory distortions or biases when answering. Some researchers have attempted to get around this problem by using momentary accounts of coping such as asking about the most stressful experience the research participant had that day or during another proximal interval, commonly 48 hours.

PTS: 1 REF: Measurement of Coping Strategies

6. Another way to conceptualize the different specific coping strategies is to think of them as intersecting along two dimensions: problem-focused versus emotion-focused and approach versus avoidance coping. Discuss.

ANS:

Approach coping involves using strategies to reduce or eliminate the stressor or its effects (e.g., distress). Avoidance coping in this context refers to disengaging from the stressor or its effects. For example, problem-focused approach coping involves planning whereas problem-focused avoidance coping involves behavioral disengagement. Emotion-focused approach coping involves cognitive restructuring whereas emotion-focused avoidance coping involves denial.

PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

7. Researchers studying religious-based coping note that it is important to distinguish this specific subset of religiosity from general religiosity. Why?

ANS:

Religious-based coping refers to the use of religious methods to reduce stress whereas general religiosity does not necessarily have that aim. Psychologist and pioneer religiosity/spirituality researcher Kenneth Pargament and his colleagues (Pargament, Smith, Koenig, & Perez, 1998, p. 710) argue that religious-based coping adds a unique component to the study of coping and thus “religious coping cannot be ‘reduced’ to nonreligious forms of coping”.

PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

8. In general, which coping strategies discussed are the most effective overall for managing stress?

ANS:

Although approach coping seems to be the most successful and avoidance coping the least successful, there appears to be no best strategy for every situation. The key is flexibility and the ability to use a wide range of coping strategies to fit the specific context or situation. As Kleinke (2007, p. 305) concludes after reviewing the coping literature, “people who cope most successfully are those who are equipped with a battery of coping strategies and who are flexible in adapting their responses to the situation.”

PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

9. Define cognitive primacy

ANS:

The idea that cognitions influence how we respond to stress is called cognitive primacy.

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

10. Define cognitive restructuring.

ANS:

Cognitive restructuring, a technique used in cognitive-behavioral therapy, in this context refers to the process of challenging dysfunctional automatic thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs and replacing them with healthier realistic thinking patterns.

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

11. Examples of irrational beliefs that would need to be disputed include a high need for perfection or approval. List the two main characteristics of such beliefs.

ANS:

Such beliefs have two main characteristics. They (a) are absolutistic and (b) generate attributions that are over-general and unrealistic.

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

12. What techniques do REBT therapists use to assist the client in challenging irrational beliefs?

ANS:

REBT therapists use techniques such as debating, bibliotherapy (therapists providing reading material to clients that provide additional support for treatment), social skills training, and role playing to assist the client in challenging irrational beliefs.

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

13. Describe the distorted thinking category of emotional reasoning used in Beck’s triple column method exercise. Provide examples.

ANS:

Emotional reasoning- confusing feelings for facts. For instance, feeling like one is incompetent is seen as evidence that one is incompetent. “How do I know I’m incompetent? Because I feel incompetent, that’s how.”

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

14. Describe the distorted thinking category of blame used in Beck’s triple column method exercise. Provide examples.

ANS:

Blame- internalizing or externalizing responsibility inappropriately. This thinking style involves blaming others for outcomes you are responsible for or blaming yourself for outcomes you had no control over. “If I had gotten more hits, we would have won the game.” “If you had gotten more hits, we would have won the game.”

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

15. Elaborate on how the attributional retraining (AR) approach has been used to improve academic achievement.

ANS:

A related approach, known as attributional retraining (AR), has been successfully used for more than two decades to improve college students’ academic achievement. The AR approach encourages students to use attributions of control (as opposed to attributions of no control) after poor academic performances. Studies indicate that AR generally leads to modest improvements in academic performance (Perry, Hechter, Menec, & Weinberg, 1993; Perry, Stupnisky, Hall, Chipperfield, & Weiner, 2010).

PTS: 1 REF: Learned Optimism

16. What three conclusions have Smyth and Pennebaker (2008) derived from the last two decades of expressive studies?

ANS:

After reviewing the empirical results of the last two decades of expressive writing studies, Smyth and Pennebaker (2008) conclude that (1) people do not need to write about trauma or negative experiences to reap benefits of expressive writing because writing about positive experiences also leads to gains of a similar magnitude, (2) several days of writing are not necessary since benefits can accrue when writing within one day, and (3) there does not seem to be one theoretical process that best explains why expressive writing works—in many ways it is still a mystery.

PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies

17. Describe the process of self-forgiveness.

ANS:

Self-forgiveness refers to the constructive process of letting go of a desire to punish, retaliate, or act destructively toward oneself due to one’s perceived transgressions. It does not absolve a person from taking responsibility for objective acts of wrongdoing. Taking responsibility may involve making a commitment to never again commit the offensive acts or to make reparations to persons who have been harmed by such acts (see Fisher & Exline, 2006; Hall & Fincham, 2005).

PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies

18. When is self-forgiveness is more likely to occur?

ANS:

The small body of research literature on the practice suggests that self-forgiveness is more likely to occur when the transgressing person (a) feels less guilt about the transgression (b) engages in more conciliatory behavior toward the victim and (c) perceives the victim as more forgiving (Hall & Fincham, 2008).

PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies

19. Give an example of a behavior in which self-blame can lead to positive health behaviors.

ANS:

In cases such as tobacco smoking, self-blame can lead to positive health behaviors such as quitting smoking.

PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies

20. What are the two conclusions we can generally draw from research assessing the physiological benefits of human-animal interaction?

ANS:

First, longitudinal studies suggest that human-animal interaction through pet ownership can result in lower blood pressure and heart rate. Second, interacting with pets can buffer autonomic reactivity to acute stress.

PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies

ESSAY

1. Discuss the goodness of fit hypothesis.

ANS:

The goodness of fit hypothesis (Folkman, 1984) suggests that coping is most effective when there is a good fit between the coping strategy and the amount of control you can exert over the stressor. In situations in which you can exert a high level of control over the stressor, then problem-focused strategies are the best fit but when you can exert little or no control over the stressor then emotion-focused strategies are the best fit. In other words, if you can make the problem go away by solving it, then your best coping strategy is to tackle the problem. However, if you cannot make the problem go away, then your best coping strategy is to manage your emotional reactions to the stressor rather than trying to solve an insolvable problem.

PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

2. Although there is substantial support for the goodness of fit hypothesis in coping, Folkman and Moskowitz (2004) conclude after examining the relevant studies that the empirical evidence for its validity is not always consistent. What is the evidence for the inconsistency of this hypothesis?

ANS:

In many cases the fit hypothesis is supported, but in other cases there are inconsistencies. For example, women who experienced a failed in vitro fertilization attempt—an outcome that is largely uncontrollable–who used emotion-approach coping adjusted better than those who used problem-focused coping in one study (Terry & Hynes, 1998) supporting the goodness of fit hypothesis. Yet, when women in this same study used an escapist strategy, a form of emotion-focused avoidance coping, they showed poor adjustment even though there was a good fit between their perception of low controllability and their coping strategy. In another study (Macrodimitris & Endler, 2001), people with Type 2 diabetes who used active problem-focused coping to manage their controllable health condition showed less depression. However, contrary to the goodness of fit hypothesis, their use of problem-focused coping was not related to perceptions of control. On the other hand, their employment of emotion-focused coping when combined with low perceptions of control was associated with better psychological adjustment, supporting the goodness of fit hypothesis.

PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

3. In order to restore shaken or lost meaning, changes need to be made to either the situational meaning or the global meaning or both to bring them into alignment with each other. Discuss the process of meaning making.

ANS:

Meaning making includes the use of cognitive restructuring (reworking existing assumptions and beliefs and replacing them with new ones) to fit the specific situational event meaning into the wider global meaning framework (i.e., assimilation) or to change the wider global meaning framework to conform to the specific situational event meaning (i.e., accommodation). This process produces cognitive products known as meanings made. Failure to resolve these discrepancies leads to poor adjustment and ruminative attempts to come to terms with the event. Good adjustment occurs when the meaning making process leads to congruency between situational and global meaning that in turn leads to acceptance or resolution.

PTS: 1 REF: General Types of Coping Strategies

4. Which is most accurate, the retrospective or the momentary reports?

ANS:

One study (Stone et al., 1998) that compared reports of retrospective coping with those of momentary coping found that the retrospective approach under-reported cognitive coping strategies and over-reported behavioral coping strategies relative to the information collected using momentary coping data. Which then is most accurate, the retrospective or the momentary reports? That’s not entirely clear since even the study’s researchers noted that participants making momentary reports may also forget or omit information. For example, since the participants had to report information repeatedly, they may have thought they had already reported particular coping strategies that they in fact had not reported. Further, they may have focused on more concrete well-defined stress-related problems in their momentary reports rather than larger more abstract problems that become more apparent across longer time spans. Thus, the momentary reports may not be as sensitive a measure for collecting information on how people cope with more abstract stress-related problems as retrospective checklists.

PTS: 1 REF: Measurement of Coping Strategies

5. Some researchers use narrative approaches in which participants identify a stressor and then give an account of how they coped with the stressor. Discuss the advantage(s) and disadvantage(s) of this approach.

ANS:

An advantage of this approach is that it can uncover novel coping strategies that are not included on a checklist. However, the narrative approach, too, has its shortcomings. For example, unlike checklists that prompt one’s memory about different coping strategies, narratives have no prompts and so coping strategies that are used may be forgotten. Folkman and Moskowitz (2004, p. 751) conclude, “there is no gold standard for the measurement of coping. The measurement of coping is probably as much art as it is science. The art comes in selecting the approach that is most appropriate and useful to the researcher’s question.”

PTS: 1 REF: Measurement of Coping Strategies

6. Discuss Park’s study in which she concluded that religion was related to meaning-making coping.

ANS:

Park (2005, p. 721) concluded from her cross-sectional study of 169 bereaved college students that “religion was related to meaning-making coping, as reflected in positive reappraisal coping, and to adjustment in terms of subjective well-being and stress-related growth. Further, the association of religion with these adjustment outcomes was mediated by positive reappraisal coping.” In other words, religion seemed to produce its positive subjective well-being and stress-related growth effects primarily through engendering a type of meaning-making coping called positive reappraisal coping. Along with meaning-making coping, other traditional general types of coping such as seeking social support and emotion-focused coping may also overlap with religious-based coping methods.

PTS: 1 REF: Specific Types of Coping Strategies

7. Ellis (see Ellis & Dryden, 2007) developed rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) in the mid 1950s as an alternative to traditional psychoanalysis. Discuss the ABC model that Ellis proposed.

ANS:

He proposed an ABC model whereby “A,” an activating event such as receiving a poor exam grade, is interpreted through “B,” one’s beliefs, leading to emotional and behavioral consequences, “C.” If “B” is irrational, then a student who receives a poor exam grade is likely to have an exaggerated emotional response to “A” such as depression, shame, anger, or anxiety that is out of proportion to the event. In other words, the student will catastrophize and see the event as having catastrophic meaning.

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

8. What questions can one ask to self-challenge irrational beliefs?

ANS:

We can self-challenge our irrational beliefs through asking ourselves questions such as (1) What evidence supports or refutes this belief? (2) Is this belief rational or logical? (3) What is a more rational belief that I can substitute for this irrational belief? For example, a perfectionist can use self-talk, the silent internal dialogue we have with ourselves, to say “I would like to have done well on the exam, but even though I didn’t do well, I am still a worthwhile person who in the past did well on other exams and will do well in the future.” In this way, the absolutistic language of have to is substituted with more flexible language such as I would like to and the consequences are not seen as a reflection of self-worth or future catastrophes.

PTS: 1 REF: Cognitive Restructuring

9. Discuss Meichenbaum’s stress inoculation training (SIT). What concept is it based on? What combination of cognitive and behavioral skill-building approaches does it use? Elaborate on its three phases.

ANS:

Donald Meichenbaum (1985, 1996) developed stress inoculation training (SIT) as a cognitive-behavior modification training program to prepare individuals for stressful future encounters or to treat current excess stress. The inoculation concept is based on the principle of fortifying individuals with coping skills (i.e., inoculating them) so that when they encounter anticipated stressful events they will be prepared. SIT uses a combination of cognitive and behavioral skill-building approaches such as educating, raising self-awareness (i.e., self-monitoring), cognitive restructuring, problem solving, relaxation training, and rehearsing. It consists of three phases called the (1) “conceptual educational phase,” (2) “skills acquisition and skills consolidation phase,” and (3) “application and follow-through phase” (Meichenbaum, 2007, p. 501).

In the conceptual educational phase the goal is to help clients understand their stress-related problems through collecting information and then presenting the information to them in a collaborative manner that engenders hope. The second phase emphasizes the development of coping skills for dealing with target stressors. These may include use of coping self-statements, anger management, cognitive restructuring, relaxation, assertiveness training, problem solving, use of social support, emotion-focused coping to deal with uncontrollable stressors, and so forth. Last, the application and follow-through phase involves practice applying these skills during increasing levels of stress. Role playing, modeling, and exposure to real life stress situations are used as well as techniques to prevent relapse such as learning to identify and rehearse for high risk situations.

PTS: 1 REF: Stress Inoculation Training

10. Opposite of the commonly held belief that laughter lowers blood pressure, Martin (2002, p. 218) concludes that “experimental studies indicate that laughter is actually associated with short-term increases in blood pressure and heart rate, but no longer-term effects.” Discuss the more positive results found for using coping humor.

ANS:

More positive results are found for using coping humor, a strategy of using humor to cope with stress. For example, Kuiper and his colleagues (Kuiper, Grimshaw, Leite, & Kirsh, 2004) demonstrated that coping humor is linked to higher levels of self-esteem, perceived competency, and positive affect as well as less anxiety, depression, and negative affect. Further, they demonstrated that some sense-of-humor styles are associated with positive psychological well-being such as affiliative humor (e.g., “I laugh and joke a lot with my friends”) and self-enhancing humor (e.g. “Even when I’m by myself, I am amused by the absurdities in life”), whereas others are associated with negative psychological well-being such as self-defeating humor (e.g., “I often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family and friends laugh”) and belabored humor (e.g., “I react in an exaggerated way to mildly humorous comments”) (Kuiper et al., 2004, p. 147). Their ironic conclusion is listed in the title of their article that reads “Humor is not always the best medicine” (p. 135).

PTS: 1 REF: Additional Coping Strategies