Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: This review focuses on coping with stress, with particular emphasis on mechanisms facilitating constructive coping with stress. An important area of contemporary research is the attempt to identify factors that make it possible to stay mentally healthy or preventing the weakening of the cognitive and social functioning. The currently prevailing approach to stress is the relational approach. According to this approach, the criterion for the occurrence of stress is the cognitive assessment of the situation made by an individual. This review presents the most recent proposals concerning the analysis of specific methods of coping with stress, in particular from the perspective of their adaptiveness. Particular attention is paid to meaningfocused coping. We also discuss the presence of positive emotions in difficult situations. Positive emotions may play many adaptive functions especially in long-term stress situations: they make it possible to rebuild physical, intellectual and social resources, and they also extend the scope of attention and action. Positive emotions may also, to a certain extent, mitigate psychological and physiological consequences of stressful events. Finally we discuss the main directions of research related to factors determining well-being and sample experiments aimed at intensifying the feeling of happiness.
Institution: University of Kentucky
Language: English
Topic: Resilience and Mental Health
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2301912096