Question

Define emotion-focused, problem-forcused, avoidant, and proactive coping.

Answer 1

Stress is one fatal element that keeps the human beings on their toes but when the intensity of the stress increases for various reasons, it becomes difficult for one to get along with one’s day today life. Thus it becomes very important to cope with the stress that one experiences. Different people adopt different coping strategies depending on the environment and support that they have. The most common coping strategies are, emotion-focused, problem-focused, avoidant, and proactive.

Emotion-focused coping strategy suggests that people respond to different emotions such as embarrassment, fear, anxiety, depression, excitement and frustration when the stressing factor is out of one’s control. Some people pen down their experiences while others keep themselves away from those events or people who cause stress temporarily. Few choose to do meditation, yoga or even some other physical exercises to escape from the stress.

Problem-focused coping strategy suggests that people tackle the stress in more practical ways by taking stress head on. They try to solve the problem at hand by managing and planning their activities well and by getting enough support from other people from the place of stress origin.

Avoidant coping refers to people’s inability to face the stress thus involving in negative acts such as drugs, loneliness etc. They try to avoid the situation entirely by withdrawing themselves in solitude. They are afraid of criticism, change and challenge. They might also harm themselves on the long run because of their inability.

Proactive coping suggests that people prepare well in order to overcome the stress in the future. It’s about identifying future stressors in the future. For example a student studying hard to score well and be happy about the results at the end or an athlete preparing hard for the event finally go on to win it. When people prepare and plan well in advance they think they can succeed and overcome the stress.

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