Emotion-Focused Coping

Stress is ubiquitous. How people cope with stress is determined by evolution and refined by culture. We know that, as a residual from early history, humans respond to stress by freezing in panic, fleeing, or fighting. They also are social creatures, not merely freezing, fleeing, or fighting individuals, so when stressed, people also tend and befriend. But society and culture provide many options besides knee-jerk, evolutionarily directed responses to stress. The capabilities to cope with modern-day stresses are not necessarily innate for humans. Nor do they usually appear by maturation. Usually, humans must develop the capabilities on the basis of learning and experiences. This entry defines emotion-focused coping and identifies its place among types of coping. It examines across the life span the development of ...