People use emotional coping to avoid being overwhelmed by negative emotions and to keep those emotions from preventing them from taking action to solve their problems. Emotionally-oriented coping is also resorted to in case of impossibility of resolving the problem.
There are many ways to overcome negative emotions. Some researchers distinguish between behavioral and cognitive strategies (Moos, 1988). Behavioral strategies include exercising to move your thoughts away from the problem, using alcohol and drugs, taking out anger, and seeking emotional support from friends. Cognitive strategies include being able to temporarily put aside thoughts about the problem (for example, “I decided that I shouldn’t worry about this”) and reduce the threat by changing the meaning of the situation (for example, “I decided that friendship with her is not so important to me «). Cognitive strategies often involve reassessing the situation. It is natural to expect that some behavioral and cognitive strategies will have an adaptive effect, while others will only cause even more stress in a person (for example, systematic drinking).
One of the strategies to help overcome negative emotions, adapt to the stressor emotionally and physically, is to seek emotional support from others. For example, when examining women who had just undergone surgery for breast cancer, scientists found (Levy et al., 1990) that those who sought social support from others had higher activity of protective cells, which indicated that their immune system fights cancer more aggressively (see also the article «Can Cancer Be Psychologically Influenced?»). In a large series of studies (Pennebaker, 1990) it was found that people who tell sympathizers about personal traumas, such as the rape or suicide of their marital partner, often have good physical health both shortly after the trauma and in the long term.
However, the health impact of the social support a person receives after an injury is highly dependent on the quality of the support (Rook, 1984). During a stressful period, some friends and relatives can be a burden instead of a relief. After the occurrence of a major stressor, such as the death of a loved one, people with conflicting social ties experience deterioration in physical and emotional health (Windholz et al., 1985). Conflicting social relationships can affect physical health through the immune system. It was found (Kiecolt-Glazer et al., 1998) that newlywed couples who developed mutual hostility and negative attitudes towards each other while discussing the problems of their marriage had a greater deterioration in the functioning of the immune system on four indicators than couples who when discussing the problems of their marriage, they remained calm and non-hostile. In addition, the former had increased blood pressure longer than the latter.
Some people tend to exhibit less adaptive forms of coping with negative emotions: they simply deny that they are experiencing negative emotions and force them out of the conscious part of the psyche — a strategy known as repressive coping. People who engage in this form of coping with negative emotions exhibit greater autonomic nervous system activity than those who do not (Brown et al., 1996; Weinberg, Schwartz & Davidson, 1979). Repressing emotions into the unconscious may require actual physical exertion, leading to chronic overexcitation and, in turn, to physical illness.
The repression of significant aspects of one’s self can also adversely affect health. Intriguing results from a study involving homosexuals suggest that people who hide their homosexual orientation may suffer health problems as a result (Cole et al., 1996). These results show that men who hide their homosexuality were almost 3 times more likely to experience cancer and some infectious diseases (pneumonia, bronchitis, sinusitis, tuberculosis) over a five-year period than men who do not hide their homosexuality (Fig. 14.6). None of these men were infected with the AIDS virus. However, in another study by the same psychologists, which focused on homosexual men infected with the AIDS virus, it was found that the disease progressed faster in those who concealed their homosexuality (Cole et al., 1996). However, health-related differences between those who were “open” or “closed” to their sexual orientation did not reflect differences in their health-related behaviors (smoking, exercise). It is likely that chronic concealment of one’s own identity, like chronic suppression of emotions, has a direct impact on health.
Rice. 14.6. Infectious diseases as a result of hiding one’s sexual orientation. Homosexual men who hide their homosexuality from others are more susceptible to various infectious diseases (according to: Cole et al., 1996).
On the other hand, openly discussing your negative emotions and important issues regarding your own life seems to have a positive effect on health. In a wide-ranging series of studies, Pennebaker (Pennebaker, 1990) found that following guidelines for writing personal traumas in diaries or essays had a positive effect on health. Thus, in one of these studies, 50 healthy senior students were randomly assigned to groups, which were given the task to describe either the most traumatic and unpleasant events from their lives, or their thoughts on abstract topics for 20 minutes over 4 days. Blood samples were taken from the subjects on the day before the start of the task and on the last day of the task, as well as 6 weeks after the end of the experiment, and analyzed for a number of indicators of the functioning of the immune system. The number of visits these students made to their college medical center was also recorded and compared with the number of visits to the center prior to the start of the experiment. As can be seen from fig. In Figure 14.7, students who described their personal trauma showed more positive immune system tests and had fewer medical center visits than control students (Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser & Glaser, 1988).
Rice. 14.7. Health of students after describing their injuries or ordinary life episodes. Students who described their personal traumas in a series of written papers had a more stable functioning of the immune system and were less likely to seek medical help than students who described ordinary life episodes in their papers (according to: Pennebaker, Krecolt-Glaser & Glaser, 1988).
Positive social support helps people cope better emotionally with stress in another way, by preventing stressor-related mental chewing (Nolen-Hoeksema, Parker & Larson, 1994; Pennebaker & O’Heeron, 1984). “Mental chewing gum” means immersing a person in their thoughts about how bad they feel, anxiety about the consequences of a stressful event or their emotional state, or constantly talking about how bad things are without taking any action to change it. In one long-term study of people who had recently lost a loved one, those who responded to their sadness with «mental chewing gum» were found to prolong their depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, Parker & Larson, 1994). In addition, those who were in social isolation or in conflict relations with the social environment were most often in a state of «mental chewing gum».
Another long-term study arose by accident. In 1989, a group of researchers at Stanford University had just finished measuring emotionally-oriented coping tendencies and levels of depression and anxiety in a large group of students when a massive earthquake hit San Francisco Bay 2 weeks later. Depression and anxiety levels were measured again 10 days and 7 weeks after the earthquake. The extent to which students’ stress was a result of the earthquake (ie, damage to themselves, their friends, and their home) was also assessed. The results showed that those who had a “ruminant” style of coping with emotions before the earthquake were more likely to be depressed and anxious 10 days and 7 weeks after the earthquake. The results remained the same even after taking into account the levels of depression and anxiety found in these students before the earthquake (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991a). Students who resorted to dangerous drugs, such as alcohol, to avoid low moods were also more likely to be depressed and anxious. In contrast, those students who engaged in pleasurable activities to elevate their mood and regain a sense of control had short and mild periods of depression and anxiety.
You might ask, aren’t those who deal with stress through mental chewing more sensitive to their experiences and therefore more able to solve their problems? Data available to date says no. People who fixate on a problem are less likely to take on the challenge of actively coping with the difficulties that followed the stressor. In contrast, if people took even a short break from their gloomy mood by doing something enjoyable, they were more likely to move into active problem solving to cope with stressors (Nolen-Hoeksema, Parker & Larson, 1992; Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow , 1991a). In addition, attempts to solve a problem in a state of «mental chewing gum» are actually less successful. In two laboratory studies, depressed people who took on a task after 10 minutes of “mental chewing” were shown to perform worse than depressed people who were distracted for the same 1991 minutes before solving the task (Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema, in press; Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, XNUMXb). «Mental chewing gum» can get in the way of a good solution to a problem.
Defense Mechanisms as Emotion-Oriented Coping
The coping strategies we have discussed so far have been explored relatively recently. However, in the psychoanalytic literature (A. Freud, 1946/1967), the idea of emotionally oriented coping has a long history. To refer to the unconscious strategies that allow people to overcome negative emotions, Anna Freud introduced the concept of a defense mechanism. This emotionally oriented strategy does not change the stressful situation, it only changes the person’s ideas and thoughts about it. Therefore, in all defense mechanisms there is an element of self-deception. See →