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Passive Coping Strategies

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Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

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Synonyms

Avoidance; Helplessness

Definition

Coping is the set of intentional, goal-directed efforts people engage in to minimize the physical, psychological, or social harm of an event or situation (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Lazarus, 1999). There are many different theoretical and empirical frameworks for understanding coping and many different ways of classifying coping strategies, but one such classification is “passive coping.” Passive coping refers to feeling of helplessness to deal with the stressor and relying on others to resolve the stressful event or situation (Zeidner & Endler, 1996). Those engaging in passive coping relinquish to others the control of the stressful situation and of their reaction to that situation, or allow other areas of their lives to be adversely affected by the stressful event or situation (Field, McCabe, & Schneiderman, 1985). This reliance on external resources is contrasted with “active coping,” in which the individual is relying upon their own...

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References and Readings

  • Field, T., McCabe, P. M., & Schneiderman, N. (1985). Stress and coping. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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  • Lazarus, R. S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer.

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  • Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. New York: Springer.

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  • Moos, R. H. (1986). Coping with life crises: An integrated approach. New York: Plenum Press.

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  • Zeidner, M., & Endler, N. S. (1996). Handbook of coping: Theory, research, applications. New York: Wiley.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Alberta, 4075 Research Transition Facility, T6G 2T4, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Dr. Linda Carroll

Authors
  1. Dr. Linda Carroll
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Carroll .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioral Medicine Research Center, Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Marc D. Gellman

  2. Cardiovascular Safety, Quintiles, Durham, NC, USA

    J. Rick Turner

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, New York

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Carroll, L. (2013). Passive Coping Strategies. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1164

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1164

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1004-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1005-9

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