Stress, Coping, and Development (Aldwin, 2007)

An Integrative Perspective

"In this second edition, Aldwin provides an informed overview of the huge body of research and theory on coping. She presents potentially difficult content in easy-to-digest terms and covers a broad array of important issues. Thus, the book is ideal for graduate-level classes. It also will be of great interest to social and behavioral scientists and professionals who want to understand the basic empirical findings on this important topic and their relevance to real-world concerns, particularly in the areas of mental and physical health and aging."--Nancy Eisenberg, PhD, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University

"Carolyn Aldwin has further enriched a book that was already rich in ideas, facts, and theory. This second edition offers a comprehensive account of the field of stress and coping with some very appealing new material, especially in the areas of development, positive aspects of stress, social aspects of stress, and stress and health. Aldwin’s multidisciplinary perspective is exactly what is needed in the field."--Susan Folkman, PhD, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

"I didn't realize that there was so much I didn't know about stress until I read this book. While giving fair coverage to reductionism and interactionism, Aldwin makes a convincing case for transactionism as a way to integrate a vast amount of research on stress. Anyone interested in health psychology will find this work very useful."--Ellen J. Langer, PhD, Department of Psychology, Harvard University

"I know of no other book that has accomplished what this work does: It provides an insightful and thorough examination of stress and coping research as it relates to human development across the lifespan. The second edition includes valuable new chapters on the physiology of stress; transformational coping; and self-regulation, self-development, and wisdom. Also laudable is the discussion of methodological advances, such as methods for the analysis of longitudinal data, which have permitted the field to examine the effects of stress and coping on human development more rigorously."--Manfred Diehl, PhD, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University

Product Description
How do people cope with stressful experiences? What makes a coping strategy effective for a particular individual? This volume comprehensively examines the nature of psychosocial stress and the implications of different coping strategies for adaptation and health across the lifespan. Carolyn M. Aldwin synthesizes a vast body of knowledge within a conceptual framework that emphasizes the transactions between mind and body and between persons and environments. She analyzes different kinds of stressors and their psychological and physiological effects, both negative and positive. Ways in which coping is influenced by personality, relationships, situational factors, and culture are explored. The book also provides a methodological primer for stress and coping research, critically reviewing available measures and data analysis techniques.

p.1"I believe we are currently undergoing another paradigm shift - from causal reductionism to transactionism... in transactionism the occurrence of an event is understood to arise from the mutual influence of a number of factors. This paradigm shift has profound implications not only for research and clinical practice but also for the fabric of society and how we conduct our everyday lives."

p.2"A corollary assumption underlying the reductionist model has been that of unidirectional causality - that is, a -> b -> c. In biomedical terms, this means that illness is caused by exposure to an agent a that disrupts the biochemical functioning system b that in turn leads to symptoms c. These symptoms can only be abated by restoring the functioning of system b, either by eliminating the offending agent from the body (e.g., through antibiotics) or by restoring the biochemical balance."

p.3"It became readily apparent that a simple causal model was inadequate to describe many phenomena... simple causal models of illness are of necessity coming to be replaced by highly complex models demonstrating interaction among multiple agents."

p.17"individual adaption needs to be understood in the context of particular environmental constraints... a transactionist viewpoint emphasizes that the person and the environment are not independent contributors to stress and coping but, rather, mutually affect each other for good or for ill."

p.18"the state of an individual's health reflects a dynamic interaction between environmental forces and physiological resilience."

p.28"it is important to understand that we are hard-wired physiologically to respond to stress and that stress responses can involve nearly every system in the body."

p.37"As noted in the preceding chapter, human bodies are 'hard-wired' to respond to stress... Indeed, the sheer number and redundancy of physiological systems designed to cope with stress suggest that the ability to respond to stress is terribly important in adaptation."

p.71"Structural constraints refer to problems in the social environment that can result in resource deprivation and restriction of choice."

p.288"Perhaps Rutter's (1981) admonition on children and stress is instructive here. In his longitudinal studies of children's reaction to stress, Rutter found that most children were fairly resilient and could readily rebound from experiencing a major adverse life event. However, with multiple adverse events, or when a life event was coupled with other adverse circumstances such as poverty, poorer long-term outcomes were more likely"

p.313"stress can be seen as a catalyst that brings to the forefront important developmental issues that can be coped with more or less 'successfully.' if 'success' can be defined as increasing capacity to cope with future stress and to develop characteristics important to adult development"

p.326"Resilience is defined as 'a dynamic developmental process reflecting evidence of positive adaptation despite significant life adversity' (Cichetti, 2003"

p.327"A nearly universal finding is that children with a higher level of intelligence, generally assessed through IQs, are more likely to be resilient. This makes a great deal of sense. More intelligent children are more likely to develop better and more realistic coping strategies."

p.330"Rutter (1987) emphasized that resilience to stress should be viewed as a process, a person-environment interaction, rather than as a characteristic of the individual per se."

p.332"Physical thriving is defined here as any physiological changes brought about as a result of facing stressors that leave one with greater physiological resilience than she or he had before facing adversity... physical thriving can refer both to enhanced health and to one's health status above the expected baseline in response to a stressor."

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