Psychology 2035A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Road Rage, Prosocial Behavior, Internet Addiction Disorder

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Maxwell

Document Summary

Describe the variety of coping strategies that people use and understand why it is beneficial to use a variety of coping strategies and how these strategies differ in their adaptive value. Identify and describe coping patterns of limited value. Analyze the adaptive value of giving up as a response to stress. Some people just give up and withdraw from the battle. Learned helplessness is passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events. Seligman originally viewed learned helplessness as a product of conditioning as he researched on animals with shock and humans with inescapable noise. Giving up is not a highly regarded method of coping. Carver referred to giving up as behavioral disengagement and found it is associated with increased rather than decreased distress. Giving up could be adaptive sometimes when goals are truly unattainable. Research shows that people who are better able to disengage from unattainable goals report better health and exhibit lower levels of a key stress hormone.