Conceptualized as cognitive, behavioral, and emotional efforts to manage experiences that tax or exceed perceived resources—that is, situations appraised as stressful—coping processes are ubiquitous in daily life. Individuals may proactively or reactively attempt to manage stressful situations. Assessments of coping processes typically involve self-report, with the assumption that coping is conscious and intentional.

 

Background:

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The stress and coping theory of Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman (1984) remains the foremost theory of coping processes engaged in response to situations appraised as stressful. In themselves, coping processes are assumed to be neither inherently adaptive nor maladaptive. Rather, their efficacy depends upon personal and situational contexts (i.e., the person-environment fit). In this transactional theory, multiple contextual factors shape coping, including sociocultural (e.g., ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic resources), interpersonal (e.g., friends), and intrapersonal (e.g., personality attributes) contexts. Also influenced by cognitive appraisals—including perceptions of threat/harm/loss, benefit, and controllability associated with the stressful situation—coping processes are theorized to be proximal influences on well-being and health outcomes. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) conceptualized coping strategies as being directed toward solving stressor-related problems (i.e., problem-focused coping) or easing associated emotions (i.e., emotion-focused coping). They developed a widely used measure of those processes, which is described in the next section. The Lazarus and Folkman model has been expanded to encompass additional functions of coping, such as relationship-focused coping (O’Brien & DeLongis, 1996) and meaning-focused coping (Park & Folkman, 1997).

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Another conceptualization of coping, which aligns well with more general avoidance- and approach-oriented motivational systems, regards coping as involving efforts to avoid or to actively approach one’s stressful experience (Suls & Fletcher, 1985). Avoidance-oriented coping entails efforts to disengage behaviorally, cognitively, and emotionally from the stressful experience. Although avoidance can be useful over the short run, a large body of research demonstrates that coping through avoidance reliably predicts negative psychological

and physical health outcomes in adults diagnosed with chronic disease (e.g., Morris et al., 2018; Moskowitz et al., 2009; Roesch et al., 2005). Approach-oriented coping processes involve problem-solving, active acceptance, seeking support, processing and expressing stressor-related emotions, and actively attempting to find benefits in the stressful experience. Spiritual or religious coping can serve both avoidance- and approach-oriented functions. Coping through actively approaching the stressful experience often is related to positive adjustment to chronic stressors, albeit less consistently than are avoidant strategies (e.g., Moskowitz et al., 2009; Roesch et al., 2005). Coping strategies can mediate or moderate relationships between contextual factors and stressor-related adjustment. For example, the combination of high avoidance-oriented coping and low social support has been demonstrated to confer distress in adults diagnosed with chronic disease (Jacobsen et al., 2002), and avoidant coping can mediate the relationships between unsupportive behaviors by the partner and distress in adults diagnosed with cancer (Manne et al., 2005).

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Measurement:

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In a review of 2,000 empirical articles that reported the use of at least one measure of coping processes, Kato (2015) found that the COPE (Coping Orientation toward Problems Experienced; Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989) was the most frequently used measure, followed by the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The development of both scales was aided by factor analysis, and both have been translated into languages other than English.

 

The COPE is available at:

https://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/ccarver/copefull.html

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And the Brief COPE at:

https://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/ccarver/brief-cope.html.

 

Respondents are asked to complete the items to yield a dispositional version (i.e., what you usually do) or a situational version. The 60 items yield 15 subscales, each with four items: mental disengagement, behavioral disengagement, denial, positive reinterpretation and growth, acceptance, suppression of competing activities, focus on and venting of emotions, use of instrumental social support, use of emotional social support, active coping, planning, religious coping, humor, restraint, and substance use. Carver did not recommend forming any particular composites of these subscales, instead suggesting that researchers conduct analyses to explore higher-order factor structures (see Carver et al., 1989, p. 274 for findings from a higher-order factor analysis). Although items do not conform to a straightforward, two-factor structure (Litman, 2006), specific groups of COPE subscales appear to reflect more general approach-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping processes.  ​

The public-domain version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire is available from Dr. Susan Folkman at http://prevention.ucsf.edu/sites/prevention.ucsf.edu/files/uploads/tools/surveys/pdf/Ways of coping.pdf. The scale is intended to be completed with regard to a particular stressful situation (e.g., most stressful situation in the past week), as indicated by the respondent or by the researcher. Dispositional instructions are not recommended, in that they would be counter to the transactional theory. Factor analysis in a community sample yielded eight subscales (i.e., confrontive coping, distancing, self-controlling, seeking social support, accepting responsibility, escape-avoidance, planful problem-solving, positive reappraisal; Folkman et al., 1986), assessed with 50 items. A brief, 18-item version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire was created by Newth and DeLongis (2004), yielding four subscales: cognitive reframing, stoic distancing, emotional expression, and active problem solving.

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Researchers also have created self-report measures to assess specific facets or targets of coping in more depth. For example, the 14-item Brief Religious Coping Scale contains subscales for presumably positive (e.g., “Sought God’s love and care“) and negative (e.g., “Wondered whether God had abandoned me”) religious coping (Pargament, Feuille, & Burdzy, 2011). The scale has demonstrated sound psychometric properties and evidence of validity across several religions and countries (Saunders & Stephenson, 2024). Another example is the Emotional Approach Coping subscales of emotional processing and emotional expression, which were created to address the absence of measures that were unconfounded with distress and self-deprecation to assess intentional efforts to understand and express emotions surrounding a stressor (Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, & Danoff-Burg, 2000). With situational or dispositional instructions, the eight items typically are embedded in the COPE. Coping through emotional approach is associated with indicators of better health in specific domains (Hoyt et al., 2024). A third example involves measures to assess dyadic coping, or actions in which partners engage to cope with stressors (e.g., Dyadic Coping Inventory, Bodenmann, 2008, “We help one another to put the problem in perspective and see it in a new light.”). Dyadic coping can confer benefits for the individual and the relationship (Hou et al., 2025). Bodenmann’s scale is useful for measuring couples’ general coping tendencies; another relationship-focused coping scale is more process-oriented and well-suited to assess context-specific responses (Lee-Baggley, Preece, & DeLongis, 2005; e.g., “Tried to understand how the other person felt”).  

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Limitations and Strengths: 

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From the hundreds of studies in which coping has been assessed, strong consensus on an overarching structure of coping has yet to emerge (Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003). Furthermore, the literature is dominated by cross-sectional studies in which measures of coping processes are linked to well-being and health outcomes, often without sufficient theoretical grounding, such that causality remains in question. Notwithstanding such limitations, the predictive utility of self-reported measures of coping on indicators of health and well-being has been demonstrated in numerous theoretically-driven, longitudinal studies. Documented effects of experimentally-induced coping strategies lend confidence to such findings.

 

Gaps in the Field:

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Rather than continuing to examine zero-order relationships of self-reported coping processes with indicators of psychological adjustment in cross-sectional research, longitudinal interrogation is needed of coping processes as mediators and moderators between antecedent conditions and adaptational consequences. Daily process and experimental designs also are warranted.      

Until recently, the large literatures on coping processes and on how individuals and couples regulate emotions have seen little integration (Trudel-Fitzgerald et al., 2024; Arican-Dinc & Gable, 2026). As Trudel-Fitzgerald and colleagues point out (2024), substantial overlap is apparent in the bodies of work on coping processes and emotion regulation, particularly with regard to their joint focus on reappraisal, problem-solving/active coping, acceptance, avoidance, and suppression. Opportunities exist for further integration of these theoretical and empirical streams (e.g., Stanislawski, 2019), including their approaches to measurement of relevant processes. 

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Author(s) and Reviewer(s): Prepared by Annette L. Stanton, PhD. Reviewed by Anita DeLongis, PhD and Talia Morstead. Please direct suggestions and feedback to Dr. Stanton (astanton@ucla.edu).

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Version date: August 2026. 

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References

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Arican-Dinc, B., & Gable, S. L. (2026). Dyadic emotion regulation. Annual Review of Psychology, 77(1) 365-391. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-020325-033825. 

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Bodenmann, G. (2008). Dyadisches Coping Inventar: Testmanual [Dyadic Coping Inventory: Testmanual]. Bern, Switzerland: Huber.

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Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F., & Weintraub J. K. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(2), 267-283. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.56.2.267   

Folkman, S., Lazarus, R. S., Dunkel-Schetter, C., DeLongis, A., & Gruen, R. (1986). The dynamics of a stressful encounter: Cognitive appraisal, coping and encounter outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50 , 992-1003.

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Hou, J., Falconier, M. K., Tam, W., Cheung, M. W., Fu, R., Bu, H., & Yu, N. X. (2025). Dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction among couples with a chronic illness: A meta-analytical actor-partner interdependence model. Clinical Psychology Review, 119, 102587. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2025.102587.

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Hoyt, M. A., Llave, K., Wang, A. W., Darabos, K., Diaz, K. G., Hoch, M., MacDonald, J. J., & Stanton, A. L. (2024). The utility of coping through emotional approach: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, 43(6), 397-417.  https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001364

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Jacobsen, P. B., Sadler, I. J., Booth-Jones, M., Soety, E., Weitzner, M. A., & Fields, K. K. (2002). Predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology following bone marrow transplantation for cancer. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 70, 235-240. 

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Litman, J. A. (2006). The COPE inventory: Dimensionality and relationships with approach- and avoidance motives and positive and negative traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 273–284.

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Manne, S. L., Ostroff, J., Winkel, G., Grana, G., & Fox, K. (2005). Partner unsupportive responses, avoidant coping, and distress among women with early stage breast cancer: Patient and partner perspectives. Health Psychology, 24, 635-641.

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