Abstract:
A study of coping behaviours in naturalistic everyday settings lead to the idea that, far from being random or haphazard, there is an orderliness in both their acquisition and their emission. This orderliness seems to be directly related to the developmental sequence of acquisition of skills in all dimensions of behaviour, physical, cognitive, and social. As stress increases, and mature-for-age coping behaviours fail, people resort to coping behaviours which were acquired earlier in development. Conversely, where people are shocked directly into primitive coping behaviour, recovery follows the same sequence as the order of acquisition. The discovery of this sequence clarified dissatisfaction with previous theories and suggested a new way of regarding coping which encompasses the full range of behaviours, allows for the effects of environmental influences as well as interpersonal responses, and recognises the cumulative effect of such variables on individual differences in temperament. The orderliness of sequence was seen to be useful in explaining why some ways of responding to people under stress are better than others. The most efficacious responses are those appropriate to the age-related level of the coping behaviour.
