First of all, it is important to acknowledge that people differ in their ways of dealing with problems. Once a certain stimulus is being perceived as stressful — for example an upcoming deadline — a wide range of different response options are set in motion. This reaction is typically referred to as the ‘coping process’.
This process is dynamic and involves different factors including the nature and extent of the stimulus itself, personal characteristics — like gender or personality — and external resources like one’s socioeconomic status or social support levels. Additionally, various coping styles have been identified. The relevant literature describes for example problem-focused coping strategies compared to emotion-focused and avoidance coping, such as denial. All these coping mechanisms are basically tools for stress management. To give an example how different these strategies can look in practice let’s take the scenario of a person at the general practitioner’s clinic who is being diagnosed with a very high cholesterol level.
Now, one scenario could be that the patient considers possible reasons for this misbalance and based on the doctor’s advice starts to change his/her diet or exercising to tackle the problem. That would be a problem-focused approach. Another scenario could be that the patient denies the potential health risks linked to the diagnosis and continues his/her unhealthy lifestyle, which would represent avoidance coping.
Obviously, these two scenarios may result in different outcomes and may either increase or decrease the patients overall well-being. Research has shown that most people use a range, and often a combination, of coping strategies depending on the nature and extent of the problem, their own resources and external factors.
For example, one may predominantly use problem-focused coping at the workplace but the same person may tend to deny personal issues such as relationship difficulties.
Which coping strategy will be the most effective in any given situation, it cannot always be foreseen. So, coming to the statement that ‘people prefer to ignore problems rather than addressing them, until it becomes a crisis’, it is difficult to say that people generally prefer to ignore problems rather than addressing them. The complexity and dynamics of the coping process that is happening in each and every one of us requires deeper analysis.
In fact, research findings in this area have shown significant individual differences in the way we cope. But what is certain is that the more stressful events and unaddressed problems accumulate, the less controllable one’s current life situation seems to become. And the lower the perceived control, the higher the likelihood that one may retreat into denying instead of preventing an emerging ‘crisis’.
— The writer is a professor of psychology and teaches in Sharjah
