Question

I expect that there will be a negative corellation between age and use of cleaning to cope with stress, as age goes up use of cleaning to cope with stress will be more likely. explain in a esssay on how this would possiple.

Answer 1

Theoretical considerations: Depending upon how the term "age" is defined, the effects of age on coping strategies can be roughly divided into three categories. First, if aging is understood in terms of biological aging, then age may have an indirect effect on coping strategies through the increase in health problems associated with aging. As one age, there are changes in types of problems experienced (cf., Aldwin, (990). The elderly are more likely to be coping with both their own health problems and those of significant others, especially spouses. They are also more likely to be bereaved or suffer the loss of close friends and relatives than are younger adults. As Folkman and Lazarus (1980, 1985) have pointed out, both health and loss problems are more likely to evoke palliative or emotion-focused coping than instrumental action. McCrae (1982) suggested that differences in coping strategies among younger and older adults are primarily a function of differences in the types of problems that they face. Therefore, any study of aging and coping strategies need to determine whether or not the older respondents are coping with health problems. Second, age effects can also be understood in terms of cohort differences. There may be historical characteristics of the present population of older adults that affect their choice of coping strategies. While the coping strategies of different age groups have been contrasted (cL, Aldwin & Revenson, 1985; Felton & Revenson, 1987; Folkman et aI., 1987; McCrae, 1982, 1989), the precise historical trends that might account for these cohort differences have not been systematically examined in the literature. For example, one could hypothesize that the lower levels of education in the present aged cohort, compared to younger groups, may predispose them to less active forms of mastery, given the positive association between education and internal locus of control (Lefcourt, 1976).

Third, age can also be understood in terms of intrinsic developmental processes. Gutmann (1974) suggested that a shift in mastery styles occurs across the life span, with young adults choosing strategies reflecting active mastery, middle-aged adults using what he termed "passive" mastery techniques, and old adults using "magical mastery." Using TAT cards, Gutmann attempted to show that this decremental developmental shift occurred cross-culturally. However, responses on TATs do not necessarily reflect the actual use of coping strategies in everyday problems, and alternative explanations are possible, including age differences in education and socialization to Western norms.

Empirical findings. - If older adults are less likely to perceive stressful episodes as controllable, they should also be less likely to use instrumental action and more likely to use palliative or avoidant coping strategies. However, nearly every study of aging and coping has found that, in general, older individuals are not passive copers. For example, the Vaillant (1977) study mentioned earlier found that middle-aged men in the Grant study used fewer neurotic and immature defense mechanisms and more mature strategies, in contrast with their youthful selves. Similarly, McCrae (1982) found that older adults used fewer escapist and hostile strategies.

Conclusion: The perceived controllability of situations is thought to influence the types of coping strategies used, and this is important in adaptive processes. Elderly individuals are widely perceived to have less control over their environment than other adults. This lack of perceived control should have adverse effects on how they cope with stressful situations. However, most studies have shown that older adults differ little from younger adults in their approaches to coping with stress.