Action Tendencies and Action Regulation

In coping, these dual processes can be labeled “stress reactivity” (or more generally “action tendencies”) and “action regulation.” Both are adaptive. Stress reactivity is the product of a fast, emotionally driven, impulsive “hot” system that appraises and reacts to external stimuli or situations relatively automatically and with little conscious control. This hot system has strong temperamental, motivational, and emotional bases; however, it also incorporates experiences through conditioning and learning. Although reactivity or impulses are often portrayed as problematic, they serve an important adaptive function – to quickly bring the organism into a state of readiness to act. This hot system is adaptive in two ways: (1) it is more flexible and differentiated than reflexes, and yet (2) it triggers environmentally tuned actions faster than a more cognitively mediated system.

The second component comprises regulatory processes, which work with the hot system to channel, coordinate, and sequence the actions it urges. Regulation is sometimes considered the product of a “cool” system because some of the most effective regulatory strategies are cognitive and deliberate. However, this system has a range of processes at its disposal, including neurophysiological, habitual, attentional, and social processes, that operate already in neonates and infants (e.g., Kopp, Reference Kopp1989). Regulatory processes are also adaptive: (1) by allowing actions to be more informed, deliberate, and flexible, they provide more options than externally triggered reactivity, and (2) they benefit from intentionality and so can be more attuned to individuals’ higher-order principles and long-term priorities, goals, and values.

As in other areas, there is active discussion about how reactivity and regulation work together during coping. Researchers generally agree that they mutually influence each other over time (Compas et al., Reference Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen and Wadsworth2001; Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, Wolchik and Sandler1997; Skinner, Reference Skinner, Brandtstädter and Lerner1999). For example, an extreme reaction to stress elicits many coping responses. Or, conversely, proactive coping allows a person to avoid situations in which they would be overwhelmed (Aspinwall & Taylor, Reference Aspinwall and Taylor1997). Some researchers suggest that any given response reflects a balance between the two subsystems (Metcalfe & Mischel, Reference Metcalfe and Mischel1999). In terms of coping, this implies that maladaptive (or our preferred term “stress-affected,” Wadsworth, Reference Wadsworth2015) coping is the product of a strong stress reaction and/or a weak (immature or disabled) regulatory system, whereas productive coping is the result of a mild stress response and/or a strong action regulation system. The effects of stress on the functioning of regulatory subsystems are studied widely (e.g., in work on hot executive functions; Zelazo & Carlson, Reference Zelazo and Carlson2012). Although high levels of stress may disrupt or overwhelm regulatory processes, moderate levels seem to create a zone of heightened regulation, during which subsystems become more cooperative and regulatory capacities can be practiced and consolidated (e.g., Jamieson et al., Reference Jamieson, Crum, Goyer, Marotta and Akinola2018; Kopp, Reference Kopp1989; Repetti & Robles, Reference Repetti and Robles2016; Sapolsky, Reference Sapolsky2015).

Developmental Connections

Conceptualizations of coping as action readiness and regulation under stress are developmentally friendly because they build bridges to the rich developmental literatures on reactivity and regulation, including their temperamental and neurophysiological bases and the social forces that shape them. Most importantly, they connect coping to research on age-graded pathways and reorganizations of stress reactivity and regulation across successive developmental levels (Cole et al., Reference Cole, Ram and English2019; Holodynski & Friedlmeier, Reference Holodynski and Friedlmeier2006; Kopp, Reference Kopp1989; Nigg, Reference Nigg2017; Thompson, Reference Thompson, Lerner and Lamb2015). These theories and bodies of research lay out guideposts to chart the development of coping.

Coping and Regulation

As can be seen in Figure 1.2, episodes of coping (shown in the middle level) contain coping as an interactional process (shown in the lowest level). Here, coping depicts the actions of infants, children, and youth as they deal with specific demands (e.g., novelty, restraint, delay, noncontingency) during moment-to-moment exchanges on the ground in real time; this process overlaps with the primary concerns of research on regulation (Compas et al., Reference Compas, Jaser, Dunbar, Watson, Bettis, Gruhn and Williams2014, Reference Compas, Jaser, Bettis, Watson, Gruhn, Dunbar, Williams and Thigpen2017; Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, Wolchik and Sandler1997; McClelland et al., Reference McClelland, Geldhof, Cameron, Wanless, Overton, Molenaar and Lerner2015; Thompson, Reference Thompson, Lerner and Lamb2015). However, coping differs from specific kinds of regulation in three ways. First, it considers regulation only under a subset of conditions, namely, during stressful transactions. So, coping overlaps completely with that portion of regulation that is hot (e.g., hot executive processes), but also includes cool regulatory processes when they are deployed under stress.

Integrated Models of Regulation: The second way coping differs from work on regulation is based on the targets of regulatory efforts. Researchers have made connections from coping to many kinds of regulation, including emotion regulation (Compas et al., Reference Compas, Jaser, Dunbar, Watson, Bettis, Gruhn and Williams2014; Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, Wolchik and Sandler1997; Kopp, Reference Kopp1989), behavioral self-regulation (e.g., Metcalfe & Mischel, Reference Metcalfe and Mischel1999), attention deployment (e.g., Wilson & Gottman, Reference Wilson, Gottman, Hetherington and Blechman1996), ego control and resiliency (Block & Block, Reference Block, Block and Collins1980), and self-regulation more generally (Aspinwall & Taylor, Reference Aspinwall and Taylor1997). In research on regulation, these specific forms are typically studied separately. However, because stress can activate a variety of responses – physiological, emotional, attentional, behavioral, cognitive, and so on – coping includes efforts to coordinate and manage all of them. Hence, during stressful encounters, all these forms of regulation can be considered subsystems that work together to shape the actions described by coping (Compas et al., Reference Compas, Connor, Osowiecki, Welch and Gottleib1997; Holodynski & Friedlmeier Reference Holodynski and Friedlmeier2006; Skinner, Reference Skinner, Brandtstädter and Lerner1999). During coping, their combined regulatory effects can be positively synergistic (e.g., when planning calms emotion or comfort-seeking refreshes resources for problem-solving) or they can work at cross-purposes and show antagonistic effects (e.g., when motivational urges are so strong they derail cognitive processes or when actions are forced before emotions are consulted) or block each other (e.g., when strong approach and avoidance tendencies bring action to a standstill).

Hence, of greatest interest to coping researchers are integrative models that consider how multiple kinds of regulation work together. Until recently, such information was hard to come by because it was dispersed across a wide range of relatively siloed areas of study, each one focusing on a different target of regulation (e.g., emotion, attention, behavior) or different regulatory process (e.g., executive functions, delay of gratification, effortful control). Only recently have researchers begun to propose syntheses that integrate these overlapping areas of study (e.g., Cole et al., Reference Cole, Ram and English2019; Gagne, Reference Gagne2017; McClelland et al., Reference McClelland, Geldhof, Cameron, Wanless, Overton, Molenaar and Lerner2015). Although most have focused on early development, some have also extended their conceptualizations to middle childhood (Nigg, Reference Nigg2017) and adolescence (Casey, Reference Casey2015; Compas et al., Reference Compas, Jaser, Bettis, Watson, Gruhn, Dunbar, Williams and Thigpen2017; Steinberg et al., Reference Steinberg, Icenogle, Shilman, Breiner, Chein, Bacchini and Takash2018). These emerging perspectives are of great interest to coping researchers, especially because several of them are explicitly developmental (e.g., Cole et al., Reference Cole, Ram and English2019; Nigg, Reference Nigg2017).

Impulsigenic Processes: Third, coping differs from typical work on regulation because it is focused not only on the development of regulatory processes, but also on the development of so-called impulsigenic processes (e.g., Duckworth & Steinberg, Reference Duckworth and Steinberg2015); these are the processes that lead to action readiness and reactivity. As can be inferred from its name, most research on regulation focuses on regulatory processes. From this perspective, conceptualizations of impulses (see Sharma et al., Reference Sharma, Markon and Clark2014 for a review) typically consider them to be problematic because they interfere with self-control and socially appropriate behavior. Coping researchers, however, are very interested in subsystems that generate the targets of regulation, such as impulses or emotional reactions. They argue that anything that makes action tendencies more constructive also makes coping easier (e.g., Compas et al., Reference Compas, Connor, Saltzman, Thomsen, Wadsworth, Lewis and Ramsay1999; Skinner & Wellborn, Reference Skinner, Wellborn, Featherman, Lerner and Perlmutter1994). Hence, work on processes that affect stress reactivity and action readiness, like emotions, intrinsic motivation, impulsivity, and temperamental dimensions (like reactivity, exuberance, and sociability), are highly relevant to the development of coping.

Coping and Resilience

As shown in the top panel of Figure 1.2, the territory of coping also extends upward where it functions as an adaptive process operating across developmental time; here it overlaps with work on risk and resilience, which trace the effects of adversity on the development of competence and psychopathology (Denckla et al., Reference Denckla, Cicchetti, Kubzansky, Seedat, Teicher, Williams and Koenen2020; Masten et al., Reference Masten, Lucke, Nelson and Stallworthy2021; Chapter 7, this volume). Coping fits under the larger umbrella of resilience because it can help buffer the development of children and youth from the otherwise deleterious effects of stress, risk, and adversity. Coping depicts that slice of “big R” resilience that examines how adversity brings a range of actual stressful experiences into the daily lives of individuals, and how through their own actions and reactions, children and youth attempt to deal with them (i.e., everyday resilience; DiCorcia & Tronick, Reference DiCorcia and Tronick2011; Spencer, Reference Spencer, Damon and Lerner2006). At this level, the construct of coping serves many purposes for resilience (Zimmer-Gembeck & Skinner, Reference Zimmer-Gembeck, Skinner and Cicchetti2016). It can be considered a protective factor itself, an explanatory mechanism (in that other protective factors may exert their positive effects by boosting adaptive coping), an intervention lever, a resource for everyday resilience, and a site where stress resistance and resilience are built. Hence, coping researchers look to work on resilience to bridge to the higher-order contexts of adversity (e.g., poverty, racism) and frame the long-term developmental outcomes and pathways that are at stake.

Developmental Connections

The view that coping operates on three levels (Figure 1.2) contributes to developmentally friendly conceptualizations of coping because it builds out from transactional views of coping as an episodic process to span the conceptual space from coping as an interactional process operating in real time, accumulating all the way up to coping as an adaptive process operating across developmental time. Systems perspectives identify the place and purpose of research on coping: It operates between and overlaps with regulatory processes below and resilience processes above. Both areas are inherently developmental and so they can inform coping theorists about how to construct developmental systems conceptualizations. The most important steps are listed in Table 1.2 (for more details, see Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016, pp. 8–11). Coping, in turn, can provide important connections down to research on regulation and carry them all the way up to processes of resilience and development.

Developmental Connections

Breaking coping down into these basic tasks opens the door to the possibility that each task can be carried out at every age, as explained by Lois Murphy, the researcher who guided the first great longitudinal study of coping in children and youth, “with whatever equipment [the child] ha[s] at his developmental stage” (Reference Murphy, Coelho, Hamburg and Adams1974, p. 71). This big idea allows researchers to select a task, such as detecting threats or evaluating lessons learned, and to consider the attentional, motivational, emotional, cognitive, and/or metacognitive “equipment” that can be used to carry it out at different ages. For example, the “radar equipment” of neonates may involve the activation of sensory and attention systems in response to threats and distress, whereas by the end of the first year, radar may come to involve social referencing. In the same vein, appraisal processes likely emerge as implicit expectancies over the first months of life, and only later are carried out by representational systems – still many years away from the full-blown conscious reflective appraisals familiar to coping researchers. These same considerations can be applied to the other tasks carried out by the coping system, leading to the realization, for example, that action readiness can be carried out by the emotion system during toddlerhood or by executive functions during early childhood. Regulation can be a cognitive activity during middle childhood or a metacognitive activity during adolescence. Recovery can be falling asleep during infancy or losing oneself in songwriting during adolescence. Revaluation can be a conversation with Dad during early childhood or a diary entry during emerging adulthood. Adults have available to them the full range of tools they need to accomplish these tasks – as seen, for example, in their capacity to appraise the likelihood of future threats and to take preemptive coping action (Aspinwall & Taylor, Reference Aspinwall and Taylor1997). Infants, children, and adolescents do not. They are discovering and building the tools they will need for these tasks as they grow.

Hence, each task shows normative age-graded developments (e.g., radar, instead of just reacting, begins to anticipate incoming stressors). Such an analysis may open connections between precursor or rudimentary coping capacities and multiple subsystems that show qualitative shifts with age. As summarized in Table 1.3, surfacing these tasks can contribute to developmentally friendly conceptualizations of coping because they can be used to sketch the developmental potentials of a coping system.

These developmental potentials depict a system that can increasingly monitor and appropriately appraise more (current and future) demands using its own and other’s “radar”; maintain composure under higher levels of appraised threat with more capacity to withstand multiple demands and better “fallbacks”; respond increasingly in measured socially competent ways that reflect integration of ongoing emotional, attentional, and motivational reactions; more flexibly adjust actions to meet changing environmental demands without losing sight of genuine priorities; recover more quickly from setbacks; and at the same time take more away from stressful encounters, learning how to prevent and deal with future challenges and how to deploy coping in line with future goals (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2007, p. 136).

Families of Coping

Developmentalists, though conceptual and empirical means, have identified about a dozen core categories of coping that reflect its operation as a basic process of adaptation (Connor-Smith et al., Reference Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen and Saltzman2000; Skinner et al., Reference Skinner, Edge, Altman and Sherwood2003; Walker et al., Reference Walker, Smith, Garber and Van Slyke1997). From this perspective, higher-order categories represent a taxonomy that classifies the tools individuals can use to coordinate their actions with environmental demands during stressful transactions. For example, problem-solving is an adaptive strategy because it allows people to find or create actions that are effective in the environments where stressful transactions are taking place. It is this coordination – in this case between actions and environmental contingencies – that is the hallmark of adaptation (White, Reference White, Coelho, Hamburg and Adams1974).

Core categories can be viewed as higher-order families of coping that sit at the top of a hierarchical structure (Skinner et al., Reference Skinner, Edge, Altman and Sherwood2003). Each family contains many members or ways of coping (as seen, for example, in subscales of coping measures). In fact, each family includes all the ways of coping that serve those same functions. So, for example, members of the Problem-Solving family include not only its corresponding lower-order way of coping (i.e., strategizing) but also other ways that serve to coordinate actions and contingencies, such as effort exertion, instrumental action, mastery coping, cognitive decision-making, positive self-instruction, primary control engagement, task orientation and preparation, task management, planning, and repair. For each coping family member, there are innumerable possible lower-order instances of how these ways of coping can be enacted in different circumstances by different people of different ages.

Coping families can be viewed as multi-functional categories of regulatory packages. They include ways of coping that have been commonly studied, like Problem-Solving, Information- and Comfort-Seeking, and Escape. They also hold places for other kinds of coordinating actions that have not always been included in measures of coping, like Accommodation, Negotiation, Helplessness, and Social Isolation. Each of these families is both problem- and emotion-focused; is oriented toward either approach or avoidance; and can be enacted in a range of modes. Most importantly, these 12 families are relatively comprehensive, in that they can accommodate the vast majority of the over 400 different individual ways of coping included in measures of coping during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood (Skinner et al., Reference Skinner, Edge, Altman and Sherwood2003). As depicted in Table 1.4, Core categories represent an action typology that categorizes how individuals coordinate actions and affordances, according to (1) their effectiveness, (2) their goals, and (3) their personal and social resources (Skinner et al., Reference Skinner, Edge, Altman and Sherwood2003).

Coordinating Actions and Contingencies: As can be seen in Table 1.4, the first four coping families are organized around the adaptive process of coordinating actions with contingencies, and so regulate engagement and disengagement in the face of stress. Besides Problem-Solving, described previously, productive families include Information-Seeking, where an individual pauses in their efforts to deal with a stressor in order to obtain “fresh intelligence,” that is, to secure instrumental information about current contingencies and new actions that could potentially be effective. The families organized around this adaptive function – focused on how to deploy one’s actions to be efficacious in a given environment – have a long history of study in research on mastery, perceived control, self-efficacy, and learned helplessness (e.g., Dweck, Reference Dweck and Snyder1999; Folkman, Reference Folkman1984; Maier & Seligman, Reference Maier and Seligman2016; Skinner, Reference Skinner1995, Reference Skinner1996; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Sobolew-Shubin, Galbraith, Schwankovsky and Cruzen1993). Problem-Solving and Information-Seeking are both scaffolded by perceptions of control and competence; individuals who hold these beliefs are more likely to problem-solve and seek information about existing contingencies and how to operate them more effectively (e.g., Raftery & Grolnick, Reference Raftery and Grolnick2015).

Developmental conceptualizations focus on coping transactions as sites for learning and growth, and so tend to highlight constructive coping families. But if stress reactivity is too high or regulatory systems are overwhelmed, individuals show stress-affected ways of coping. When it comes to the coordination of actions and contingencies, two families signal that a coping system is overtaxed: one oriented to avoidance and one to approach. The avoidance family is Escape, which includes multiple family members, both behavioral (e.g., leaving) and cognitive (e.g., denial). These responses serve to remove the individual from the stressful encounter, but they do so in ways (e.g., through panic or fear) that heighten distress and undermine subsequent engagement. The approach family is Helplessness, and it includes continued engagement with the threatening stressor even though the regulatory system is no longer functioning effectively. These forms of engagement – like confusion and mental exhaustion – are not productive. They amplify the feeling of powerlessness and magnify distress. Ways of coping from both these families are made more likely by histories of experience with objective noncontingency and subjective beliefs that events are out of one’s control. Escape under a variety of different names (see Table 1.4) is one of the most common subscales on measures of coping; and helplessness has its own productive area of study active over the last 50 years (Maier & Seligman, Reference Maier and Seligman2016).

Coordinating Reliance and Social Resources: The next four coping families depicted in Table 1.4 are organized around the adaptive function of coordinating reliance on others with the social resources available, and so regulate cooperation and self-reliance during stressful transactions. The key constructive family here involves Support-Seeking and its family members, all of which serve to bring individuals into contact with trusted others in times of danger (for examples, see Table 1.4). This family is one of the most common subscales in measures of coping, the focus of research on social support (e.g., Taylor, Reference Taylor and Friedman2011; Taylor & Stanton, Reference Taylor and Stanton2007), and a core construct in attachment theory under the label “proximity seeking” (Bowlby, 1969/1973). Support-seeking is a productive way of coordinating reliance with social resources because it provides respite, recovery, and an opportunity to build resources for re-entering the fray (e.g., experiences of comfort and encouragement can bolster emotion and motivation).

The second productive family serving these adaptive functions involves Self-Reliance, or individuals’ attempts to regulate their own behaviors (e.g., via self-encouragement), emotions (e.g., via self-soothing), or motivation (e.g., via determination). This process is adaptive because it allows people to discover their own strengths, protect others, and conserve social resources. Such a functional analysis is consistent with research on the role of perceived social support (e.g., when individuals know that supports are available but do not call on them) as well as with research on attachment showing that a secure base scaffolds both proximity seeking and greater exploration and self-reliance in children (Ainsworth, Reference Ainsworth1979; Bowlby, 1969/1973).

Stress-affected families organized around reliance on others include an avoidance and an approach version. When the coping system is overwhelmed, it can lead to avoidance via Social Isolation, in which individuals attempt to protect themselves by withdrawing socially and preventing others from finding out about the stressful situation. Members of this family, like concealment and social withdrawal, are unproductive because they both prevent the individual from accessing needed resources and can escalate feelings of loneliness and abandonment (Gardner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Gardner and Zimmer-Gembeck2018; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., Reference Zimmer-Gembeck, Nesdale, Webb, Khatibi and Downey2016). The core category involving approach is Delegation, in which individuals try to offload the job of dealing with stressors onto other people. Members of this family, like dependency, entitlement, or executive help-seeking, are unproductive because they not only prevent individuals from building their own coping capacities but also amplify feelings of victimhood and self-pity; they can also exhaust social resources and alienate potential supporters.

Coordinating Preferences and Options: The final four coping families depicted in Table 1.4 are organized around the adaptive processes involved in coordinating one’s genuine preferences with the options available in the environment, and so regulate concession and defense. The prototypical family here is Accommodation, in which individuals attempt to flexibly adjust their preferences to fit into current situational constraints (Chapter 15, this volume). This coping family has been discussed under many names (e.g., Morling & Evered, Reference Morling and Evered2006), and its members include ways like acceptance and focus on the positive (see Table 1.4). This family is adaptive because it allows people to “get into it if you can’t get out of it,” maintain integrity despite losses or constraints, and focus on the positive features of stressful situations (Brandtstädter, Reference Brandtstädter2009; Brandtstädter & Renner, Reference Brandtstädter and Renner1990). These strategies are complemented by the family Negotiation, in which people attempt to create new options through bargaining, persuasion, and selection of goals to prioritize (Chapter 21, this volume). These ways of coping are constructive because they can uncover new possibilities on the ground, and help people act in ways that defend their high-priority goals (Baltes & Baltes, Reference Baltes, Baltes, Baltes and Baltes1990).

Central to these families are autonomy and self-determination. These psychological resources allow people to take ownership for their coping and to act in ways that are consistent with their true preferences and priorities (Ntoumanis et al., Reference Ntoumanis, Edmunds and Duda2009; Skinner & Edge, Reference Skinner, Edge, Deci and Ryan2002; Van Petegem et al., Reference Van Petegem, Zimmer-Gembeck, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Brenning, Mabbe, Vanhalst and Zimmermann2017, Reference Van Petegem, Zimmer-Gembeck, Baudet, Soenens, Vansteenkiste and Zimmermann2019). The hallmarks of the constructive coping families of Accommodation and Negotiation are flexibility, authenticity, and choice. Unlike perceived control and support-seeking, which represent well-established pillars in coping research, discussions of ownership and self-determination in coping have not been as well developed, and have even sometimes been labeled “secondary control,” which makes no sense because accommodative processes are not secondary, and they are not control (Skinner, Reference Skinner2007).

When coping systems are overrun, the two unproductive coping families organized around concession and defense involve the nonautonomous responses of Submission and Opposition (Chapter 21, this volume). Ways of coping in the Submission family, like capitulation, resignation, and rumination, are not autonomous because they are not willingly endorsed and so amplify internal pressure (e.g., through negative emotions like anxiety, self-blame, or guilt); they can also interfere with effective action and undercut social support. Opposition, which can involve aggression, blaming others, or revenge, is also nonautonomous because its goals are determined by outside forces; actions are recruited to oppose the agenda of others – without guidance from internal preferences and priorities. It is not adaptive because it tends to amplify anger, undermine coping from more constructive families, and repel other people (Carver & Harmon-Jones, Reference Carver and Harmon-Jones2009).

Developmental Connections

The identification of a dozen hierarchically organized families of coping forges connections to development in at least three ways. First, it creates bridges to other action-oriented topics, like perceived control, helplessness, attachment, and self-determination, that have long been implicated in children’s coping (Compas, Reference Compas1987; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., Reference Zimmer-Gembeck, Webb, Pepping, Swan, Merlo, Skinner, Avdagic and Dunbar2015) because they focus on how individuals and their social partners face important classes of stressors (such as noncontingency, separation, or coercion). These theories are near-neighbors that help elaborate the substance of coping: They explain how cognition, emotion, and motivation are organized (or disorganized) under stress, and how they are coordinated in the service of action at different ages. They also explain how specific belief systems, like perceived control, internal working models, and autonomy orientations, develop and can shape coping appraisals and action; and why certain social resources, like responsiveness, scaffolding, and autonomy support, should make a difference to how children and youth experience and learn to cope with challenges and threats.

Second, a hierarchical structure of coping connects ways of coping to the development of both regulation and resilience. At the bottom of the hierarchy are instances of coping; these overlap completely with instances of regulatory efforts that take place under stressful conditions. In fact, regulation researchers have always borrowed heavily from the catalogue of coping categories to classify regulatory attempts (e.g., Compas et al., Reference Compas, Jaser, Dunbar, Watson, Bettis, Gruhn and Williams2014; Eisenberg et al., Reference Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, Wolchik and Sandler1997; Gross & Thompson, Reference Gross, Thompson and Gross2007). At the top of the hierarchy, core coping categories are connected to basic adaptive processes – those that coordinate actions and environmental affordances, social resources, and personal values and goals. This connection helps to highlight the functional significance of coping and link it to the development of resilience and vulnerability. In some fundamental sense, the coping system has the potential to both preserve the organism and shepherd its development during stressful encounters – to bring it to safety, to extract an outcome from the environment, to connect with others, to reach its goals. And in the process, coping creates learning in its broadest sense, about the qualities and actions of the organism, its genuine priorities, the trustworthiness of social partners, and opportunities in the context.

Developmentally Graded Family Members: Third, this idea – that coping categories are a taxonomy of action types that serve multiple functions in dealing with stress – allows researchers to identify age-graded ways of coping. Functional analyses of each coping family can be used to identify how those combinations of functions can be achieved through different ways of coping based on the equipment available to individuals at different developmental levels, as depicted in Figure 1.4. For example, before the prototypical actions of problem-solving emerge during early childhood, infants can be seen trying to coordinate their actions with the physical contingencies in the environment (e.g., Watson, Reference Watson1966; Watson & Ramey, Reference Watson and Ramey1972). At even younger ages, infants begin to coordinate their actions with social contingencies. Initial expressions of distress turn into communications, when neonates start to intentionally direct their signals to caregivers, waiting after a bid to see whether a response is forthcoming before they signal again (e.g., Paavola et al., Reference Paavola, Kunnari and Moilanen2005). Since these actions are used when the infant is distressed, they can be considered early members of the Problem-Solving family of coping. In fact, they are integral to the problem-solving and instrumental actions of “external coping” provided by caregivers in response to infants’ signals (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016).

Figure 1.4 A view of families of coping as adaptive functions that allows researchers to identify developmentally graded ways of coping within a family by mapping how those same functions can be achieved through different means at different ages.

Support-seeking provides another clear example of developmental progression. Its prototypical family member proximity seeking has been used as an organizing construct in work on attachment to provide an umbrella for the myriad ways that infants and young children can get to caregivers when they are distressed (Chapter 3, this volume). The means that infants use to accomplish this function change with age. They start with cries, signals, and reaching – which bring caregivers to them – and later develop more active means like crawling and walking – which bring them closer to the caregiver. Family members extend all the way up the age range, for example, as an adolescent phones home or a young adult comforts themselves with thoughts of their late grandmother. The identification of age-graded members of coping families paves the way for the documentation of developmental trajectories and transformations in coping from birth to emerging adulthood – as new equipment comes online that creates new ways to carry out each set of functions (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016).

Underlying Neurophysiological and Psychological Processes

A focus on reactivity and regulation on the plane of action dictates the psychological processes underlying coping; these include the attentional, emotional, motivational, behavioral, cognitive, and metacognitive subsystems that jointly generate action tendencies and regulate them under stress. At the neurophysiological level are the biological subsystems used to detect and react to stress, to regulate stress reactivity, and to recover and learn from stressful transactions. Most centrally, these involve the sympathetic-adrenal medullary axis (SAM), the parasympathetic nervous system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex (PFC), especially the anterior cingulate cortex because it subserves both cognitive and emotional processing (Compas, Reference Compas2006).

Developmental Connections: A multi-level conceptualization of coping is developmentally friendly in that it pinpoints many neurophysiological and psychological subsystems that change and develop, both normatively and differentially, all of which can influence the development of coping on the level of action. At the neurophysiological level, all these subsystems show age-graded changes that can impact how the coping system is organized and functions (e.g., Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020; Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, Juster, Raymond and Marin2018; Mulkey & du Plessis, Reference Mulkey and du Plessis2019; Porges, Reference Porges, Porges and Dana2018). For example, a history of caring and responsive interactions with caregivers typically opens the neonate’s stress neurophysiology to comfort from social others and normatively leads many of these systems to go into a period of hyporesponsivity by about the age of 3 months (Gunnar & Hostinar, Reference Gunnar and Hostinar2015). This shift establishes the neurobiological foundations for support-seeking as an omnibus coping category; it also reduces stress reactivity, improves stress recovery, and supports more constructive engagement and coping with all manner of demands and challenges. The same principle holds for the development of coping-relevant processes at the psychological level. For example, the development of cognitive processes opens the way for appraisals to move from implicit to explicit expectations, and eventually to emerge as fully reflective and metacognitive processes.

Not all normative developmental changes signal progress, however. At the neurophysiological level, early life stress can produce changes that exacerbate stress reactivity and undermine regulation (e.g., Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020; Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar and Heim2009) in ways that make stress-affected coping more likely at subsequent stages. Or at the psychological level, age-graded changes in motivation, such as those found in the academic domain, typically comprise declines in many features (e.g., intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, engagement) as students negotiate school transitions (Wigfield et al., Reference Wigfield, Eccles, Fredricks, Simpkins, Rooeser, Schiefele and Lerner2015). These motivational losses correspond to age-graded changes in the deployment of academic coping over the same developmental periods (e.g., Skinner & Saxton, Reference Skinner and Saxton2020; Chapter 27, this volume). At every age, coping on the level of action emerges from the integration and balance among the developmental forces acting on it, some of which reflect advances (e.g., in coping capacities) and some of which reflect constraints (e.g., in performance factors that influence its deployment).

Overarching Social Forces

As depicted in Figure 1.6, coping and the reactivity and regulation it entails are deeply social phenomena, and so are decisively shaped by interpersonal relationships and other social forces (Compas, Reference Compas1987; Garmezy & Rutter, Reference Garmezy and Rutter1983; Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016; Chapters 3 and 17, this volume). As the steps in coping episodes unfold, other people (especially caregivers, but also extended family, friends and other peers, teachers, mentors, and so on) can participate directly in these transactions (Chapters 3, 18, 19, 20, and 22, this volume). Social partners can reduce or amplify demands, corroborate or question appraisals, suggest or prevent ways of coping, offer interpretations of coping transactions that consolidate learning or escalate distress, and create or prevent short- and long-term consequences. Some of these interpersonal processes can even be called co-coping or co-regulation, as for example in co-problem-solving or co-rumination (Waller et al., Reference Waller, Silk, Stone and Dahl2014; Chapters 17 and 22, this volume). At the same time, interpersonal relationships and interactions scaffold individuals’ coping, as depicted in processes of parenting, emotion and coping coaching, and socialization (Bradley, Reference Bradley2007; Eisenberg, Reference Eisenberg2020; Howe & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Howe and Zimmer-Gembeck2022; Kliewer et al., Reference Kliewer, Sandler, Wolchik, Hurrelman and Nestmann1994; Power, Reference Power2004; Zimmer-Gembeck & Locke, Reference Zimmer-Gembeck and Locke2007; Chapter 18, this volume). At its most general, this level includes the relationships, social interactions, and local contexts that create the interpersonal matrix within which the structure and functioning of coping’s many neurophysiological, psychological, reactive, and regulatory subsystems develop.

Figure 1.6 An integrative multi-level conceptualization of coping as a biopsychosocial process that adds: (4) the interpersonal level, including participation in coping by social partners as well as interpersonal relationships (such as with caregivers, extended family, friends, peers, and teachers) that create the interpersonal matrix within which the structure and functioning of coping’s many subsystems develop; and (5) the societal level, including the demands that specific niches within society allow to impinge on children and adolescents as they develop and the supports that are available to them, as well as the societal stressors and resources that influence their social partners and contexts, like neighborhoods, homes, and schools.

Finally, a systems perspective highlights the role of higher-order factors at the cultural and societal level that shape processes of coping in multiple ways (e.g., Chun et al., Reference Chun, Moos, Cronkite, Wong and Wong2006; Clauss-Ehlers, Reference Clauss-Ehlers2008; Kuo, Reference Kuo2011; Chapter 23, this volume). Such forces operate directly, by driving differential risks and resources into the niches occupied by children and youth from subgroups who sit on different rungs in the ladder of society’s status hierarchy (Spencer, Reference Spencer, Damon and Lerner2006; Chapter 24, this volume). Societal factors influence the stressors that are allowed to make their way into the lives of children and youth, and the resources they can access to deal with them. These forces also impact coping indirectly by shaping the societal stressors and resources that influence their social partners and contexts, like neighborhoods, homes, and schools (Tolan & Grant, Reference Tolan, Grant, Skinner, Zimmer-Gembeck, Larson and Jensen2009; Wadsworth et al., Reference Wadsworth, Ahlkvist, McDonald and Tilghman-Osborne2018). Moreover, the cultural communities in which children and adolescents are embedded also offer higher-order collective coping strategies, focused, for example, on mutual support, cooperation, collective efficacy, spirituality, sense of purpose, strong positive cultural/racial/ethnic identities, and fighting for social justice (e.g., Hope & Spencer, Reference Hope, Spencer, Cabrera and Leyendecker2017; Kuo, Reference Kuo2013; McNamara et al., Reference McNamara, Stevenson and Muldoon2013; Spencer et al., Reference Spencer, Fegley and Harpalani2003; Wadsworth et al., Reference Wadsworth, Ahlkvist, McDonald and Tilghman-Osborne2018).

Integrated System

A multi-level perspective lays out the complex system that comprises the coping of infants, children, and youth, and shows the many constructs and areas of research that need to fit inside this “bigger boat.” At the same time, it highlights the integration of all these processes in service of the functions of coping. So, for example, the neurophysiological subsystems that underlie threat detection, stress reactivity, regulation, and recovery can be thought of as a single multi-level integrated neurovisceral “super-system” (Koenig, Reference Koenig2020; Smith et al., Reference Smith, Thayer, Khalsa and Lane2017; Thayer & Lane, Reference Thayer and Lane2009; Chapter 9, this volume) that, when working optimally, supports flexible functioning that is well-calibrated to internal and external conditions. When stress is low, it supports constructive goal-directed engagement with social and physical environments. If uncertainty or novelty appear, it instigates an observant and cautious readiness for action. In the face of challenge, it can marshal short-term energetic resources and enhanced regulation. If transactions become threatening, it can trigger automatic stress reactions that activate fight or flight behaviors; if these fail, it can initiate the shutdown of a “freeze” response (i.e., immobilization). When danger has passed, it can rapidly switch off resource-expensive reactions and then more slowly reset the entire system to homeostatic functioning, allowing a return to productive social and physical interactions or, if needed, a pause for rest and recovery.

In the same vein, the psychological processes that underlie stress reactivity and action regulation, including emotional, attentional, behavioral, motivational, volitional, and cognitive subsystems, can be thought of as an integrated “super-system” that subserves adaptations to environmental challenges, threats, and dangers (e.g., Cole et al., Reference Cole, Ram and English2019; Nigg, Reference Nigg2017). In other words, action readiness and regulation – coping – comprises a unitary holistic system that is hierarchical, dynamic, and flexible, with first lines of defense and fallbacks. This system is adaptive because it continuously attunes itself to changing neuropsychological, social, and external affordances and demands (Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, Juster, Raymond and Marin2018; Smith et al., Reference Smith, Thayer, Khalsa and Lane2017; Thayer & Lane, Reference Thayer and Lane2009), allowing up- and downregulation of attentional and energetic resources needed to deal effectively with goal-directed action under stress.

All the processes studied as parts of stress reactivity, action readiness, and regulation (e.g., executive function, cognitive control, attention regulation, emotion regulation) can be considered parts of a biopsychosocial system that can be (re)assembled into a wide variety of functional units in response to patterns of internal and external demands. Paraphrasing Joëls and Baram’s (Reference Joëls and Baram2009) apt description of stress, all of these “coping instruments” can be considered parts of the “biopsychobehavioral symphony of coping.” By focusing on the ways that coping systems can be organized and function, it may be possible to glimpse the development of this system as the sequential emergence of these levels and their successive integration (e.g., Loman & Gunnar, Reference Loman and Gunnar2010; McEwen et al., Reference McEwen, Nasca and Gray2016; Porges, Reference Porges, Porges and Dana2018; Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016). Such analyses may begin to explain how coping systems show qualitative age-graded shifts as infants, children, and adolescents develop.

Neonatal Period: Stress Reactivity and “External Coping” via the Caregiver

The development of coping starts before birth, as underlying neurophysiological and temperamental foundations are laid down that will eventually make the tasks of coping easier or harder to accomplish (Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020). The first coping system, like all subsequent systems, is both neurophysiological (rooted in temperament; Derryberry et al., Reference Derryberry, Reed and Pilkenton-Taylor2003) and social (based on attachment; Sroufe, Reference Sroufe1996). At birth, neonates’ coping equipment starts as reflexive reactions fused to a vigilant and reactive sensory and neurophysiological system. This system produces a diffuse set of undirected emotional expressions, to which caregivers respond, using increasingly more effective strategies for repair and comfort (Sroufe, Reference Sroufe1996). Adult actions can be viewed as “external coping,” because they fulfill all the functions of a coping system, such as monitoring and detecting threats, protecting, removing stressors, soothing, comforting, and learning how to deal with stress more effectively (Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020; Holodynski & Friedlmeier, Reference Holodynski and Friedlmeier2006).

Two major reorganizations take place in the coping system during the first 3 months of life – one neurophysiological and one social. The first starts at birth. Until then the neurophysiological systems subserving coping are accustomed to operating inside the mother’s body so, following birth, a qualitative reorganization is needed so these systems can develop the capacity to establish stable homeostatic functioning outside such a protective environment (Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, Juster, Raymond and Marin2018). In the context of a secure attachment relationship, the neurophysiological systems subserving stress reactivity (e.g., the HPA axis) go into a period of hyporesponsivity (Gunnar & Hostinar, Reference Gunnar and Hostinar2015). This shift reduces stress reactivity and frees resources for practicing the up- and down-regulation needed to move the neonate from homeostatic functioning (e.g., digestion and sleep) to constructive engagement (i.e., alert participation) to coping with stress (i.e., regulation), and back again (i.e., recovery; Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020).

The second reorganization during this period involves a shift from strictly neurophysiological reactivity, regulation, and recovery to the beginnings of interpersonal regulation of these systems by caregivers. Based on a history of caring and responsive interactions, infants’ neurobiological systems develop the capacity to be up-regulated (i.e., engaged) and down-regulated (i.e., comforted) by caregivers, thus opening them to regulation from social partners (Feldman, Reference Feldman2017) and creating a sheltered venue for neonates to practice their own burgeoning regulatory capacities. This development also paves the way for the introduction of a crucial omnibus coping strategy, namely, proximity seeking (Bowlby, 1969/1973), upon which future coping will be built. This coping family is well-integrated with neonates’ actual emotions, motivations, and neurophysiological states because responsive caregiving is based on infants’ genuine preferences as they are expressed in real time (Sroufe, Reference Sroufe1996).

Hence, by about 3 months of age, infant coping has become an integrated stress reactivity and regulatory system that is tuned to safety and thus hyporesponsive – capable of both supporting homeostatic functions and dispatching energetic resources for responding to external demands. As part of the developmental tasks of this period, dyads build out from newborns’ stress neurophysiology to create a stable biobehavioral platform for infants on the level of reactivity and regulation that will support the subsequent development of coping systems that children can (eventually) operate for themselves.

Infancy: Implicit Appraisals, Intentional Action Regulation, and Co-regulatory Coping

The fundamentals of regulatory coping processes, such as attention and working memory, are present in newborns but undergo qualitative transformations as infants develop (Kopp, Reference Kopp1989; Posner et al., Reference Posner, Rothbart, Sheese and Voelker2014). The healthy progress of these biobehavioral subsystems, such as the emergence of executive attention and the expansion of working memory capacity, is dependent on safe and rich social and physical worlds, including dependable care, secure attachments, and opportunities for stimulating interactions (Pallini et al., Reference Pallini, Chirumbolo, Morelli, Baiocco, Laghi and Eisenberg2018). Three developments, important to reorganizations in the coping system during the first year, involve advances in coping appraisals, coping actions, and the capacity to coordinate coping with social partners.

First, stress reactivity and regulation are lifted off relatively automatic neurophysiological subsystems and come to be triggered and guided by infants’ implicit appraisals of challenging and stressful encounters; as studied, for example, in research on internal working models (Bretherton, Reference Bretherton, Noam and Fischer1996; Sherman et al., Reference Sherman, Rice and Cassidy2015) and generalized expectations of contingency (Watson, Reference Watson1966). Implicit appraisals are constructed from the running total of infants’ cumulative experiences in interactions with the interpersonal and physical environments, so they are tightly integrated with transactions on the ground. Such appraisals likely work outside of conscious awareness to identify and decipher the meaning of challenging and threating transactions, and so open the door for the practice of intrinsic coping responses based on fundamental emotional and motivational processes (Barrett & Campos, Reference Barrett, Campos, Cummings, Greene and Karraker1991).

The second major development of this period involves infants’ coping actions. They become more robust and goal-directed as sensorimotor intentionality emerges and is consolidated (Zeedyk, Reference Zeedyk1996), thus readying intrinsic action systems for authentic expression, exploration, interaction, and tenacity. These advances systematically convert preferences to purposes, and so are utilized to guide goal-directed actions and communications aimed at dealing with and overcoming challenges and problems. The onset of locomotion brings a range of new means of coping (Campos et al., Reference Campos, Anderson, Barbu-Roth, Hubbard, Hertenstein and Witherington2000).

Third, the interpersonal nature of the coping system is transformed, moving away from largely external coping carried out by caregivers (under the supervision of infant preferences) and toward a co-regulatory system created by both caregiver and baby where infants learn to help negotiate stressful transactions (Evans & Porter, Reference Evans and Porter2009; Gianino & Tronick, Reference Gianino, Tronick, Field, McCabe and Schneiderman1988). Within this dyadic system, infants’ newly constructed appreciations and goal-directed actions increasingly participate in “coping packages” that are co-generated and co-enacted by caregiver and infant and stored as action schema for use in future stressful encounters (Holodynski & Friedlmeier, Reference Holodynski and Friedlmeier2006). Together, these social relationships and coping capacities (and their feedback in reprogramming developing stress neurophysiology toward higher tipping points and faster recovery) may lead to improved biobehavioral stress resistance and stress resilience by the end of the first year (DiCorcia & Tronick, Reference DiCorcia and Tronick2011).

Toddlerhood: Explicit Appraisals, Emotional Action Regulation, and Cooperative Coping

Three important developments underlie age-graded shifts in coping during the second year of life. As during previous age periods, these involve transformations in the tools used for coping appraisals and actions as well as the reorganization of the interpersonal system. First, representational capacities emerge (e.g., as seen in language). This transforms the “radar” of coping so that implicit appraisals become explicit belief systems that interpret the experience of potentially stressful interactions and shape subsequent reactivity and readiness for action. This emerging appraisal system, because it is still tied to actual transactions on the ground, continues to provide a stream of realistic information to the coping system. At the same time, the experiences of most toddlers are taking place in the protected environment of a secure attachment relationship, so these beliefs are positively biased, creating a psychological buffer that positively colors explicit interpretations of challenging and threatening experiences.

Second, the development of emotion and self-systems, as seen in burgeoning self- and emotional awareness, understanding, and regulation (Thompson, Reference Thompson, Lerner and Lamb2015), integrates intrinsic motivational and goal-directed action systems with emotion, and converts “emotional action regulation” to coping efforts guided by an increasingly agentic self. This transformation generates more durable intentions and coping actions. It also creates new sources of potential stress (e.g., experiences of self-conscious emotions like guilt and shame; interpersonal goal conflicts) that produce new venues where coping can be practiced.

Third, when the capacity for shared intentionality emerges (Tomasello & Carpenter, Reference Tomasello and Carpenter2007), this advance transforms the nature of the interpersonal coping system, which up until now was co-regulatory. It increasingly becomes a cooperative “triadic” system; in addition to the toddler and caregiver, it now includes the problems faced by the child as an object of their joint attention, which they can face as a united front (Tomasello, Reference Tomasello2007). In this emerging system, children’s stressors and problems, as well as their coping appraisals and actions, can now become topics of joint conversation. As children learn to “use their words” to express desires and feelings, they can discuss and reflect on these motivational and emotional states, consider alternative goals suggested by others, and employ words to take on those goals and to encourage themselves to focus on and enact these new behaviors.

Crucial to the development of this cooperative coping system is the caregiver’s continued support for genuine communication and productive regulation of emotions and emotionally inspired actions, sometimes called emotion or coping coaching (Gus et al., Reference Gus, Rose and Gilbert2015; Morris et al., Reference Morris, Criss, Silk and Houltberg2017) or socialization (Eisenberg, Reference Eisenberg2020; Zimmer-Gembeck & Locke, Reference Zimmer-Gembeck and Locke2007; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., Reference Zimmer-Gembeck, Rudolph, Kerin and Bohadana-Brown2022). Although these transformations can be somewhat “bumpy” (Brownell & Kopp, Reference Brownell and Kopp2007; Lewis et al., Reference Lewis, Zimmerman, Hollenstein and Lamey2004), toddlers begin to become reciprocally concerned about the emotions and problems of their caregivers, forming a relationship characterized by a mutually responsive orientation (An et al., Reference An, Kochanska, Yeager, Sivagurunathan, Praska, Campbell and Shin2021; Kochanska et al., Reference Kochanska, Aksan, Prisco and Adams2008). Just as a secure attachment opened neonates’ stress neurophysiology to the regulation of caregivers during the first months of life, a secure attachment during toddlerhood opens the child’s volition to the regulation of caregivers, promoting young children’s willingness to cooperate with the caregiver in dealing with conflicts and problems.

Early Childhood: Inferential Appraisals, Voluntary Action Regulation, and Individual Coping

Three crucial developments contribute to qualitative shifts in coping during early childhood, when coping undergoes the transformation from an interpersonal to an intrapersonal process. First, regulation evinces perhaps its most important qualitative shift – it becomes truly voluntary. For researchers who define coping as entailing voluntary efforts (e.g., Compas et al., Reference Compas, Connor, Saltzman, Thomsen, Wadsworth, Lewis and Ramsay1999), this transition marks the beginning of coping proper. The emergence of voluntary coping, like all other developments in the coping system, is a biopsychosocial process. Neurocognitive executive capacities, like attention, working memory, and inhibitory control, improve but also become more differentiated and better coordinated during early childhood (Nigg, Reference Nigg2017), shaped by the quality of home and preschool contexts. Young children exercise regulatory capacities when they have structured opportunities to follow routines and rules, respond to adults’ requests for appropriate behavior, and constructively negotiate interpersonal interactions with peers (Laursen et al., Reference Laursen, Finkelstein and Betts2001; McClelland et al., Reference McClelland, Geldhof, Cameron, Wanless, Overton, Molenaar and Lerner2015). The transactions most relevant to coping are those, like emotion regulation, that take place in hot situations, involving young children’s desires and goals (e.g., Thompson, Reference Thompson, Lerner and Lamb2015). Increased integration among regulatory subsystems enables a range of new coping responses, such as the intentional generation of alternative action options (Keen, Reference Keen2011).

Second, advances in theories of mind and affect allow young children to appraise conflicts and difficulties using increasingly more complex mental models that, through the incorporation of inferential concepts, begin to grant others a range of understandings, emotions, and desires that differ from oneself and from reality. Especially important to coping are conversations with social partners about everyday problems and dilemmas – discussions that take others’ perspectives and consider alternative causal interpretations and possible actions in the face of stressful events. Interestingly, at this same age, relationships with friends and other peers supplement those with adult attachment figures and begin to take on the role of buffering children’s neurophysiology from the effects of stressful transactions (Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020).

Third, the emergence of a moral compass, as depicted in research on the development of conscience (Kochanska et al., Reference Kochanska, Koenig, Barry, Kim and Yoon2010), offers young children a set of tools to coordinate the goals and actions of the self with those of others using increasingly internalized moral values and principles. As capacities for voluntary self-regulation develop, social partners (e.g., family members and preschool teachers) create “problems” for young children by demanding increasingly more mature and socially appropriate rule-governed behavior. Such problems occasion episodes of coping where children must coordinate their actions and emotions according to these demands.

The emergence of voluntary coping actions can be considered a shift from self-control or compliance based on co-regulation with adults to genuine self-regulation, initiated by an increasingly mastery-oriented self. Throughout this period, involvement of caregivers is essential, but they must figure out how to scaffold young children as they test-drive their own self-regulated coping systems. This inevitably involves the construction of “redemption routines” and debriefing conversations following coping fails. Together, these developments again shift the coping system’s center of gravity to an increasingly more autonomous self, as young children can appraise and deal with problems and stressors using their own interpretations and actions as a first line of defense, with direct participation of caregivers now relegated to a second-line back-up.

Middle Childhood: Cognitive Reappraisal, Mental Modes of Coping, and Coordination with Demands

The “five-to-seven-year shift” (Sameroff & Haith, Reference Sameroff and Haith1996) marks the beginning of a new developmental period for the coping system. Although children’s regulatory capacities have undergone multiple reorganizations by this age, they are still relatively basic (McClelland et al., Reference McClelland, Geldhof, Cameron, Wanless, Overton, Molenaar and Lerner2015). Important advances are occasioned by the “cognitive revolution” (Case & Griffin, Reference Case and Griffin1990; Case et al., Reference Case, Hayward, Lewis and Hurst1988), when self-regulatory strategies that were previously expressed as actions on the ground increasingly become “cognitivized,” that is, reconstructed as a psychological inventory of action options (Holodynski & Friedlmeier, Reference Holodynski and Friedlmeier2006). Three key changes underlie reorganizations of the coping system during this age period, involving appraisals, coping actions, and coordination with others.

First, “cognitivization” results in the emergence and consolidation of new representational capacities that permit children to deliberately reappraise stressful events in ways that influence their emotional responses and coping actions (Davis-Kean et al., Reference Davis‐Kean, Jager and Andrew Collins2009). This allows them to integrate their executive processes with motivational and emotional impulses (now also stored as cognitive reflections), enabling regulation to become more autonomous and so require fewer resources to enact. These developments also give children the capacity to intentionally track their own emotional and motivational states and begin to modulate them through coping strategies like cognitive reframing and positive self-talk (Band & Weisz, Reference Baltes, Baltes, Baltes and Baltes1990; Davis et al., Reference Davis, Levine, Lench and Quas2010).

Second, regulatory capacities are exercised, strengthened, and consolidated into more advanced executive processes like goal-directed problem-solving. Studies of the development of regulation reveal a hierarchy of such processes that continue to grow throughout this period (Nigg, Reference Nigg2017), becoming more differentiated, context independent, and complex. These new mental means are incorporated in problem-solving and emotion regulation, contributing to the emergence of more complex executive processes, like strategizing, sequencing, and planning. This leads to improvements in children’s abilities to identify, negotiate, and enact constructive solutions, even under demanding conditions, such as interpersonal conflict. Across this age range, children are increasingly able to differentiate and deploy a wider range of coping options. During early childhood, coping shows little differentiation: young children primarily seek support from caregivers, intervene directly in stressful situations, withdraw, or use behavioral activities to distract themselves. During middle childhood, however, all these strategies become more differentiated as a host of mental means are added. For example, problem-solving and distraction become more diverse and flexible as children increasingly draw upon both behavioral and cognitive tactics.

Third, as executive functions continue to grow, children can more intentionally and appropriately coordinate ways of coping with changing internal and external affordances and constraints. For example, children not only rely on additional sources of support (such as teachers, peers, and extended family members), but also become more selective and attuned to stressor- and context-specific information when seeking advice, help, or comfort. Together, these emerging capacities allow children to employ a wider range of behavioral and cognitive coping tools for productively dealing with stressors from both the instrumental (e.g., academic; Skinner & Saxton, Reference Skinner and Saxton2020) and interpersonal (e.g., peer conflict; Seiffge-Krenke & Pakalniskiene, Reference Seiffge-Krenke and Pakalniskiene2011) domains, while at the same time becoming better able to tune into internal emotional and motivational states and intentionally work to restore well-being, recover, and learn from stressful encounters.

Such coping transactions, when supported by caring social partners (both peers and adults), contribute to the continued development of pragmatic and constructive self-systems during middle childhood (as seen, for example, in increasing feelings of coping efficacy, sense of belonging, and autonomous orientations) that will anchor children’s subsequent efforts to manage the challenges and stressors they encounter. During middle childhood, these developments collectively produce a system that seems to be particularly sturdy and resilient. At this age, children have a wider range of flexible appraisal and action tools than at younger ages, but do not yet have to deal with the increasing stress reactivity and social sensitivity that will challenge the coping systems of early adolescents.

Adolescence: Heightened Reactivity, Proactive Regulation, and Increased Coping Flexibility

The development of coping during adolescence covers many years and seems to be even more extended today with longer periods between puberty and becoming established in work, forming long-term relationships, or having children. Thus, this topic could fill its own chapter (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016) and even its own book (Frydenberg, Reference Frydenberg2018: Seiffge-Krenke, Reference Seiffge-Krenke2013). The shift to adolescence begins around ages 10–12, with the onset of puberty and other neurophysiological developments, which are accompanied by changing patterns of thinking and feeling about the self, relationships, and society (Spear, Reference Spear2000). In addition, the social worlds of youth expand, bringing a greater range of potential social supports and stressful experiences. Three important developments underlie transformations in the coping system during this age period, including notable changes in stress reactivity systems, richer tools for social and emotional understanding, and advances in metacognitive processes.

First, neurophysiological stress reactivity systems generally come out of their period of hyporesponsivity during adolescence, just as encounters with actual stressful events are normatively on the rise and the power of attachment figures to physiologically buffer stress appears to be waning (Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020). The onset of puberty seems to bring with it greater motivational and emotional sensitivity to some hot events, especially threats, rewards, and interpersonal interactions. Such reactivity may outstrip the developing capacities of the regulatory system, producing what appear to be setbacks in regulatory functioning despite normative advances in executive processes (e.g., Casey, Reference Casey2015; Steinberg et al., Reference Steinberg, Icenogle, Shilman, Breiner, Chein, Bacchini and Takash2018; Chapter 11, this volume). Some researchers suggest that such elevated stress reactivity creates repeated opportunities for youth to practice and grow their developing regulatory and coping “muscles” in these emotionally and motivationally hot situations (Casey, Reference Casey2015; Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, Reference Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck2016). In fact, researchers even hypothesize that the reopening of the neurophysiology subserving stress reactivity and regulation that accompanies puberty allows for a recalibration of those systems, including reorganization and repair following early life stress (DePasquale et al., Reference DePasquale, Donzella and Gunnar2019).

Second, adolescents’ tools for appraisal are enriched by normative advances in empathy, understanding of emotions, and affective theory of mind, allowing youth to generate richer and more accurate depictions of the complex factors in play during stressful transactions. The continued development of self-system processes during this period also influences adolescents’ appraisals and reevaluations of distressing experiences. For example, important transitions may take place between ages 14 and 16, when autonomy and identity become increasingly salient (Côté, Reference Côté1996; Van Petegem et al., Reference Van Petegem, Brenning, Beyers, Baudet and Zimmer-Gembeck2018; Zimmer-Gembeck & Skinner, Reference Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner2010; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., Reference Zimmer-Gembeck, van Petegem, Ducat, Clear, Mastro, Soenens, Vansteenkiste and Van Petegem2018).

Third, beginning in adolescence, metacognitive capacities emerge, allowing more sophisticated future-oriented executive processes that can proactively anticipate problems, and consider both long-term goals and effects on others (Case et al., Reference Case, Hayward, Lewis and Hurst1988; Davis et al., Reference Davis, Levine, Lench and Quas2010). These burgeoning capabilities enable youth to more intentionally and flexibly use executive processes to coordinate their actions with changing internal and external conditions, such as the demands and resources available in specific situations. Normative improvements in the flexibility of regulatory systems can result in some unreliability in actions on the ground, but they also foster the capacity to better align (and realign) coping strategies with specific stressors as these encounters unfold.

Toward the middle and end of adolescence, this emerging complex of self-regulatory skills allows adolescents to integrate problem-focused and emotion-focused coping, as youth are increasingly able to use the developmentally more demanding skills of hot executive functions to maintain access to their higher-order cognitive capacities under increasingly challenging conditions of risk and reward. Despite overall developmental trends that indicate normative improvements, it is important to underscore that the hot regulatory processes so crucial to coping are harder for children and adolescents to deploy at every age and develop more slowly across the entire age range (Cohen et al., Reference Cohen, Breiner, Steinberg, Bonnie, Scott, Taylor-Thompson and Casey2016).

Heightened focus on peers and then romantic partners during this period contributes to improved interpersonal coping, and adds supplementary, increasingly important, layers of support and protection for coping. Additional important transformations may take place from middle to late adolescence (about ages 20–22), when significant social transitions motivate better coping, as well as ushering in potentially stressful new experiences, such as leaving home (Arnett, Reference Arnett2000). Neurobiological developments continue, further integrating decision-making (Reyna & Farley, Reference Reyna and Farley2006) with the processing of emotions (Spear, Reference Spear2000). In terms of coping, improvements in metacognitive and emotion regulation capacities enable adolescents to better manage their stress reactions, select and structure their environments, and consider long-term consequences, thereby becoming more able to deal with local stressors without losing sight of future goals and priorities. By the beginning of emerging adulthood, these burgeoning “meta-capacities” enable young adults to construct a reflective representation of the entire coping system. With practice and support, their coping becomes increasingly autonomous and responsible; they get help when needed and learn from their mistakes. In other words, they increasingly take ownership for the development of their own coping.

Prevention and Remediation

Practitioners rightly focus on prevention, given that the effects of early life adversity on the development of the neurobiological systems involved in stress reactivity and coping can be epigenetic, structural, and permanent (e.g., Engel & Gunnar, Reference Engel, Gunnar, Clow and Smyth2020; McEwen et al., Reference McEwen, Nasca and Gray2016). Researchers seeking to discover remediation strategies are guided by the fact that the effects of early life stress follow two principles (Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, Juster, Raymond and Marin2018): Effects are cumulative (Sameroff, Reference Sameroff2010) and they seem to be concentrated on the neurobiological systems that are developing at the time that adversity is experienced (Gee & Casey, Reference Gee and Casey2015; Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, Juster, Raymond and Marin2018; Chapter 10, this volume).

If prevention is not possible, then the ideal scenario is to detect and intervene on a time frame that is very close to the adverse experiences, so that brain systems are still plastic. This insight has led to routine screening for adverse experiences during pediatric visits, followed by two-generation interventions that target both caregiver and infant for services and treatment (Ford et al., Reference Ford, Hughes, Hardcastle, Di Lemma, Davies, Edwards and Bellis2019). However, once nonnormative structural or functional changes have taken place, their effects cannot always be reversed, so interventions focus on reprogramming systems that are still open, creating compensatory processes, and focusing on strengthening the next developmental layers that are laid down (Lupien et al., Reference Lupien, Juster, Raymond and Marin2018; Maier, Reference Maier2015). The search for remediation strategies ranges from bottom-up interventions, such as pharmacological regimens, to higher-level top-down programs, such as physical exercise (Boparai et al., Reference Boparai, Au, Koita, Oh, Briner, Harris and Bucci2018; McEwen & Gianaros, Reference McEwen and Gianaros2011). Despite the specificity of problems with stress reactivity and regulation created by early exposure to adversity, however, the strongest counterweight to these early adverse experiences seems to converge on the same antidote: massed experiences in safe and enriched environments, but – perhaps surprisingly– not ones that are stress-free (Crane et al., Reference Crane, Searle, Kangas and Nwiran2019; Masarik & Conger, Reference Masarik and Conger2017; Repetti & Robles, Reference Repetti and Robles2016). Instead, growth, recovery, and potential reprogramming are especially likely in high-quality social contexts (homes and schools) that offer active social, cognitive, and physical stimulation, exploration, and manageable challenge.

Coping Transactions as Important Sites for the Development of Coping

Descriptions of the successive reorganizations of the coping system highlight a crucial developmental process: Infants, children, and adolescents learn to cope by coping. That is, the equipment children and youth need to cope well (i.e., the tools used in radar, readiness, regulation, recovery, and reevaluation) are built, an episode at a time, during encounters with stress. These interactions are the grist from which integrated stress reactivity and flexible regulatory capacities (and all the other components of the coping system) are made. Coping transactions reprogram stress neurophysiology (Gee & Casey, Reference Gee and Casey2015; Maier & Watkins, Reference Maier and Watkins2010; Ortiz & Conrad, Reference Ortiz and Conrad2018), strengthen regulatory muscles, sculpt attachment relationships, build implicit appraisals and action schema used to deal with challenge and threat, contribute to the development of emotion regulation and understanding, and enable the internalization of moral rules used to guide conscience. It is during interactions with demands and difficulties that coping tools are assembled, tools like problem-solving, negotiation, cooperation, self-reliance, concession, and defense. It is clear, for example, that the primary way children learn to problem-solve is by encountering problems.

Coping is a complex, recursive dynamic system in which top-down and bottom-up processes are shaped by their workings together during stressful transactions. Such transactions comprise thousands upon thousands of episodes whose experience, described using the inverted-U function of the stress response, range from understimulated to engaged to challenged to threatened to overwhelmed and back again (Sapolsky, Reference Sapolsky2015). The entire coping system – its parts and its organizations – are cumulatively shaped by the processes of coping themselves. Hence, constructive coping is an important target of intervention. It not only helps protect children and youth from the harmful effects of daily stressors, but it also promotes their development, strengthening and consolidating processes from stress neurophysiology to reactivity/readiness to regulation to social relationships.

Coping Transactions in the Zone of Just Manageable Challenge

A primary task of adults is to ensure that the stressors children face in the major domains of their lives are tackled in a zone of “just manageable challenge,” where events are demanding but within the child’s capacity to deal with effectively (e.g., Crane et al., Reference Crane, Searle, Kangas and Nwiran2019; Jamieson et al., Reference Jamieson, Crum, Goyer, Marotta and Akinola2018; Masarik & Conger, Reference Masarik and Conger2017; Repetti & Robles, Reference Repetti and Robles2016; Sapolsky, Reference Sapolsky2015). These experiences promote stress resistance and resilience, but this zone represents a moving target, requiring continual monitoring and readjustment of both demands and supports. Social contexts face a “Goldilocks” dilemma, balancing between challenge and threat (Dhabhar, Reference Dhabhar2018; Sapolsky, Reference Sapolsky2015). Coping capacities need to be exercised and stretched to grow, but if the system is overwhelmed, it shuts down and produces patterns of stress-affected coping.

Development complicates this equation. On the one hand, as infants, children, and youth acquire new competencies, these provide new resources for coping. As a result, individuals are more able to deal effectively with new demands and are more likely to seek out new opportunities to exercise developing capacities. On the other hand, however, developmental advances also provide new avenues for experiencing threat and harm. For example, the emergence of locomotion brings with it a range of new coping tools, but it also increases the probability that an infant will fall down the stairs. This dual developmental progress, of expanding resources and risks, continues throughout all the years of childhood and adolescence. For example, during adolescence, close peer relationships become an important source not only of support and satisfaction but also of conflict and heartache (Clarke, Reference Clarke2006). In fact, it might be possible to argue that the emergence of new risks and dangers is as important to the development of the coping system as is the emergence of new competencies since risks provide age-graded opportunities to learn to cope with ever more demanding challenges.

From this analysis, it becomes clear that the roles of social partners and social contexts in the development of coping are as complex as the coping system itself. In fact, as pictured at the top of Figure 1.6, it might even be possible to consider social partners’ ways of participating (proactively and reactively) in children’s coping as a form of coping with someone else’s coping. It seems possible that caregivers (and others responsible for development) use an individual’s changing signals of distress versus engagement (made visible on the level of action as coping responses themselves) as information to calibrate the demands made and resources offered in helping them deal with stressful situations.

It is important for those attempting to change the course of coping to keep in mind the many strategies available to them, especially at higher levels of the social context. For example, socio-emotional learning programs can transform classrooms and school contexts and help children develop caring relationships with teachers, peers, friends, and classmates. These relationships and climates support children as they attempt to deal productively with everyday stressors inside and outside school. Or, for children and youth who are confronted every day by stressors stemming from racism, discrimination, and poverty, communal experiences of civic engagement and social action may create a context for collective coping (Rodriguez et al., Reference Rodriguez, Kozusznik, Peiró and Tordera2019). Of greatest interest may be multi-level or multi-systemic interventions that address actions, identities, interpersonal, and societal contexts all at the same time (Hope & Spencer, Reference Hope, Spencer, Cabrera and Leyendecker2017; Wadsworth et al., Reference Wadsworth, McDonald, Joos, Ahlkvist, Perzow, Tilghman‐Osborne and Brelsford2020).