Topic 2 The Transactional Model of Stress and Coping

The Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, suggest that stress is a dynamic transaction between a person and their environment that is judged to be personally significant and to exceed coping ability (Folkman, 2020).

Cognitive appraisal and coping are the two main features of the theory. Primary Appraisal answering the questions ‘What does this mean to me personally? /’What will be the impact of this on my well-being?’, and can be influenced by people’s values, goals, and beliefs. There are three types of primary appraisals: irrelevant (doesn’t have impact), benign-positive (positively impacts), and stressful. Stress appraisals can signify harm/loss (already suffered some damage), threat (harm is anticipated) and challenge (possibility of gain or mastery) (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p.32-33, Lazarus & Folkman, 1987).

The secondary appraisal is activated if the person perceives the situation as stressful and answers, ‘ Do I have the capacity to deal with this?’ (Biggs, Brough, & Drummond, 2017).

Coping happens when an event is deemed stressful (primary appraisal) and needs to be managed or resolved (secondary appraisal). The two types of coping strategies are problem-focused and emotion-focused. A problem-focused strategy aims to control or resolve the problem, whereas an emotion-focused strategy seeks to regulate emotions coming from a stressful situation. Problem-focused strategies include gathering information and developing an action plan. Emotion-focused strategies include avoidance and minimization. Several factors, like circumstances and personal characteristics, determine a person’s strategy choice (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 150-151).

The outcome of coping efforts, accompanied by new information from the environment, results in cognitive reappraisal. It’s the process of reappraising the situation to determine whether coping efforts have been effective or if the situation has changed from stressful to irrelevant or benign-positive.