Transactional Model of Coping
Lazarus, R. S. & Folkman, S. · 1984
Also known as: Lazarus & Folkman Coping
The transactional model defines coping as the changing cognitive and behavioural efforts a person makes to manage demands appraised as taxing or exceeding their resources. Two appraisals drive the process: primary appraisal asks whether the situation is threatening, and secondary appraisal asks what can be done about it. Coping efforts divide broadly into problem-focused strategies aimed at the situation and emotion-focused strategies aimed at the distress. The model's key claim is that neither family is inherently better — fit matters, with problem-focused coping suiting controllable situations and emotion-focused coping suiting uncontrollable ones.
Model defining coping as cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage demands appraised as taxing or exceeding personal resources. Distinguishes problem-focused (changing the situation) and emotion-focused (managing emotional response) strategies, with no strategy being universally adaptive.
- Source:
- Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer.
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Evidence at a glance
- Empirical support
- Strong evidence
- Replication
- Well replicated
- Cross-cultural
- Mostly universal
- Meta-analyses
- 17 indexed
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Historical Context
Lazarus developed the appraisal framework from the 1960s onward against both the stimulus-based life-events tradition and the psychoanalytic view of coping as fixed defence style. The 1984 book Stress, Appraisal, and Coping consolidated the transactional account and established coping as a process that changes within and across episodes. The Ways of Coping Questionnaire operationalised it, and Carver, Scheier and Weintraub's 1989 COPE inventory and its later Brief-COPE refined the taxonomy into more specific strategies, which is the form most used today.
Constructs
Self-Distraction
Turning to other activities — work, entertainment, daydreaming — to take one's mind off a stressor (Carver, 1997). Within the transactional model of coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) it manages the emotional response rather than the situation, offering relief without changing the demand.
Active Coping
Taking concrete steps to remove or reduce a stressor, concentrating effort on doing something about the situation (Carver, 1997). A problem-focused strategy in the transactional model (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984); it relates to lower distress in adjustment research (Carver, 1997).
Denial
Refusing to believe that the stressor is real, or acting as if it has not happened (Carver, 1997). An avoidance-oriented strategy that relates to higher distress in adjustment research (Carver, 1997).
Substance Use
Using alcohol or other substances to feel better or to get through the situation (Carver, 1997). An emotion-focused avoidance strategy; heavy reliance on it is the coping pattern most often flagged as warranting attention.
Emotional Support
Seeking comfort, understanding, and moral support from other people (Carver, 1997). An emotion-focused use of one's social network, distinct from instrumental support, which seeks help with the problem itself.
Instrumental Support
Seeking advice, information, or practical help from other people about what to do (Carver, 1997). The problem-focused counterpart of emotional support: the network is used to act on the situation rather than to feel better about it.
Behavioral Disengagement
Giving up the attempt to deal with the stressor, or abandoning the goals it interferes with (Carver, 1997). It relates to higher distress in adjustment research (Carver, 1997).
Venting
Expressing negative feelings and letting emotions out to relieve distress (Carver, 1997). An emotion-focused strategy: it can release pressure without in itself addressing the demand that produced it.
Positive Reframing
Reinterpreting the situation in a more positive light, looking for something good in what is happening (Carver, 1997). A meaning-changing strategy that relates to lower distress in adjustment research (Carver, 1997).
Planning
Thinking about how to confront the stressor and devising a strategy before acting (Carver, 1997). A problem-focused strategy and the close companion of active coping: one prepares the action, the other carries it out.
Humor
Making jokes about the situation or treating it with lightness to reduce its weight (Carver, 1997). An emotion-focused strategy that changes the stance toward the stressor rather than the stressor itself.
Acceptance
Accepting the reality of the situation and learning to live with it (Carver, 1997). Within the transactional model, strategies are evaluated by their fit to the situation rather than as universally good or bad (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), and acceptance is the strategy addressed to what cannot be changed.
Religion/Spirituality
Turning to religious or spiritual beliefs and practices in search of comfort and guidance (Carver, 1997). It can function both as emotional support and as a source of meaning for the situation.
Self-Blame
Criticizing and blaming oneself for what happened (Carver, 1997). It relates to higher distress in adjustment research (Carver, 1997), which distinguishes it from taking responsibility as a step toward action.
Instruments
- NOESIS Coping Strategies ScaleNOESIS2026
Tests built on this theory
Practical Applications
The model underpins stress-management training and cognitive-behavioural interventions, both of which target appraisal as well as behaviour. In chronic illness and caregiving research it explains why encouraging problem-solving can backfire in situations that are genuinely uncontrollable. In occupational health it informs the distinction between interventions that change the work and interventions that change the worker. For self-knowledge the useful output is a strategy profile matched against controllability, rather than a single coping-effectiveness score.
How It's Measured
Measured with self-report inventories (Brief-COPE and successors) listing specific strategies rated for use in a defined situation or period; reported as a strategy profile, never as a single coping-quality score.
Critiques & Limitations
The problem-focused versus emotion-focused dichotomy is too coarse — emotion-focused lumps together adaptive strategies such as reappraisal with maladaptive ones such as denial and substance use, which is why finer taxonomies replaced it. Retrospective coping questionnaires ask people to recall what they did, and such recall is reconstructive and mood-congruent. Because coping is by definition situational, trait-style coping inventories sit uneasily with the theory they derive from. The literature is also largely correlational, so whether coping causes outcomes or reflects them is often unresolved.
Key Publications
- Lazarus, R. S. & Folkman, S.. (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping.
- Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F. & Weintraub, J. K.. (1989). Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. 10.1037/0022-3514.56.2.267
- Carver, C. S.. (1997). You want to measure coping but your protocol's too long: Consider the Brief COPE. 10.1207/s15327558ijbm0401_6