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Commentary on the Special Section “Theory-Based Approaches to Stress and Coping”

Questions, Answers, Issues, and Next Steps in Stress and Coping Research

Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.14.1.72

The six articles that comprise the special section on stress and coping each illuminate a different facet of the stress process. The issues addressed in these studies of dyadic coping, collective trauma, gender issues, and protective coping provide new information and, as is inevitable, raise new questions. Several studies also demonstrate some of the challenges inherent in the study of a dynamic, multilevel, recursive system that is anchored in the appraisal process of an individual in a given social context. This commentary reviews the issues and challenges raised in these studies, and suggests next steps for research in this field.

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