ABSTRACT
Coping is made up of the responses (thoughts, feelings and actions) that an individual uses to deal with problematic situations that are encountered in everyday life and in particular circumstances. Sometimes problems are solved and sometimes they are ignored in an individual’s attempt to deal with the environment. Thus an examination of the ways in which people cope with their stresses and concerns provides a means of understanding human behaviour. The procedure for determining how people deal with their concerns in daily life involves the observation of behaviour in situ or through the reporting by self or others. By far the most common way to determine how people cope is to ask them to report, by filling out a questionnaire, what it is they do, or to ask them to describe in interviews or written texts those things that they do to manage their concerns or stresses.
