<i>Coping</i> as executive function

Abstract

Coping is the term to describe the strategies used to adapt individuals to stress. This theoretical paper reviews the four levels model of coping, with low order processes corresponding to coping instances and the high order processes corresponding to a global adaptation strategies. The article reviews characteristics of coping that approach it to executive functions, primarily dependent of frontal cortical structures. Coping would perform trough primary control or direct action in source of stress or negative emotion, through secondary control or adaptation to source of stress, and through disengage or escape stressors or negative emotions. Besides that, this paper argument that coping involves evaluation, planning, analysis and results anticipation, and that it is typically related to executive functions. Keywords: coping; executive function; stress; frontal cortex; neuropsychology; neuroscience; cognition.