APA Dictionary of Psychology

a stress-management strategy in which a person seeks to adjust their hopes, expectations, attributions, and other aspects of the self to achieve a better fit with current events and prevailing conditions. This adaptation of oneself to the environment represents a more internally focused coping strategy that generally is applied when stressors cannot easily be counteracted directly. It includes such mental actions as distraction, positive thinking, cognitive restructuring, and rethinking about the stressor or problem in such a way as to facilitate acceptance. Also called secondary control coping. Compare primary coping. [identified in 1982 by Fred M. Rothbaum (1949–2011) and John R. Weisz (1945–  ), U.S. clinical and developmental psychologists, and Samuel S. Snyder, U.S. developmental psychologist]