Coping with stress: naturalistic observations of the Polish crisis

Naturalistic observations were made while the author was living and working in Poland as a visiting professor at the Institute of Psychology, Warsaw University, from October through December 1981. Social, political, economic, and interpersonal elements of the Polish "crisis" and reactions of the Polish people to these stressors are described. Individual patterns of coping with stress are categorized in terms of people's beliefs about the causes of stress and beliefs about personal control over the causes of stress. Three groups are identified: People who were certain that they could or could not modify the causes of stress and, therefore, coped by taking action ("fight" or "flight"); people who were uncertain about their capacity to modify the causes of stress, but believed that they could manage their daily lives; and people who believed that their only realm of influence was over intrapsychic events and coped via control over intake of information (repression or sensitization). The relative success of the different coping strategies is considered. Finally, the imposition of martial law and people's reactions to it are described.