Coping with Lack of Control in a Social World

Coping with Lack of Control in a Social World offers an integrated view of cutting-edge research on the effects of control deprivation on social cognition. The book integrates multi-method research demonstrating how various types of control deprivation, related not only to experimental settings but also to real life situations of helplessness, can lead to variety of cognitive and emotional coping strategies at the social cognitive level. The comprehensive analyses in this book tackle issues such as: Cognitive, emotional and socio-behavioral reactions to threats to personal control How social factors aid in coping with a sense of lost or threatened control Relating uncontrollability to powerlessness and intergroup processes How lack of control experiences can influence basic and complex cognitive processes This book integrates various strands of research that have not yet been presented together in an innovative volume that addresses the issue of reactions to control loss in a socio-psychological context. Its focus on coping as an active way of confronting a sense of uncontrollability makes this a unique, and highly original, contribution to the field. Practicing psychologists and students of psychology will be particularly interested readers.

Coping with Lack of Control in a Social World: An Introduction Marcin Bukowski, Immo Fritsche, Ana Guinote and Miroslaw Kofta Part 1: Cognitive, Emotional and Socio-behavioral Reactions to Uncontrollability Chapter 1. From Coping to Helplessness: Effects of Control Deprivation on Cognitive and Affective Processes Marcin Bukowski and Miroslaw Kofta Chapter 2. The Motivation for Control: Loss of Control Promotes Energy, Effort, and Action Katharine H. Greenaway, Michael C. Philipp and Katherine R. Storrs Chapter 3. "Ironic" Effects of Need for Closure on Closed-minded Processing Mode: The Role of Perceived Control over Reducing Uncertainty Malgorzata Kossowska, Marcin Bukowski and Sindhuja Sankaran Chapter 4. Uncontrollability in the Classroom: The Intellectual Helplessness Perspective Klara Rydzewska, Marzena Rusanowska, Izabela Krejtz and Grzegorz Sedek Part 2: Socially Grounded Responses to Perceived Lack of Control: From Compensation to Active Coping Chapter 5. Compensatory Control Theory and the Psychological Importance of Perceiving Order Bastiaan T. Rutjens and Aaron C. Kay Chapter 6. Perceived Uncontrollability as a Coping Resource: The Control-serving Function of Enemies and Uncertainty Daniel Sullivan and Sheridan A. Stewart Chapter 7. Giving in and Giving Up: Accommodation and Fatalistic Withdrawal as Alternatives to Primary Control Restoration Joseph Hayes, Mike Prentice and Ian McGregor Chapter 8. Extending Control Perceptions to the Social Self: Ingroups Serve the Restoration of Control Janine Stollberg, Immo Fritsche, Markus Barth and Philipp Jugert Chapter 9. Coping with Identity Threats to Group Agency as well as Group Value: Explicit and Implicit Routes to Resistance Soledad de Lemus, Russell Spears, Jolien van Breen and Maïka Telga Part 3: Uncontrollability, Powerlessness and Intergroup Cognition Chapter 10. Thinking Up and Talking Up: Restoring Control through Mindreading Susan T. Fiske, Dan L. Ames, Jillian K. Swencionis and Cydney H. Dupree Chapter 11. Accentuation of Tending and Befriending Among the Powerless Ana Guinote and Joris Lammers Chapter 12. The Emotional Side of Power(lessness) Katerina Petkanopoulou, Guillermo B. Willis and Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón Chapter 13. Uncontrollability, Reactance, and Power: Power as a Resource to Regain Control after Freedom Threats Christina Steindl, Eva Jonas and Sandra Sittenthaler

Marcin Bukowski, Lecturer and Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Poland. Immo Fritsche, Professor of Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany. Ana Guinote, Professor of Psychology, University College London, UK. Miroslaw Kofta, Professor of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Poland.