In practice, it would seem that most responses to stressful
situations will use a combination of internalized and externalized
approaches (Shaw 1999). Perhaps the balance
between these types of response will vary across lines of
age, gender and personality type. Research by Irion and
Blanchard-Fields (1987) has looked at lifespan perspectives
and found wide variations. Adolescents were distancing and
confrontational, young adults used planned problem-solving,
and middle-aged to older people used escape-avoidance and
self-blame more often. However, the evidence for these
differences is problematic; it may be that as people grow
older they use more passive methods of coping, or equally
that problems and situations change overtime and need
different responses. Their study of young women around the
age of 30 years showed that, added to the age/gender context,
there do appear to be changes in philosophical attitudes
around the age of 30 years, and that strategies for coping are
not good or bad in themselves, but should be looked at in
context.