27
Manage Stress at Work through Preventive and Proactive Coping
TABEA REUTER AND RALF SCHWARZER
Coping with stress at work can be defined as an effort by a person or an organization to manage and overcome demands and critical events that pose a challenge, threat, harm, or loss to that person and that person’s functioning or to the organization as a whole. Coping can occur as a response to an event or in anticipation of upcoming demands, but it can also involve a proactive approach to self-imposed goals and challenges.
Coping with stress is considered as one of the top skills inherent in effective managers. In samples recruited from business, educational, health care, and state government organizations, 402 highly effective managers were identified by peers and superiors. Interviews revealed that coping was second on a list of 10 key skills attributed to managers. The management of time and stress was beneficial to the organization because the leaders were role models for employees. Moreover, the executives themselves benefited from successful coping in terms of performance and health (Whetton and Cameron, 1993). This underscores the importance of coping in the workplace. A host of research conducted during the last three decades has found that poor adjustment to demanding or adverse work environments can lead to illness, in particular to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease (Kasl, 1996; Marmot, Bosma, Hemingway, Brunner, and Stansfeld, 1997; Siegrist, 1996; Theorell and Karasek, 1996; Weidner, Boughal, Conner, Pieper, and Mendell, 1997).
This chapter outlines an approach to coping that makes a distinction between four perspectives, namely reactive coping, anticipatory coping, preventive coping, and proactive coping. This distinction is based on time-related stress appraisals and on the perceived certainty of critical events or demands. Reactive coping refers to harm or loss experienced in the past, whereas anticipatory coping pertains to inevitable threats in the near future. Preventive coping refers to uncertain threats in the distant future, and proactive coping involves future challenges that are seen as self-promoting.
In addition to this approach, numerous ways of coping are presented, and their use at the level of organizations and at the level of individuals is discussed. To begin with, the nature of stress at work will be described.
The experience of stress
The workplace provides numerous sources of stress. The job itself might involve difficult and demanding tasks that tax or exceed the coping resources of the employee. The role of an individual within the organization might be ambiguous or might even be the cause of frequent conflicts. Relationships at work could entail friction and impair functioning or motivation. Career development might be restricted or echo a constant struggle for acknowledgment. The organizational climate might reflect a battleground for competition. Further, it is possible that all of these examples are aggravated by non-work factors that interact with job stress. Adverse conditions are one of the factors that constitute or set the stage for experiencing stress, such as working shifts, long hours, place of work, work overload, frequent travel, speed of change, and new technology. Often-cited stressors are job insecurity, friction with bosses, subordinates, or colleagues, and role conflict or ambiguity (Cartwright and Cooper, 1997; Quick, Quick, Nelson, and Hurrell, 1997).
Surveys have found a “growing epidemic of stress” (Quick et al., 1997). This does not necessarily indicate that people experience more stress now than they did earlier in their lives, or more stress than earlier generations. Instead, it may signify greater public awareness of the stress phenomenon and the existence of a handy label for a common feeling. Research on the prevalence of stress is difficult because the term is not clearly defined. In the public health literature, and likewise in industrial and organizational psychology, a distinction is sometimes made between “objective stress,” also called stressor, and “subjective stress,” also called strain or distress. The former is used in research as an independent variable, and the latter as a dependent variable. However, in mainstream psychology, stimulus-based and response-based definitions have become less prevalent. Instead, transactional conceptions are widely accepted, in which stress is understood as a complex process, rather than as a descriptive variable or as a single explanatory concept.
Cognitive-transactional theory of stress
Cognitive-transactional theory defines stress as a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being. Lazarus (1991) conceives stress as an active, unfolding process that is composed of causal antecedents, mediating processes, and effects. Antecedents are person variables, such as commitments or beliefs, and environmental variables, such as demands or situational constraints. Mediating processes refer to coping and appraisals of demands and resources. Experiencing stress and coping bring about both immediate effects, such as affect or physiological changes, and long-term effects concerning psychological well-being, somatic health, and social functioning (see Figure 27.1).
Cognitive appraisals comprise two simultaneous processes, namely primary (demand) appraisals and secondary (resource) appraisals. The terms primary and secondary appraisals have been often misunderstood as reflecting a temporal order which was not meant by Lazarus (personal communication). Therefore, demand and resource appraisals are better terms. Appraisal outcomes are divided into the categories challenge, threat, and harm/loss. First, demand appraisal refers to one’s evaluation of a situation or event as a potential hazard.
FIGURE 27.1 A process model of stress and coping
Second, resource appraisals refer to one’s available coping options for dealing with the demands at hand. The individual evaluates his or her competence, social support, and material or other resources that can help to readapt to the circumstances and to reestablish an equilibrium between the person and the environment. Hobfoll (1989) has expanded stress and coping theory with respect to the conservation of resources as the main human motive in the struggle with stressful encounters.
Three outcome categories occur as a result of demand and resource appraisals: a situation is appraised as challenging when it mobilizes physical and mental activity and involvement. In the evaluation of challenge, a person may see an opportunity to prove oneself, anticipating gain, mastery, or personal growth from the venture. The situation is experienced as pleasant, exciting, and interesting, and the person feels ardent and confident in being able to meet the demands. Threat occurs when the individual perceives danger, anticipating physical injuries or blows to one’s self-esteem. In the experience of harm/loss, some damage has already occurred. This can be the injury or loss of valued persons, important objects, self-worth, or social standing.
Assessment of stress
The main practical problem with transactional theories of stress is that there is no good way of measuring stress as a process. Therefore, all common procedures to assess stress are either stimulus based, pointing at critical events and demands, or response based, pointing at symptoms and feelings experienced. Some procedures measure the frequency or intensity of stressors, while others measure individual distress (strain). An example for a stimulus-based instrument is Spielberger’s (1994) Job Stress Survey (JSS). It includes 30 items that describe stressors typically experienced by managerial, professional, and clerical employees. The respondents first rate the severity (intensity) of 30 job stressors (such as excessive paperwork, poorly motivated co-workers). Next, they rate the same list once more on a frequency scale. The two ratings result in scores that can be interpreted as state and trait job stress. Other instruments deal with critical events at the workplace, hassles and uplifts, and the work environment in general.
Response-based measures are available that entail symptoms, emotions, arousal, illness, burnout, and behavioral changes. Job burnout, however, cannot be equated to stress, but has to be seen as a long-term consequence of stress (Klusmann, Kunter, Trautwein, Lüdtke, and Baumert, 2008; Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter, 2001; Schaufeli, and Bakker, 2004). The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is the standard measure in this field (Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter, 1996). Using measures for burnout, symptoms, mental disorder, or illness to tap the concept of “stress” is questionable and misleading because individual changes in these variables occur only at later stages of a stress episode. Thus, stress is confounded with its consequences. Any use of stress inventories involves a particular definition of stress that is not always made transparent and may not even reflect the researcher’s theory.
In any case, no matter whether stimulus-based or response-based measures are used, individuals respond to them with their coping resources in mind. The transactional perspective entails the relationship between demands and resources, which is viewed as causing the resulting emotional response.
Consequences of poor adjustment to stress at work
Stress is inevitable, but the degree of stress can be modified in two ways: by changing the environment and by changing the individual. If coping attempts are unsuccessful, adverse consequences will result. Job performance may decline and job satisfaction fade, burnout symptoms emerge or accidents happen. Further, social relationships at work may become tense, or mental and physical health could deteriorate, leading to sleep problems and substance abuse, etc. Poor adjustment to demanding or adverse work environments can lead to a number of health conditions, in particular high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. The study of coping at the workplace has often been reduced to only a few variables, such as demands, control, decision latitude, social support, and opportunities for relaxation and exercise. The literature on occupational health has documented an array of findings where these variables were examined in relation to demand factors and population characteristics. Adverse health outcomes have been demonstrated most often (Kasl, 1996; Marmot et al., 1997; Siegrist, 1996; Theorell and Karasek, 1996; Weidner et al., 1997). Successful individual adjustment to stress at work depends partly on resources and partly on the nature of the stress episode.
In the following section, coping resources are described, then dimensions and perspectives of coping are examined that help to gain a better understanding of the psychological meaning of coping.
Antecedents of stress and coping: demands and resources
To characterize demands or situational stressors, Lazarus (1991) describes formal properties, such as novelty, event uncertainty, ambiguity, and temporal aspects of stressful conditions. For example, demands that are difficult, ambiguous, unexpected, unprepared, or are very time consuming under time pressure, are more likely to induce threat than easy tasks that can be prepared for thoroughly and solved at a convenient pace without time constraints. The work environment can be evaluated with respect to the stakes inherent in a given situation. For example, demanding social situations imply interpersonal threat, the danger of physical injury is perceived as physical threat, and anticipated failures endangering self-worth indicate ego threat. Lazarus additionally distinguishes between task-specific stress, including cognitive demands and other formal task properties, and failure-induced stress, including evaluation aspects such as social feedback, valence of goal, possibilities of failure, or actual failure. Large and unfavorable task conditions combined with failure-inducing situational cues are likely to provoke stress.
Personal resources refer to the internal coping options that are available in a particular stressful encounter. Competence and skills have to match the work demands. Individuals who are affluent, healthy, capable, and optimistic are resourceful, and, thus, they are less vulnerable toward stress at work. Social competence, empathy, and assertiveness might be necessary to deal with specific interpersonal demands. It is crucial to feel competent to handle a stressful situation. But actual competence is not a sufficient prerequisite. If the individual underestimates his or her potential for action, no adaptive strategies will be developed. Therefore, perceived competence is crucial. This has been labeled “perceived self-efficacy” or “optimistic self-beliefs” by Bandura (see Chapter 10, this volume). Perceived self-efficacy or optimism (as a state) are seen as a prerequisite for coping with all kinds of stress, such as job loss, demotion, promotion, or work overload (Schwarzer and Luszczynska, 2007). Job-specific self-efficacy has been studied (for example, teacher self-efficacy, Schwarzer and Hallum, 2008).
Social resources refer to the external coping options that are available to an individual in a certain stressful encounter. Social integration reflects the individual’s embeddedness in a network of social interactions, mutual assistance, attachment, and obligations. Social support reflects the actual or perceived coping assistance in critical situations (see review in Schwarzer and Knoll, 2007). Social support has been defined in various ways, for example as a resource provided by others, coping assistance, or an exchange of resources “perceived by the provider or the recipient to be intended to enhance the well-being of the recipient” (Shumaker and Brownell, 1984, p. 13). Several types of social support have been investigated, for instance instrumental, for example, assist with a problem, tangible help such as goods, informational help such as advice, and emotional support such as giving reassurance, among others.
Dimensions of coping
Many attempts have been made to reduce the universe of possible coping responses to a parsimonious set of coping dimensions. Some researchers have come up with two basic distinctions, that is, instrumental, attentive, vigilant, or confrontative coping, as opposed to avoidant, palliative, and emotional coping (for an overview see Schwarzer and Schwarzer, 1996). A related approach has been put forward by Lazarus (1991), who separates problem-focused from emotion-focused coping, or by Locke (2005), who distinguishes between action-focused and emotion-focused coping. Another conceptual distinction has been suggested between assimilative and accommodative coping, whereby the former aims at modifying the environment and the latter at modifying oneself (Brandtstädter, 1992). This pair has also been coined “mastery versus meaning ” (Taylor, 1983) or “primary control versus secondary control” (Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder, 1982). These coping preferences may occur in a certain time order when, for example, individuals first try to alter the demands that are at stake, and, after failing, turn inwards to reinterpret their plight and find subjective meaning in it.
Four coping perspectives in terms of timing and certainty
Work demands can be continuous or changing. They can reflect an ongoing harmful encounter, or they can exist in the near or distant future, creating a threat to someone who feels incapable of matching the upcoming demands with the coping resources at hand. Critical events at the workplace may have occurred in the past, leading to layoff, demotion, or adverse restrictions. In light of the complexity of stressful episodes, coping cannot be reduced to either relaxation or fight-and-flight responses. Coping depends, among other factors, on the time perspective of the demands and the subjective certainty of the events. Reactive coping refers to harm or loss experienced in the past, whereas anticipatory coping pertains to inevitable threats in the near future. Preventive coping refers to uncertain threats in the distant future, whereas proactive coping involves future challenges that are seen as self-promoting (see Figure 27.2).
FIGURE 27.2 Four coping perspectives
Reactive coping. Reactive coping can be defined as an effort to deal with a stressful encounter that is ongoing or that has already happened, or with the aim to compensate for or to accept harm or loss. Examples for loss or harm are job loss, failing a job interview, having an accident at work, being criticized by the boss, or having been demoted. All of these events happened in the past with absolute certainty; thus, the individual who needs to cope has to either compensate for loss or alleviate harm. Another option is to readjust the goals or to search for meaning to reconceptualize one’s life (Locke, 2002, 2005). Reactive coping may be problem focused, emotion focused, or social-relations focused. For coping with loss or harm, individuals have to be resilient. Since they aim at compensation or recovery, they need “recovery self-efficacy,” a particular optimistic belief in their capability to overcome setbacks (Schwarzer, 2008).
Anticipatory coping. Anticipatory coping can be defined as an effort to deal with imminent threat. In anticipatory coping, individuals face a critical event that is certain to occur in the near future. Examples are speaking in public, a confrontation at a business meeting, a job interview, adapting to a new job, increased workload, promotion, retirement, downsizing, etc. There is a risk that the upcoming event may cause harm or loss later on, and the person has to manage this perceived risk. The situation is appraised as an imminent threat. The function of coping may lie in preparatory actions, for example practicing speaking to an audience or solving the actual problem at hand through taking actions, such as increasing effort, getting help, or investing other resources. Another function may lie in feeling good in spite of the risk. For example, one could reframe the situation as less threatening, distract oneself, or gain reassurance from others. Thus, anticipatory coping can also be understood as the management of known risks, which includes investing one’s resources to prevent or combat the stressor. One of the resources is specific “coping self-efficacy.” This is the optimistic belief of being able to cope successfully with the particular situation.
Preventive coping. Preventive coping can be defined as an effort to build up general resistance resources that result in less strain in the future (minimizing severity of impact), less severe consequences of stress, should it occur, and less likely onset of stressful events in the first place. In preventive coping, individuals face the risk of a critical event that may or may not occur in the distant future. Examples are job loss, forced retirement, physical impairment, disaster, or poverty. The individual plans for the occurrence of such non-normative life events that are potentially threatening. Again, coping equals risk management, but here one has to manage various unknown risks in the distant future. The outlook creates anxiety sufficient to stimulate a broad range of coping behaviors. Since all kinds of harm or loss could materialize one day, the individual builds up general resistance resources, accumulating wealth, insurance, social bonds, and skills (as in the case of anticipatory coping), “just in case.” Skill development is a major coping process that helps to prevent undesirable outcomes. General “coping self-efficacy” is a prerequisite to plan and successfully initiate multifarious preventive actions that help build up resistance against threatening non-normative life events in the distant future.
Proactive coping. Proactive coping can be defined as an effort to build up general resources that facilitate promotion toward challenging goals and personal growth (Locke, 2002, 2005). In proactive coping, people have a vision. They see risks, demands, and opportunities in the far future, but they do not appraise these as threats, harm, or loss. Rather, they perceive difficult situations as challenges. Coping becomes goal management instead of risk management (Locke and Latham, 2002, 2006). Individuals are not reactive, but proactive in the sense that they initiate a constructive path of action and create opportunities for growth. The proactive individual strives for improvement of life or work and builds up resources that assure progress and quality of functioning. Proactively creating better work conditions and higher performance levels is experienced as an opportunity to render life meaningful or to find purpose in life. Instead of strain, the individual experiences productive arousal and vital energy along with perceived self-efficacy.
Preventive and proactive coping are partly manifested in the same kinds of overt behaviors as skill development, resource accumulation, and long-term planning. However, the motivation can emanate either from threat appraisal or from challenge appraisal, which makes a difference. Worry levels are high in the former and low in the latter. Proactive individuals are motivated to meet challenges and commit themselves to personal quality standards. Self-regulatory goal management includes an ambitious manner of goal setting and tenacious goal pursuit (Locke and Latham, 2002, 2006; see Chapter 9, this volume). Goal pursuit requires “action self-efficacy,” an optimistic belief that one is capable of initiating difficult courses of action. The role of beliefs in self-regulatory goal attainment has been spelled out in more detail in the Health Action Process Approach (Lippke and Ziegelmann, 2008; Reuter, Ziegelmann, Wiedemann, and Lippke, 2008; Schwarzer, 2008; Schwarzer and Luszczynska, 2008).
The distinction between these four perspectives on coping is highly useful because it shifts the focus from mere responses to negative events toward a broader range of risk and goal management. The latter includes the active creation of opportunities and the positive experience of challenge, in particular in the work domain. Aspinwall and Taylor (1997) have described a proactive coping theory that is similar, but not identical, to the present one. Schwarzer and Taubert (2002) have made psychometric discriminations between preventive and proactive coping. The Proactive Coping Scale can be downloaded from the web (Greenglass, Schwarzer, and Taubert, 1999).
Coping at the level of organizations: designing healthy workplaces
When an unexpected event happens, such as a strike or a company takeover, an organization has to cope in a reactive manner. Reducing harm or compensating for loss is required, and the way this is done depends largely on the particular nature of the stress episode. When such events are imminent and certain, anticipatory coping is required. The adequate way of coping is highly idiosyncratic. Preventive coping is called for when no specific events are envisioned, but a more general threat in the distant future comes into view. Such events could be the dangers of economic decline, potential mergers or downsizing, revised governmental employee health regulations, aging workforce, new technology, etc. When visions or challenges and a perceived potential for growth or mastery prevail, proactive coping is initiated. The latter two perspectives entail about the same set of innovations. In the literature, this is usually discussed as “primary prevention” or “organizational prevention” (Quick et al., 1997), which includes modifying work demands and improving relationships at work.
Physical settings can be redesigned to minimize distressful effects of the physical work environment, such as noise, heat, and crowding. The creation of pleasant and suitable offices or workshops, enriched by cafeterias and fitness centers, can elevate job satisfaction, job safety, and mental health, which indirectly may improve performance and loyalty. Job redesign is aimed at changing task demands, for example by partitioning the workload, job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment, building teams, opening feedback channels, etc. (cf. Judge, this volume). Flexible work schedules can help to enhance the employee’s control and discretion and allow for a better time management and integration of work and non-work demands (cf. Balzer, this volume). Participative management and delegation expand the amount of autonomy at work by disseminating information, decentralizing decision making, and involving subordinates in a variety of work arrangements. When a boss promotes trust (see Chapter 21, this volume) with the employees, tension and conflict are reduced, and awareness of partnership may arise. The empowerment approach has a similar focus (see Chapter 11, this volume). Career development is another method of preventive or proactive coping to improve an estimable portfolio of skills and talents. A set of career paths must be made transparent, and various opportunities for promotion need to be created to motivate employees to set goals for themselves and strive for these goals. This needs to be enriched by an effective feedback and reward system. Self-assessment must be encouraged, and opportunities constantly need to be analyzed (Lawler, 1994).
Organizational prevention is also directed at interpersonal demands placed on individuals at the workplace (Quick et al., 1997). Role analysis is aimed at making a person’s role within an organization transparent. Clarifying one’s role profile in comparison to the profiles of others may help to reduce tension, misperceptions, and conflict. Roles are defined as a set of expectations (by boss, peers, and subordinates) toward a particular position holder. If roles are misperceived, “role stress” will emerge. Thus, role analysis and correction of perceptions constitute a way of preventive coping. Goal setting in itself can be regarded as a method of preventive coping in order to avoid miscomprehension about one’s responsibilities and expected task performance (Locke, 2005). Negotiating proximal and distal work goals includes an agreement between supervisor and subordinate or team about the conditions under which they should be attained and the criteria that apply for their evaluation (Chapter 9, this volume). Team building is a preventive coping method that aims at the establishment of cohesive and effective work groups that perform at a higher level than isolated individuals, partly because they resolve interpersonal conflicts and develop a cohesive spirit (Peterson, Park, and Sweeney, 2008). Social support reflects broad-range prevention and intervention at all levels. The term denotes a coping resource as well as an interpersonal coping process, depending on the point in time within a defined stress episode. Social support is generally seen as a buffer against the impact of stress - although, empirically, main effects occur more frequently than statistical interactions (Greenglass, Fiksenbaum, and Eaton, 2006; Schwarzer and Knoll, 2007). As a buffer, social support can be part of reactive coping after the event has struck. As a preventive and proactive coping strategy, social network building equals the institution of a convoy that accompanies and protects the individual throughout the life course when times get rough.
Stress in organizations is related to their culture and leadership, organizational structures, and developments. Proactive leaders have transformed stressed corporations into healthy ones, and restructuring has created relatively stress-free work environments, as has been documented for Southwest Airlines, Chaparral Steel Company, Xerox Corporation, Johnson and Johnson, or, as a negative example, Eastern Airlines (Quick et al., 1997).
Preventive coping at the level of organizations: improving the employability of an aging workforce
The following example demonstrates how an organization may cope with the demographic changes of its workforce in a preventive as well as a proactive manner. The Deutsche Bahn AG, Germany’s national railway company, employs approximately 200,000 employees, of whom about 30% are 50 years and older. By 2015, this number is expected to double to an estimated 60%. Whereas such a demographic change is often seen as a threat to organizational functioning, the view and strategies taken by the company’s human resources department is more differentiated in that it counteracts risks and values opportunities. The risks inherent in an aging work staff are faced by preventive coping strategies and, at the same time, the opportunities seized with proactive measures. Risks of the aging workforce include diminishing health and physical functioning as well as outdated qualifications. The human resources department set up an agenda for maintaining the employability of their workforce. At the organizational level, this refers to the capability to realize potential through sustainable employment. Such preventive coping strategies include comprehensive health-promotion strategies, job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment, and technological advances to minimize physical strain.
The other side of the coin of an increasing percentage of older employees is to value their judgments and competence, along with their sense of responsibility and ability to gauge complex situations. These resources of older employees that are highly correlated with professional experience are coined “demographic return.” Comprehending these advantages can be viewed as proactive coping strategies that encompass age-mixed teams, individual tandem solutions, and systematic job selection. In the face of rapidly changing macroeconomic demands, preventive and proactive coping behavior at the organizational level allows organizations to develop their potential for growth.
At the school level, teacher stress and burnout can be prevented and mitigated by making them healthier workplaces. Based on his work in schools in Israel, Friedman (1999) suggests tackling the sources of stress by reducing the degree of polarization in the classroom and the number of pupils per class and by changing teachers’ work schedules. To treat the symptoms of stress at the school level, he suggests creating a supportive atmosphere, open channels of communication, involving teachers in decision making, and developing an open and positive organizational climate.
Coping at the individual level within organizations
At the individual level, Friedman (1999) suggests tackling the sources of stress by training teachers to cope with stressful situations, instructing them about the causes of burnout, and developing and improving their abilities in problem solving, conflict resolution, and leadership. To treat the symptoms of stress, he suggests in-service training, holidays, support and assistance groups, and workshops.
Some general theoretical comments on individual coping have to be added here, based on the distinction between reactive, anticipatory, preventive, and proactive coping. If a person fails to meet a work goal, is rejected by colleagues, has a conflict with the boss, suffers from repetitive stress injury, or loses a contract or the job itself, reactive coping takes place because the demands or events are appraised as ongoing or as prior harm or loss. A range of mental and behavioral coping options are at the individual’s disposal, depending on the available resources, preferences, and nature of the stress episode. Relaxation is a commonplace recommendation to alleviate negative emotions or arousal, although it does not contribute much to solve the underlying problem. Cognitive restructuring helps to see the world with different eyes. Instrumental action may solve the problem at hand. As noted earlier, the distinctions have been made between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping (Lazarus, 1991). Social relations coping (Hobfoll, 1989) has been added as a third dimension. Mobilizing support and talking with others are suggestions to cope with adversity. The experience of harm or loss calls for compensatory efforts (mastery) or search for meaning and flexible goal adjustment (Locke, 2002). There is no basic rule or rank order of good and bad coping strategies that apply to harm or loss situations. The individual adapts in an idiosyncratic manner to the situation and evaluates the coping efforts retrospectively as having been more or less successful, which may not correspond with the evaluation of onlookers. If someone fails to adapt, social support needs to be mobilized from outside, and psychological counseling, therapy, traumatic event debriefing, or even medical care may become necessary.
If someone faces a critical event in the near future, such as a public presentation, job interview, medical procedure, or corporate decision about redundancy of jobs - in other words, situations that are appraised as threatening - this stress episode requires anticipatory coping. The range of coping options is the same as before. Increased effort to master the situation is adaptive only if the situation is under personal control (interview, presentation), whereas situations under external control (medical procedure, corporate decision) require mainly emotional and cognitive efforts (e.g. relaxation, reappraisal).
An individual who faces increasing work challenges or job volatility in the distant future, such as downsizing, mergers, demotion, promotion, entrepreneurship, is better off to choose either preventive coping strategies (in the case of threat appraisal) or proactive coping strategies (in the case of challenge appraisal). The long-term accumulation of general resistance resources includes behavioral, social, and cognitive strategies. Coping with one’s work demands, for example, comprises setting priorities, avoiding overload, delegating tasks, acquiring social support, planning, and having good time management (Quick et al., 1997), and, above all, always improving one’s skills and developing new ones. Managing one’s lifestyle is directed at a healthy balance between work, family, and leisure (Schaer, Bodenmann, and Klink, 2008, and Chapter 31). Workaholics do not maintain such a balance because they are trying to use work to alleviate self-doubt that is not caused by work problems, and they hardly find refuge anywhere. Work stress can spill over into non-work settings, and vice versa, which places a particular burden on women and dual-career couples (Greenglass, 2002). Protecting life domains from daily hassles is an important aspect of self-regulation. Some companies grant their employees extra time for revitalization and personal growth, for example by funding sabbaticals. Healthy nutrition and physical exercise are other lifestyle ingredients that bear a protective shield against the experience of stress.
Stress management programs are usually not implemented by corporations as stand-alone programs, but rather as part of more comprehensive health promotion strategies that also aim at preventive nutrition, physical exercise, smoking cessation, preventing use of alcohol and drugs, and others. IBM, Control Data Corporation, Illinois Bell, New York Telephone Company, B. F. Goodrich Tire, Citicorp, Johnson and Johnson, and Dupont are among the companies cited frequently that have established high-quality health-promotion programs for their employees (see also Quick et al., 1997).
The cognitive way of coping includes stress reappraisal, internal dialog, constructive self-talk, search for meaning, or optimistic explanatory style, among others. Individuals can develop a more positive view of stressful situations, which may facilitate all kinds of coping. Reinterpreting a threat into a challenge transforms preventive coping into proactive coping. The following case study, inspired by Covey (1989), demonstrates how proactive coping behavior may enlarge an individual’s range of control at the workplace.
Proactive coping at the individual level within organizations: dealing with an authoritarian leader
The president of the organization in which Mr. X is employed is known for his authoritarian leadership style. Even though his executives view the president as being a dynamic and talented person, they feel restricted and alienated by his style of management, which consists of orders and creates an atmosphere of dictatorship. Unlike the other colleagues, who cope with the situation by criticizing and complaining about the conditions, Mr. X tries to compensate for the weak management by trying to enlarge his range of control. When assigned to a task, he acts proactively by anticipating the president’s needs. He provides not only requested information on an issue, but also an analysis and recommendations on how to deal with the issue. Eventually, he wins the president’s trust. Instead of receiving orders, he is asked for his opinion. This example illustrates how proactively taking the initiative may not only increase one’s decision latitude, but also how an obstacle may be turned into a positive experience.
Proactive coping at the individual level within organizations: gain control by developing hardiness
Habitual mindsets that reflect a constructive approach to life are inherent in the concepts of perceived self-efficacy (Chapter 10, this volume), learned optimism (Seligman, 1991), and hardiness (Maddi, 1998). By improving such mindsets, employees can be empowered to take charge of upcoming challenges in the workplace and to gain more control over their lives. In other words, they develop resources as a prerequisite for preventive and proactive coping. The hardiness concept has been applied frequently to prevent and mitigate stress at work. It comprises the attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge. The goal of interventions, for example, as those conducted by the Hardiness Institute, lies in the promotion of these attitudes. Initially, participants respond to the HardiSurvey that assesses these three components and allows one to gauge how much work stress a person experiences. Clients then undergo the 16 hour HardiTraining course, consisting of exercises on how to cope with stress, relax, seek social support, eat right, and work out (Maddi, Kahn, and Maddi, 1998). With a group of 54 managers, hardiness training was compared to relaxation training and to a social support control condition. The first group reported less strain and illness and higher job satisfaction. Thus, hardiness is seen as stimulating effective functioning and protecting wellness under stressful conditions.
Proactive coping at the individual level within organizations: learned optimism training
An example of a program at the individual level within organizations is “learned optimism training” which was conducted at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (Seligman, 1991; Seligman and Schulman, 1986). Learned optimism is a proxy for a particular explanatory style that can be acquired to improve one’s interpretation of stressful events in general or specifically at work. A diagnostic measure, the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), was developed, which ranks individuals on an optimism/pessimism scale. One prediction of this measure concerns job performance, for example successfully selling life insurance. Insurance agents with high scores on the ASQ invest more effort and are more persistent in “cold calling” of customers and attain better sales commissions than low scorers. By using this diagnostic instrument to select personnel, Metropolitan Life has saved millions of dollars. Many companies now use such scales in order to identify applicants who possess more than just drive and talent, namely, the optimism necessary for success as well. Based on Seligman’s theory and his assessment procedure, a training program has been developed to teach employees cognitive coping with stress. Participants with chronic negative thoughts learn to talk to themselves in a constructive manner. If something goes wrong, pessimists tend to have hopeless thoughts (“I always screw up,” “I’ll never get it right”), that is, internal, stable, and global attributions of negative events. They learn to transform these thoughts into external, variable, or specific attributions, such as “Things didn’t go well today, but I learned a lot from the experience.” Workshop participants learn to listen to their own internal dialog and to dispute their chronic negative thoughts and come up with a more balanced view of themselves, the world, and the future. The four day course is administered by Foresight, Inc., at Falls Church, Virginia. Unlike other courses for sales agents, which teach what to say to clients, this course teaches what to say to oneself when the client says no. Thus, it represents a cognitive coping training to reduce stress when facing interpersonal demands. The most typical exercise is to identify adverse events, the corresponding subjective belief, and the most likely subsequent emotions and behaviors. Then, after recognizing one’s explanatory style, the participants learn to dispute their thoughts. They are asked to make the revised explanatory style a new habit to supplant their usual automatic pessimistic explanations. In psychotherapy, this is known as cognitive restructuring. This principle has turned out to be a powerful coping strategy that facilitates job performance, job satisfaction, and health.
In sum, the examples have demonstrated the broad scope of coping in organizations and have pointed to the direction in which interventions could go to facilitate more preventive and proactive coping. Coping is a set of mental and physical behaviors, whereas perceived self-efficacy, hardiness, optimism, etc., are social-cognitive concepts that may provide the backdrop for improved coping. As such, they can be regarded as moderators of the stress-coping relationship. Those who harbor high levels of resourceful mindsets are better off when it comes to transforming a demanding situation. Emotional or impulsive ways of coping are not compatible with preventive and proactive coping because the latter are based on reason (Locke, 2005).
CONCLUSION
Coping with stress is a normal and necessary experience in daily life. At the workplace, it gains particular importance because it is related not only to individual career goals, health, and satisfaction, but also to organizational success and social relations. To understand coping, a number of analytical dimensions, perspectives, theoretical models, and approaches have been suggested. In the present chapter, a new distinction between reactive, anticipatory, preventive, and proactive coping has been put forward because these coping perspectives have unique value for stress at the workplace, including the positive side of stress. Interventions have to be tailored to these perspectives. Events that are appraised as harm or loss require different coping interventions than those that are appraised as threats or challenges. The current view connects coping theory with action theory and sets the stage for integrative programs at the organizational and individual level. It is in line with the contemporary trend toward a “positive psychology” (Peterson et al., 2008; Seligman, 2008).
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Coping behaviors
In your classroom or work group, you may share each other’s experience with proactive coping behaviors, and, thus, provide and find role models for future situations. In the following you find the proactive coping subscale of the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI) by Greenglass, Schwarzer, and Taubert (1999). The statements deal with reactions you may have to various situations. Indicate how true each of these statements is depending on how you feel about the situation. Do this by responding to one of the four statements “not at all true,” “barely true,” “somewhat true,” or “completely true.”
1. “I am a ‘take charge’ person.”
2. “I try to let things work out on their own.” (-)
3. “After attaining a goal, I look for another, more challenging one.”
4. “I like challenges and beating the odds.”
5. “I visualize my dreams and try to achieve them.”
6. “Despite numerous setbacks, I usually succeed in getting what I want.”
7. “I try to pinpoint what I need to succeed.”
8. “I always try to find a way to work around obstacles; nothing really stops me.”
9. “I often see myself failing so I don’t get my hopes up too high.” (-)
10. “When I apply for a position, I imagine myself filling it.”
11. “I turn obstacles into positive experiences.”
12. “If someone tells me I can’t do something, you can be sure I will do it.”
13. “When I experience a problem, I take the initiative in resolving it.”
14. “When I have a problem, I usually see myself in a no-win situation.” (-)
Complete the assignments and then, in small groups of four to five individuals, compare your own answers with those of your colleagues. Choose a statement on which you responded “completely true” (statements marked with a (-) demand reverse coding) as a positive example for proactive coping and one statement as a negative example (“not at all” or “completely true” for (-) statements) and share your experience by illustrating a situation in which you responded in the way it is described in the statements.
Personal coping experiences
Identify a situation you encountered in the past where you behaved in a reactive manner (e.g. reacting toward criticism, working on a project with a colleague who is permanently late). Review the situation in the context of your range of control and potential alternate pathways. How could you have responded? Take several moments and create the experience vividly in your mind. Share your experience with your classmates/colleagues and discuss further ways of coping with challenging situations.