Principles of Organizational Behavior, 3rd Edition

23Manage Stress at Work Through Preventive and Proactive Coping

RALF SCHWARZER AND TABEA REUTER

Freie Universität Berlin

This chapter outlines an approach to coping with stress at work that makes a distinction between four perspectives, namely reactive coping, anticipatory coping, preventive coping, and proactive coping:

• Reactive coping refers to harm or loss experienced in the past.
• Anticipatory coping pertains to inevitable threats in the near future.
• Preventive coping refers to uncertain threats in the distant future.
• Proactive coping involves future challenges that are seen as self-promoting.

This distinction is based on moderators such as the nature of stressors, time-related stress appraisals, coping resources, and on the perceived certainty of critical events or demands (Schwarzer and Knoll, 2009; Schwarzer and Luszczynska, 2008, 2012).

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.

STRESS AT WORK

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 ...