Coping Models

Various stress and coping models exist in trying to understand the elusive nature of stress and coping. Table 3.7 below summarises the models.

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Table 3.7

Stress and Coping Theories and Themes

#

Theory Proponent Key components

1 Transactional Theory of Stress

Lazarus (1991) Imbalance between job demands and job resources Environmental stimuli

Primary appraisal – individual interprets stimuli from environment as dangerous, neutral, or positive

Secondary appraisal – individual analyses available resources as sufficient or not

Coping – one uses problem or emotion-focused coping to deal with the situation

2 Job-Demand Control Theory

Karasek & Theorell (1990)

Low levels of work-related decision latitude (Autonomy & Control over job)

High level of workload

Job strain – caused by low autonomy and high workload

Skills discretion and decision constraints removal enhances coping 3 Conservation of

Resources

Hobfoll (1998) The individual seeks to acquire and maintain resources, conditions, and energies.

Stress occurs when there is a loss of resources or threat of loss Individual differences are resources that help individuals to cope with stress

4 Self-Efficacy Theory Bandura (1992) Self-efficacy is a type of cognitive evaluation

Perceived self-efficacy is an evaluation of one’s own competence to accomplish results

Self-efficacy is a resource to cope with stress

Self-judgements are based on one’s experience of success or failure 5 Salutogenic Health

Theory

Antonovsky (1993)

Generalised resistance resources (GRR) help a person to cope with stress

Generalised resource deficits (GRD) cause coping mechanisms to fail

Sense of Coherence – when high, stressor is not harmful

Comprehensibility, Manageability & Meaningfulness essential in coping

The theories mentioned above generally attempt to identify causal variables, mediating processes and consequences of stress and coping (Dewe et al., 2010). When it comes to the

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critical causal variables of stress, there are organisational demands, personality, and social resources. When it comes to mediating processes, there are the appraisal and coping processes. Finally, when it comes to the consequences there are immediate and long-term effects which include psychological distress, positive and negative affect, well-being, quality of life, health outcomes, burnout, and job-related outcomes. The literature has tended to focus on these critical variables when it comes to stress and coping in general.

When it comes to causal variables, organisational demands have been well-researched in so far as they are a critical factor in stress. Key variables usually researched pertain to work-load, role-ambiguity, supervision, and so forth. Personality resources studied included personality factors like in the Big Five. Social resources included social support and social networks, in so far as they helped to prevent stress.

When it comes to mediating processes, the emphasis has been on appraisal, that is, primary and secondary appraisals. This appraisal concerns whether a situation or event is threatening and whether one judges their internal resources as able to cope with the event, respectively (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). There have been numerous studies focusing on the coping processes as like coping, coping strategies, and coping styles or behaviours. Emphasis has been placed on adaptive and maladaptive coping, proactive and reactive coping, emotion- focused and problem-focused as well as support seeking.

Regarding consequences of stress and coping, the critical focus has been on factors like psychological distress with depression, psychosomatic symptoms, anxiety, PTSD being critical variables researched on. Some researchers focused on positive and negative effects of stress while others focused on the wellbeing of employees in the short-term. For long-term consequences of stress, the emphasis of research has been on quality of life, health outcomes, looking at mental, physical and behavioural factors, as well as burnout (Lazarus, 1991). In the workplace, the emphasis was on long-term consequences and job-related outcomes of stress like job satisfaction, absenteeism, performance, staff turnover and so forth.

The Stress and Coping Transactional Theory of Lazarus and Folkman (1984) and Bandura’s (1992) Social Learning Theory guided this study. These relate more to the research in question than other models. These will be discussed in the next section.

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3.3.3.1 The Transactional Model of Stress and Coping

In this model, stress is viewed as a relationship between the person and the environment. Core to the relationship is how the person appraises an event as surpassing his internal resources to be able to cope with it, thereby negatively affecting his wellbeing. In this case, coping occurs at cognitive and behavioural levels with efforts to manage the stressful encounters appraised by the person as taxing on their internal resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

The cognitive process of appraisal takes place at two levels, the primary and the secondary appraisal. According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984), in primary appraisal, the person evaluates particular events concerning one’s well-being, that is, whether the event is neutral, harmful, or non-threatening. The authors argued that the secondary appraisal happen when the individual assesses the adequacy of their resources to prevent danger or harm to themselves or otherwise turn the event into positive outcomes. In other words, the secondary appraisal is all about evaluating coping ability (CA) by the strength of internal resources.

Coping is seen by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) as moderating the impact of stress. Depending on one’s coping ability, one can reduce the emotional stress associated with a particular event or they may deal effectively with the stress-causing problem, that is, emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies. Emotion-focused coping focuses on managing the emotional responses to the stressful events, whereas problem-focused coping focuses on changing the problematic aspects of the stressful events. According to the authors, the choice of the coping strategy is influenced by the appraisal of the available options for coping as established through secondary appraisal.

It can be inferred that coping ability is based on the primary and secondary appraisal processes. In other words, coping ability is of a cognitive nature as one person may perceive an event to be threatening, while another perceives it to be non-threatening to their wellbeing. In the same vein, one’s evaluation of his internal coping resources may result in adaptive coping while another person’s evaluation of his internal resources may result in maladaptive coping. It seems coping ability is a subjective cognitive process, which varies from one person to another. People react to similar events according to their coping ability. Whether or not one can cope effectively with a stressful event or situation seems, therefore, to depend to an extent on their level of coping ability.

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3.3.3.2 The Self-Efficacy Theory (Albert Bandura)

Self-efficacy theory places emphasis on a person’s confidence in his or her ability to cope effectively. According to Bandura (1992), self-efficacy is a personal judgement on how well one can execute courses of action to deal with prospective situations. To him, self-efficacy incorporates an ability and a motivation component, that is, a willingness to expend effort consistent with one’s ability. In other words, those who perceive themselves as efficacious would make sufficient effort to complete the task to produce successful outcomes, provided that this effort is well executed (Bandura, 1992). In other words, self-efficacy is a cognitive judgement or self-evaluation. It is mainly based on one’s experience of success or failure in coping with similar or related situations in the past. The reverse to this is also true. It, therefore, means that those who perceive low self-efficacy cease their efforts prematurely affecting their ability to accomplish positive outcomes.

Self-efficacy is an essential pre-requisite to changing coping behaviour (Chesney et al., 2006). It is linked to coping ability, where high self-efficacy result in perceived high coping ability to deal or cope with stress, and perceived low coping ability results in personal doubts in coping with stress, resulting in maladaptive responses to stress. Self-efficacy beliefs were found to be critical personal resources in circumstances of stress and burnout (Pettita & Vecchione, 2011).

Coping ability in this study is taken as self-efficacious for two main reasons. First, it is subjective, as the person is required to believe in their ability to cope with the stressful situation or event. This ability tends to be at the cognitive appraisal level. Secondly, coping ability plays a self-fulfilling prophecy role in most cases. This is when one’s ability to cope with a stressful situation is influenced by one’s belief in one’s ability to cope. The observation becomes evident when the two theories of self-efficacy and transactional processes are combined in trying to understand coping ability.

3.3.3.3 The Self-Efficacy and Transactional Theories of Stress and Coping

Both theories are social cognitive theories. While the transactional theory emphasises secondary appraisal in establishing what the person can do with the stressful event, self- efficacy tends to contribute to the judgement of options in secondary appraisal, which ultimately determines coping. In other words, at the heart of secondary appraisal is self- efficacy and therefore coping ability. Maladaptive coping occurs when one judges oneself

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through secondary appraisal, incapable of handling the situation. It means one would have judged one’s self-efficacy inadequate to deal with the situation. They would have evaluated their coping ability to be falling short of meeting the demand for the event or situation.

It is also possible that when there is a fit between stressful event or situation with a coping strategy, then there is adaptive coping. In other words, there is a high coping ability and hence fewer psychological adjustment issues than where there is low coping ability and maladaptive coping.

The next section explores coping ability and coping effectiveness in general and how the two concepts are linked. This is meant to give context to coping ability in general and coping ability in aid workers in particular.