AN INVESTIGATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF MANAGERIAL COPING RESPONSE IN STRESSFUL WORK SITUATIONS

Stress was conceptualized as a cognitively determined mismatch between perceived environmental demands, threats, or opportunities, and an individual's capability of meeting the requirements of the immediate situation. A model of stress, called the acute stress episode model, was used to show the way individual and situational components interact to produce stress and coping responses. Coping was defined as physiological, psychological, and behavioral reactions to stress. Two types of coping responses were identified in the literature: objective coping responses, aimed at changing or affecting the situational factors which produced the stressful condition, and subjective coping responses, aimed at adjusting the individual to the situation. Constructs dealing with control over situations, representing both individual and situational characteristics, were identified as possible determinants of coping response. Control was defined as influence over situation outcomes; individuals have varied orientations to control, and situations vary in the degree to which control attempts may be successful.;Subjects were 157 managers and MBA students with managerial experience. The individual trait measures were locus of control, desirability of control, trait anxiety, and social desirability. Situational variables were controllability and severity, operationalized by having subjects respond to a set of standardized job stress situations.;Virtually all subjects indicated the use of both types of coping responses. The use of objective coping was indicated more often. Locus of control, anxiety, and need for approval were correlated with subjective coping response, but not with objective coping response. Situation controllability and severity were correlated with objective coping response, but not with subjective coping response. Desirability of control was found to be interrelated with the other individual variables and was correlated with situation controllability, but not with either coping response.;This study investigated: (1) the degree to which individuals employ one or both types of coping responses in a range of job stress situations and (2) individual and situational factors as determinants of the use of one or both coping response types. The individual and situational variables were selected to represent facets of control.