12-04-2024
How do you cope with your work and nonwork demands? Research outlines multiple adaptive coping strategies for successfully managing stressful demands, including:
Previous research typically focuses on each coping strategy separately. However, some recent work has started to examine coping “profiles” or whether people use several coping strategies in combination to manage a specific stressor. Building upon this approach, my coauthors and I conducted three studies to examine how individuals cope with demands that impact both their work and nonwork domains (e.g., caring for a sick child or helping a friend in need during the workday) and whether employees engage in more than one strategy simultaneously.
A pilot study was conducted with university employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Time 1 occurred during lockdown (April 2020), and three coping profiles emerged. These profiles included: individualistic copers (employees who engaged in high levels of planning, prioritizing and positive reframing, and lower levels of seeking support), emotion-focused copers (higher use of seeking emotional support and positive reframing, and lower use of the other strategies), and comprehensive copers (employees who engaged in high levels of all five coping strategies). At Time 2 (when lockdown restrictions were being lifted), four profiles emerged, including the same three from Time 1, plus surviving copers (characterized by moderate levels of all five coping strategies).
Study 1 was conducted in 2022 with a sample of full-time working adults from various industries. This study replicated the majority of the coping profiles from the pandemic, except emotion-focused copers, and also uncovered one new profile. The new profile, constrained copers, includes employees who engage in low levels of all five coping strategies.
Study 2, which was conducted in 2023 with another sample of working adults, demonstrated the same four profiles as Study 2. This study also examined the outcomes of coping profiles and found that employees who transitioned into surviving copers experienced decreased task adaptability (the extent to which employees adapt to changes in their tasks or work roles) and thriving at work, as well as decreased recovery at home. Employees who remained comprehensive copers experienced the benefit of increased task adaptivity but also increased social conflict with coworkers.
Taken together, results across our studies suggest that it is crucial to find the right mix and depth in coping strategies to successfully manage work and nonwork demands. In other words, not engaging deeply enough in all strategies (surviving copers) is detrimental to employees' work and well-being, yet coping at full capacity (comprehensive copers) is beneficial for adaptive performance, but can tax personal resources and lead employees to have a shorter fuse with others at work (social conflict). The best approach to efficiently cope may be to engage in at least one form of support seeking and a couple of other strategies (e.g., planning and prioritizing). It also means that clear and supportive management practices for approaching work and family demands are needed (e.g., managers can help employees plan and prioritize their work tasks and give employees flexibility for handling family or personal needs).
Kelly Schwind Wilson is a Professor of Management in the Mitch Daniels School of Business’ Organizational Behavior and Human Resources department. Her co-authors on this article are all alumni of the OBHR PhD program in the Daniels School: Catherine Kleshinski, an assistant professor at Indiana University; Julia Stevenson-Street, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri; and Lindsay Mecham Rosokha, a clinical assistant professor at the Daniels School. Find their Journal of Applied Psychology article “Coping with work-nonwork stressors over time: A person-centered, multistudy integration of coping breadth and depth” here.
