Personality And Proactive Coping: Strategies For Coping With Stress

What is Proactive Coping?

Discuss about the Personality and Proactive Coping.

There is a wide range of research which is present on the area of social cognition, social interaction, stress and procedures of coping which help in the analysis of the procedures which are useful in helping people detect the potential stressors and act in advance in order to help in the prevention or mitigation of their consequences. The concept of proactive coping is used in the context of stress and other means of coping. Proactive coping differs from copping with events which are stressful and form the anticipatory coping on the three specific grounds (Gurven et al., 2013).

It is seen that the proactive coping formulates and occurs in a temporary manner prior to both the concepts of coping and anticipatory coping. In this case, the utilization of the internal resources and certain skills are utilized to overcome certain stressors which are not activated. There needs to be a preparation for situations which can arise in the future. There are different skills which are important at the time of proactive coping than in the times of coping with external stress. These are majorly related to the estimation of potential stressors before they actually appear. Compared to coping with the existing stressors proactive coping is virtually always active. This also helps in addressing non-existent stressors. Therefore different types of skills and activities that are likely to be successful. Emotional support might be comparatively less important or unhelpful at the time of focussing on the factors which are non-specific.

Proactive coping is divided into five stages which are related to the concept of time. These are stated as resource accumulation in advance with regard to any specific anticipated stressor, attention-recognition, initial appraisal, preliminary coping and finally elicitation and utilization of feedback. Initially coping was considered as a reactive strategy which is utilized after the experience of stress. Proactive coping is defined to be multi-functional, multi-dimensional and forward looking. This procedure covers the factors which help in covering personal goals. Proactive coping is much more future oriented and comprises of the efforts to build up the general resources which facilitate the promotion of challenging goals and overall personal growth, it is used in the concept of goal management rather than in risk management and is also the motivation for the purpose of proactive coping, which is much more positive in terms of perceptions of situations that are challenging (Bartels et al., 2012).

Important Skills for Proactive Coping

In order to measure the different aspects of coping which are utilized by the individuals at the time of stress and difficult situations, a multidimensional instrument of research is utilized. This covers the affective, cognitive, social and intentional factors. The most important and wide area of applications of such work are seen in case of the university students. This is done in case of different subjects and different forms of discipline but the major aim is to understand, how personality is related to the concept of proactive coping. The way in which personality can impact the way a person copes with different problems is also justified in this specific research. The concept of the development of proactive coping is not only a necessary condition for the effective preparation for future professions and career situations but also represents the personality development of the students and is specifically important for those who work in professions which help the community at large (Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012).

An overall positivity in the well being of the individuals helps in the promotion of the ways and means of effective coping in their lives. Those individuals with a great sense of self worth might practice conscientious health habits much more thus helping in the promotion of the overall well being. Individuals with a sense of self worth might show conscientious health habits much more thereby promoting their overall well-being. Those individuals who show their coping strategies which are based on their levels of productivity have a chance of perceiving that their lives are going on in a proper manner. With regard to this it can be stated that positive relationships develop from proactive coping behaviour. The conceptualization of social support broadens the overall concept of coping. Proactive coping is often connected to the lower amount of negative behaviours which include that of depression. For the provision of additional evidence there needs to be a proper analysis of the different situations or relationships. In this connection it can be stated that the concept of proactive coping refers to those behavioural strategies which focus on the assessment of potential stressors. The proactive copers consider their problems and other difficult or stressful events to be opportunities or a way in which their mental and emotional strength can be tested. The students who are best possible copers are actually those who reach the highest scores on the social support scales (Budge, Adelson & Howard, 2013).

Five Stages of Proactive Coping

There are several reasons for the belief that positive vibes and positive emotional states are connected to the promotion on the idea of well being. The temporal aspects of coping have been found to be neglected. There are different stages in which people can cope with regard to stressful events in their lives. There are situations where certain people cope much more in stressful situations and this increases their overall abilities of coping. The life of majority of people is a struggle of some sort or the other. This therefore helps in the overall development of understanding of the coping mechanisms in the lives of the people. Every person’s life is a different kind of struggle. Therefore it is desirable that the psychology of the people is understood with respect to the overall coping mechanisms which they employ in their lives (Halverson et al., 2014).

The five different dimensions of personality include, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. This are measured in terms of the characteristics of a particular individual. The factor which is the openness to experience is defined by the willingness for the trial of different activities. People with higher levels of openness are amenable to the unconventional ideas and the beliefs. These people are responsible for the enjoyment of the artistic and cultural experiences, visiting the different galleries, museums and also that of visiting newer and better destinations. These people are much more open to the cultures which are unfamiliar and the customs which are not justified. These categories of people have been found to feel out of place or uncomfortable in unfamiliar circumstances and they prefer environments which are friendly. The concept of openness to experience is often connected with intelligence at the time of measuring the factors of personality. The concept of the openness to experience is related to the intelligence at the time of measuring personality factors. Those people who can be regarded as possessing verbal or crystallised intelligence measures have been found to be much more open to experience. Openness levels can vary widely between individuals, the openness of a person to experience can also change. The coping mechanism of the people who fall in this category are different in comparison to those people who belong to other categories (Salgado & Tauriz, 2014).

The second category of people who are conscientious are much more aware of their actions and the impact of their behaviour that the people who are not conscientious. These individuals feel a sense of responsibility towards each other and are usually careful enough to perform the duties which they are assigned with. There individuals are much more likely to keep a proper environment and a well-organised surroundings. The people who are high on the levels of conscientious levels are responsible for exhibiting much more goal oriented behaviour. These people set goals which are ambitious and are much more motivated to achieve such goals. These people are not worried by hard work and are keen to drive to succeed in each aspect of their lives. These people are usually undeterred by any level of hard work and are keen to survive in every aspect of their lives (Gore & Widiger, 2013). These people are usually seen to succeed in every aspect of their lives and include the achievements academically and also in ensuring that their careers are achieved.

Personality and Proactive Coping

It is natural in this connection that such type of individuals are usually capable of coping with any sort of situation and are capable of achieving of whatever they want in their lives. It is understood that the importance of achievement in their lives is so important that problems do not deter them from any sort of problems which might crop up in their lives. It is also seen that the aspect of conscientiousness might be influenced by the genes which they inherit (Miller 2012).

Extraversion is characterised by a specific type of outgoing socially confident behaviour. The extraverts are sociable, they engage in conversations and interact with people of different natures and categories. These people also enjoy being the main focus of a group. Extraverts also help in the meeting of the people and are very happy and positive in introducing themselves to strangers and they thrive in the company of the others. The people who are introverted are shy in the presence of certain people. Introverts are enjoy in being a part of smaller social networks and they maintain a very close knit group of friends (Frankel, 2012).

Agreeableness is another important factor of the individuals. These people are usually liked by their peers and colleagues and the people are also trusted by the others. The willing to help others at the times of need and are much more dependable and understanding. These people usually do not like to be a part of arguments which create problems and conflict with others. These people pacify and appease other people in case of conflicts in groups. On the other hand disagreeable people are not usually concerned with pleasing persons or in making acquaintances. They are much more suspicious of the intentions of other people and are less charitable. These people are concerned with the promotion of their own personal interests. The people who are agreeable have higher coping mechanisms and those who are disagreeable have very low level of coping. Therefore the presence or absence of understanding helps in the overall development of coping mechanisms in difficult situations in a person’s life (Piedmont, 2014).

Neuroticism is a trait which is measured on a scale which ranges from emotional stability to that of emotional instability. People with factors of high neuroticism scores have persistent worries. These people are much more fearful and anxious. Over-thinking of the problems along with exaggerating often characterise the behaviour of the people. Instead of seeing the positives in a situation they might dwell on the negative aspects (Gore & Widiger, 2013).

Impact of Open-mindedness on Coping Strategies

Neuroticism can result in a person not being able to cope successfully with the common stressors in their everyday lives. These people often become frustrated and are not capable of remaining normal in case the events do not occur in the way they wish them to happen.

Those people who have a low level of neuroticism are less preoccupied by such negative concerns. These people are capable of remaining calm in response to situations which are stressful and consider problems to be in proportion to their importance. There are chances of a person’s neurotic behaviour causing repercussions on the connection which they share with others.

Life poses several challenges for us in our lives. Therefore it is up to us to determine how we can cope with the problems in our lives. Each age group has a different kind of challenge. The number of problems in case of students and those who belong to universities are much more than in the other age groups. Therefore it can be said that the mindset of the people need to be strong to cope with any sort of situation, the problems which come up in their lives. Those with strong mental abilities are capable of making any situation seem small in front of their will power. Thus it can be concluded that different personality traits have different levels of coping capability and personality indeed plays a huge role in the coping capability of individuals.

References:

Andreassen, C. S., Griffiths, M. D., Gjertsen, S. R., Krossbakken, E., Kvam, S., & Pallesen, S. (2013). The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of behavioral addictions, 2(2), 90-99.

Bartels, M., van Weegen, F. I., van Beijsterveldt, C. E., Carlier, M., Polderman, T. J., Hoekstra, R. A., & Boomsma, D. I. (2012). The five factor model of personality and intelligence: A twin study on the relationship between the two constructs. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(4), 368-373.

Budge, S. L., Adelson, J. L., & Howard, K. A. (2013). Anxiety and depression in transgender individuals: the roles of transition status, loss, social support, and coping. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 81(3), 545.

Frankel, F. H. (2012). Hypnosis: Trance as a coping mechanism. Springer Science & Business Media.

Gore, W. L., & Widiger, T. A. (2013). The DSM-5 dimensional trait model and five-factor models of general personality. Journal of abnormal psychology, 122(3), 816.

Gurven, M., Von Rueden, C., Massenkoff, M., Kaplan, H., & Lero Vie, M. (2013). How universal is the Big Five? Testing the five-factor model of personality variation among forager–farmers in the Bolivian Amazon. Journal of personality and social psychology, 104(2), 354.

Halverson Jr, C. F., Kohnstamm, G. A., Martin, R. P., Halverson, C. F., & Kohnstamm, G. A. (2014). The developing structure of temperament and personality from infancy to adulthood. Psychology Press.

Herath, T., Chen, R., Wang, J., Banjara, K., Wilbur, J., & Rao, H. R. (2014). Security services as coping mechanisms: an investigation into user intention to adopt an email authentication service. Information Systems Journal, 24(1), 61-84.

Judge, T. A., Rodell, J. B., Klinger, R. L., Simon, L. S., & Crawford, E. R. (2013). Hierarchical representations of the five-factor model of personality in predicting job performance: integrating three organizing frameworks with two theoretical perspectives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(6), 875.

Miller, J. D. (2012). Five?factor model personality disorder prototypes: A review of their development, validity, and comparison to alternative approaches. Journal of Personality, 80(6), 1565-1591.

Panaccio, A., & Vandenberghe, C. (2012). Five-factor model of personality and organizational commitment: The mediating role of positive and negative affective states. Journal of vocational behavior, 80(3), 647-658.

Piedmont, R. L. (2014). Five Factor Model of Personality. In Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (pp. 2282-2282). Springer Netherlands.

Salgado, J. F., & Tauriz, G. (2014). The Five-Factor Model, forced-choice personality inventories and performance: A comprehensive meta-analysis of academic and occupational validity studies. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23(1), 3-30.

Scherer, K. T., Baysinger, M., Zolynsky, D., & LeBreton, J. M. (2013). Predicting counterproductive work behaviors with sub-clinical psychopathy: Beyond the Five Factor Model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(3), 300-305.

Thomas, K. M., Yalch, M. M., Krueger, R. F., Wright, A. G., Markon, K. E., & Hopwood, C. J. (2013). The convergent structure of DSM-5 personality trait facets and five-factor model trait domains. Assessment, 20(3), 308-311.

Wisniewski, P., Lipford, H., & Wilson, D. (2012, May). Fighting for my space: Coping mechanisms for SNS boundary regulation. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 609-618). ACM.