Task-Induced Stress and Individual Differences in Coping
- 1 October 1998
- journal article
- review article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
- Vol. 42 (11), 821-825
- https://doi.org/10.1177/154193129804201111
Abstract
Coping is an important aspect of operator stress: people use various strategies for dealing with potentially stressful task demands. This paper outlines two studies of a new instrument designed for human factors applications, the Coping Inventory for Task Stress (CITS). Factor analysis of coping items differentiated three aspects of coping specified by stress theory: task-focus, emotion-focus and avoidance. Patterns of coping appear to reflect both task demands and individual differences in perceptions of workload. Relationships between coping and other stress-related variables were investigated in a study of subjects who performed a rapid visual information processing task. Task-focus and avoidance were sensitive to experimentally-manipulated task factors: time pressure and negative feedback. Coping also related to personality factors, as well as to the external pressures of the task. At a practical level, assessment of coping may contribute to understanding of how operators cope effectively or ineffectively with a variety of task-related stressors, leading to a more informed choice of countermeasures for stress.This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
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