Effects of psycho-social factors on inflexible uses of coping strategies and stress responses

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Flexible uses of coping strategies according to properties of stress situations are important to reduce stress responses effectively. However, personality traits such as type-A behavior and pessimism tend to adopt an unsuitable coping strategy, because their evaluations about controllability of stress situations were inaccurate. Social pressures such as hoping from others or organizational climates also disturb flexible adoptions of coping strategies, and act as pressures to adopt a specific strategy. Therefore, as anybodies cannot cope with stress situations flexibly, they showed high strains. The present study aimed to examine personality and social factors affecting on the inflexible uses of coping strategies. Personality factors treated in this study were type-A behavior and pessimism, and social factors were hoping from others, differences between expectations and recognitions of own roles, and organizational climate. Participants were undergraduates and nurses. Main findings are as follows. Type-A person tended to adopt problem-focused coping, and pessimist tended to recognize stress situations as uncontrollable and then to adopt emotion-focused coping. As type-A individuals and pessimists adopted unsuitable coping strategies, they showed high strains. As social factors, hoping from others about a job management that was unrelated to nursing, and the recognition of nursing as a job for female was related to high strains. A non-supportive organizational climate was connected to evaluations of stressors as very dangerous and to increments of strains. Form these results, personality traits and social pressures disturbed flexible adoptions of coping strategies and then increased strains.