Situational aspects are more important in shaping proactive coping behaviour than individual characteristics: A vignette study among adults preparing for ageing

Abstract

It seems likely that proactive coping is an important mechanism for dealing successfully with threats to personal goals, yet little empirical research has been conducted in relation to this concept. The aim of the present study is to examine to what extent proactive coping is influenced by situation-specific features as well as by personal characteristics. Three vignettes, each representing a potential decline in an important resource (health, social relationships and finance), were presented to 123 adults between 50 and 70 years old. Multilevel analyses show that proactive coping is highly variable within persons and that three situational factors (type of stressor, appraised threat and appraised control) affected the employment of proactive coping strategies. Future temporal orientation was identified as a significant, positive predictor of proactive coping, but none of the other personal factors were found to be relevant.

Keywords:

• Proactive coping
• vignettes
• resources
• situational factors
• ageing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Bianca Hesdal, Klaske van Loon, Anoek Spitsbaard and Marie-Janne van Toorn for assisting in data collection. They would also like to express their thanks to Dr Mirjam Moerbeek from the Department of Methodology and Statistics of the Utrecht University for her help with the multilevel analyses.