Task-Induced Stress and Individual Differences in Coping

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.

Intelligence and Cognitive Control

“…The Appraisal of Life Events Scale (ALE: Ferguson, Matthews, & Cox, 1999) measures primary appraisal dimensions specified by ; an additional scale for perceived controllability as an element of secondary appraisal was included in these studies. The Coping Inventory for Task Stress (CITS: Matthews & Campbell, 1998) measures three fundamental dimensions of coping -task-focus, emotion-focus and avoidance -using items relevant to the performance context. Across studies, four of the cognitive process variables were reliably associated with task engagement -challenge, controllability, task-focused coping and avoidance coping.…”

Metacognition and maladaptive coping as components of test anxiety

“…DSSQ (Matthews et al, in pressÐa (Matthews and Campbell, 1998). The CITS-S comprises 21 items assessing Task-Focus (e.g.…”

“…We also assessed subjects' cognitions of the examinationÐtheir appraisals of the workload imposed by the task (NASA-TLX: Hart and Staveland, 1988) and their coping with the specific test situation, assessed with the situational Coping Inventory for Task Stress (CITS-S: Matthews and Campbell, 1998).…”

“…First, student subjects completed Sarason's (1984) RTT and various cognitive measures several weeks before an examination. The cognitive measures comprised multidimensional questionnaires for metacognition, assessed with the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire (MCQ: Cartwright-Hatton and , coping, assessed with the dispositional Coping Inventory for Task Stress (CITS-D: Matthews and Campbell, 1998) and trait worry, assessed with the Anxious Thoughts Inventory (AnTI: . Subsequently, we will use`cognitive traits' as a shorthand term for the MCQ, AnTI and CITS-D scales.…”

Perceived Time Progression and Vigilance: Implications for Workload, Stress, and Cerebral Hemodynamics

“…Consequently, a second goal for the present study was to examine the relation between the temporal context and the stress associated with performing a vigilance task. Hancock and Szalma (2008) have identified a central theme that characterizes modern approaches to stress and performance in the appraisal mechanism by which individuals evaluate environmental events, including the tasks that confront them, in terms of their physical and psychological well-being and their ability to cope with those events (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984;Hancock & Warm, 1989;Matthews, 2001;Matthews & Campbell, 1998;Salas, Driskell, & Hughes, 1996). In line with this assertion, stress is defined as a transaction between the individual and an environment in which the individual views the demand of the environment as taxing his or her resources or endangering his or her well-being (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).…”