Coping with Interpersonal Stressors: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

This meta-analysis examines the coping strategies employees adopt to deal with interpersonal stressors and how these strategies in turn relate to work and personal outcomes. We refer to the newly established taxonomy of promotion- and prevention-focused coping and extend this framework from coping with challenge and hindrance stressors to coping with interpersonal stressors. The term interpersonal stressor is broad, capturing situations in which one or more coworkers intentionally harm or isolate another coworker, taxing his/her personal resources. Typical examples include bullying, abuse, incivility, harassment, social exclusion, and ostracism. To better illustrate the relationships among interpersonal stressors, coping, and work and individual outcomes, we tested two meta-analytic models. The first model was based on our original meta-analysis, which included those studies that explicitly indicated that coping strategies were adopted to deal with interpersonal stressors. In total, 88 effect sizes were drawn from 27,433 employees. The second model incorporated data from existing meta-analysis on coping with work stressors in general. Through treating challenge and hindrance stressors as exogenous variables and controlling for their influences, we tested the unique effects of interpersonal stressors. The results converge to show that interpersonal stressors evoke both promotion-focused and prevention-focused coping, and such self-regulatory coping strategies serve as important intervening mechanisms to explain the effects of interpersonal stressors on job performance, job attitude, physical well-being, and psychological well-being.