Individual Differences in Dispositional Pessimism, Stress, and Coping as a Function of Task Type

Abstract

Individual differences in dispositional pessimism and choice of coping strategy on performance and stress, in target detection were investigated. The results were consistent with prior research indicating that higher levels of pessimism were associated with higher levels of stress and less effective coping strategies. Similarly, pessimism predicted emotion focused coping only in tasks with spatial uncertainty. There was evidence that the influence of personality on post-task stress may be mediated by pre-task state. Pessimism also predicted avoidant coping and task focused coping, although this prediction was only meaningful in the context of the combination of a temporal discrimination and spatial uncertainty. Hence, the degree to which pessimistic operators engage in the three coping strategies depends upon the characteristics of the task.