Being Proactive About Proactive Coping: Exploring Future-Oriented Coping and Appraisal within a Transactional Framework

Abstract

Future-oriented coping is broadly defined as actions undertaken prior to the occurrence of stress to minimise potential risks or enhance the opportunity for growth. Two specific forms of future-oriented coping that have received the most attention are proactive and preventive coping. Proactive coping refers to efforts undertaken to achieve goals and improve chances of beneficial outcomes, while preventive coping focuses on efforts undertaken to avoid or minimise potential risks and threats (Schwarzer, 2000). Future-oriented coping is important to investigate given its ability to improve well-being by actively dealing with potentially stressful events prior to their occurrence. The increased attention to positive psychology has seen the future-oriented coping literature grow over the past 15 years. Within this expanding literature, two notable gaps were identified: (1) limited research has explored future-oriented coping in its own right within the context of a sound theoretical stress and coping model, and (2) the dimensionality and distinctness of future-oriented coping (as measured with the dispositional future-oriented coping inventory), has been questioned due to inconsistent results. The current research directly addressed these issues by assessing the dimensionality and distinctness of the future-oriented coping measure, as well as utilising the transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) as a framework to understand the antecedents and outcomes of future-oriented coping.