A closer examination of the patterns when coping with work‐related stress: Implications for measurement

There is no doubt as to the importance of coping as an explanatory construct when exploring the nature of stress. Nevertheless, understanding the ways in which coping strategies are used, in general, and the role and significance of different patterns of coping, in particular, has been somewhat hampered by conventional measurement practices that involve the simple aggregation of coping strategies into mean scores. The aim of the present study was to explore coping patterns in relation to two emotions, anger and anxiety, using the score profiling technique of sequential tree analysis. The coping patterns to emerge reflected the ‘facilitating’, ‘inhibiting’ and ‘fallback’ role that coping strategies play. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for established measurement practices. If we are to better understand the nature of coping then researchers must now be prepared to take the next step forward and investigate coping using more person‐centred, daily process designs.