As outlined previously, dispositions are general, stable properties of the individual and include coping style and general coping strategies (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Situational understandings focus on the actual coping behaviours in use in a particular situation. Dispositional strategies are usually conceptualised at a macroanalytic level of general styles, while situational approaches are microanalytic strategies (Krohne, 1996). The more microanalytic the description of coping strategies, the more likely it is that cross-situational variability of use of these strategies and low test-retest correlations will be seen (Krohne, 1996).
Dispositional ways of coping are likely in several circumstances. Thomae (1987) states that the history of the person and her/his past experiences including certain response strategies if
they hold a history of reinforcement, are more likely to be chosen for use in particular stressful situations. Thomae outlines that coping responses are not completely context-dependent and in some instances may be the result of learned habits and preferences. Strack and Feifel (1996) have suggested that personality traits may impact on the coping repertoire of an individual, for example, an individual high in introversion may be unlikely to find social support seeking as an adaptive coping response (in fact, it could be viewed as a threat). It is likely that someone predisposed to introversion is unlikely to seek social support across many coping situations fitting with Thomae’s understanding. To further substantiate this point, Carver et al. (1989) suggest that individuals may cope better with stressful stimuli when they are able to make use of familiar strategies they have used often in the past. However, when aspects of the situation make those strategies unavailable or unworkable, coping is proposed to be less effective or perhaps less efficient (Carver et al., 1989).
The dispositional argument challenges a constant level of flexibility in choice of coping behaviours put forth by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) although these authors do ascribe to some level to Thomae’s (1987) interpretation. It may be that some situations require little new environmental input and therefore dispositional approaches may predominate. Further, it could be that in ambiguous situations, dispositional approaches may predominate due to the lack of understanding of new situational cues, that is, a fallback to the default position in cases where threat is appraised but not understood. However, where environmental cues are not greatly ambiguous and usual means of coping are not open to the individual, situational influences on coping approaches will likely predominate.
McCrae (1992) reported correlations between coping strategies across different stressors of threat, loss, and challenge. These correlations ranged from nearly no correlation (-.01) to moderate correlations (.59) with a median of .29. In a prior study, McCrae (1989) found that across time, coping mechanisms showed test-retest correlations that ranged from -.10 to .60,
with a median of .26. Overall, the small-moderate correlations across time and across stressor provide support for the influence of dispositional coping styles on coping mechanisms. However, these correlations are not strong, suggesting that dispositions do not completely explain the choice of coping mechanisms by stressor or across time. This finding is not unexpected given the assumptions of the transactional model of stress and coping. Schwarzer and Schwarzer (1996) note that high test-retest reliability contradicts the understanding of coping as a variable process, however they state that higher levels (although these might still be only moderate correlations) can be expected when the same individual is compared over time on the same kind of stress.
Situational influences on coping action tendencies have been argued by Folkman and Lazarus (1980, 1985) and Folkman et al. (1986) to be the factors that introduce intraindividual variability into the coping mechanisms evidenced in any secondary appraisal of threat. Carver et al. (1989) in their development of the COPE scale argued that coping style as a concept can be counterproductive when it locks the individual into one mode of responding across situations. Coping styles as proposed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) however, that have flexible properties of differing strategies that can be used in differing amounts in differing situations or stages (as seen in Carver et al.’s (1989) COPE inventory), as well as the ability for both problem- and emotion-focused coping styles to be used within the same encounter by the same individual, allows for a conceptualisation of coping strategies and dominant coping style that can change by situation. Folkman and Lazarus (1980) state that situational coping strategies are usually not generalisable cross-situationally, with intraindividual analyses showing that participants were more variable than consistent in their coping patterns across situations. It may be, as has been indicated previously, that certain situations or types of stressors can be consistently associated with certain coping styles within a particular individual or across individuals. In other words, certain types of stressful stimuli may invoke particular classes of coping strategies within a predominant coping style. This is not to say that other coping
strategies or styles will not be present, however, some consistency should be seen within situation type. Folkman and Lazarus (1980) provide some support for this notion in their findings that coping responses to stressors within work contexts show a predominance of problem-focused coping strategies, whereas health contexts show a predominance of emotion- focused strategies.
Carver and Scheier (1994) suggest that the simplest way in which coping styles may influence situational coping is through a main effect, in other words, a particular coping style will be displayed through coping strategies at every phase of the transaction regardless of relevance. However, this is unlikely given the variability seen in individual approaches to situations and the counter-productiveness of stereotypical approaches to coping (Carver et al., 1989; Lepore & Evans, 1996). Carver and Scheier (1994) suggest a more subtle possibility is that dispositional styles influence situational coping strategies at one part of the transaction but not at others (or perhaps different styles at different stages). Carver and Scheier (1994) found 32 out of 39 correlations between dispositional styles and situational strategies in the same stressful situation were significant, although they were small (between .20 and .35). These authors also found that the dispositional and situational reports shared between 4-12% of their variance. However, the religion and alcohol use strategies were highly related sharing approximately 50% of the variance. Terry (1994) also found that strategies used in a first instance of coping with a stressful stimulus predicted the coping strategies used in a second instance, accounting for 6- 13% of the variance. Terry (1994) also found that after controlling for stable influences, the situation type and situational appraisals were significant predictors of the type of coping response used. Schwartz et al. (1999) found that momentary (situational) reports of coping were associated with dispositional reports, sharing between 15-30% of variance. These authors argue that the association between dispositional and situational reports is too low for the former to be used as a proxy for the latter. However, they propose that dispositional coping styles should be viewed as the average means of coping that an individual will take part in across situations, that
is, sometimes dispositional coping styles will predominate while at other times they will seem to have little impact. This is in contrast to the preferred modal interpretation that some researchers ascribe to (Schwartz et al., 1999). Schwartz et al. (1999) also propose that coping dispositions could be defined as those behaviours that an individual engages in during at least 30% of situations appraised as threatening and stressful.
Going back to the transactional model of coping, it is necessary to view dispositions as one part of the puzzle of coping strategy choice and implementation, with situational factors (the interpretation of which is dependent on an interaction with dispositional factors) playing an equally important role (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Some cross-situational consistency in coping strategy use will be seen, while discrepancies will also be apparent. Pearlin and Schooler (1978) studied stressors of individuals in four everyday social roles (marriage partner, household manager, parent, and worker) and found that while a broad range of coping strategies were used to cope with stressors in these situations, there were certain similarities across situation type. An interpretation of these findings is that some coping strategies are used across individuals generally for coping within social role stress situations, while others are used only in reference to a specific stressor or situation (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978).