141 Proactive Vitality Management Among Employees with Chronic Liver Disease reactions and beliefs about their condition influence the selection, performance, and maintenance of coping responses. These coping responses, in turn, influence work and health outcomes because they may alleviate physical symptoms and emotional distress (Hagger & Orbell, 2003; Hale et al., 2007; Leventhal et al., 1998). The central mechanism described in the self-regulatory model is how patients select coping strategies in reaction to cognitive and emotional representations of their condition. Indeed, the coping literature has traditionally focused on how individuals react to and deal with stressors and threats. However, scholars have embraced the idea that coping may not only involve the reactions to stressful past events but may also take the form of anticipating events in the future (Aspinwall, 2011; Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997; Schwarzer, 2000). Aspinwall and Taylor (1997) coined the term proactive coping, which they described as “the process through which people anticipate or detect potential stressors and act in advance to prevent them or to mute their impact” (p. 417). More recent theorizing on proactive coping has made room for concepts such as purpose, challenge, and personal growth (Schwarzer & Luszczynska, 2008). For example, Schwarzer and Taubert (2002; p. 9) define proactive coping as “efforts that facilitate promotion toward challenging goals and personal growth.” Proactive coping involves having a general promotion vision in which difficult situations are appraised as challenges and explains what motivates people to strive for ambitious goals and commit themselves to personal quality management (Greenglass et al., 1999; Schwarzer, 2000). Having a promotion vision subsequently translates into the initiation of all kinds of goal management activities that create opportunities for general life improvement and personal growth (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002). In a similar vein, literature on proactive behavior in organizational settings suggests that people may adopt a proactive approach to achieve a different future (Parker et al., 2010). This means that working individuals may take an active role in how they approach their work by creating favorable situations and conditions (Crant, 2000). The common denominator of proactive coping and other types of proactive behavior lies in the ‘forward time perspective,’ which is also inherent in proactive vitality management (Op den Kamp et al., 2018; Parker et al., 2010). Indeed, proactive behavior is goal-directed – aimed at changing and improving the situation or oneself – and involves self-starting and future-focused action (Parker et al., 2006). 6
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