186 Chapter 7 The model of proactive motivation (Parker et al., 2010) identifies job stressors as a contextual variable that may influence the proactive process. While one may argue that job stressors take a toll on an individual that may inhibit proactive behavior, researchers have argued that stressors indicate a mismatch between a desired and an actual situation. Employees may then engage in proactive behavior to decrease this discrepancy (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Parker et al., 2010). For example, individuals may show different behavioral responses to high versus low levels of workload. Some individuals may adopt an adaptive and approach-oriented coping style to deal with their job demands, for instance by seeking support, planning ahead, and by proactively managing their physical and mental energy (see also, Bakker & De Vries, 2021). However, high workload may also trigger a more maladaptive or avoidance coping style, in which people act passively or even disengage (Bakker & De Vries, 2021; Roth & Cohen, 1986). While job demands may thus predict the use of proactive vitality management, the two may also interact in their impact on occupational health and performance. According to JD-R theory, job resources may counteract the negative impact of job demands in their influence on occupational health and performance (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). However, later expansions of the theory have suggested that individual behaviors may similarly buffer the impact of job demands on health outcomes. For example, strength use refers to the application of more stable, personal qualities that may energize individuals, and Van Woerkom et al., (2016) showed that using one’s personal strengths diminishes the impact of high workload on absenteeism. Following a somewhat similar reasoning, Sonnentag and Fritz (2015) theorized that psychological detachment – i.e., disengaging oneself psychologically from work when being away from the workplace – may act as a buffer in the link between job demands and health impairment. In this dissertation, proactive vitality management is mainly regarded as an instigator of occupational health and performance processes. Future research may build further on our findings and examine the potential buffering role of proactive vitality management in the link between job demands and poor health and performance outcomes. Based on the high number of individuals that suffer from burnout complaints, it may be valuable to further examine the role of proactive vitality management in the process of work strain and the development of physical and mental health issues, such as burnout.
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