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Research on coping at work has tended to adopt a between-person perspective, producing inconsistent findings on well-being outcomes. This focus on interindividual differences is in contrast to many theories that position coping as process, hence, as an intraindividual process that unfolds over time in response to job stressors and appraisals. The authors propose that focusing more on the within-person coping processes and integrating them with learning perspectives has the potential to advance our understanding. More specifically, coping behavior and well-being can be seen as an outcome of current and past learning processes. In this chapter, the authors discuss three mechanisms that explain how coping processes can produce positive versus negative effects on well-being, and how coping can be integrated into a learning framework to explain these pathways. First, the stress process entails encoding and evaluation of the situation and, as a consequence, deployment of suitable coping behavior. Over and above the efforts that have to be invested to understand the stressful situation, the coping behavior itself also requires time and energy resources. Second, coping behavior likely co-occurs with learning processes such as reflection, exploration, and exploitation. These learning processes require further time and cognitive resources. Third, although coping behaviors and their accompanying learning processes have the potential to drain resources at the within-person level, they can also build up interindividual coping resources such as a broader repertoire and coping flexibility. These between-level differences equip employees to deal with future stressors.

The process of occupational stress is dynamic, and thus must be conceptualized through an intraindividual perspective. Theories of self-regulation model feedback loops in goal pursuit and have meaningful implications for occupational well-being, from the task-level to years across the career span. In particular, discrepancy (the distance between one’s actual and desired states) and velocity (the speed at which one is moving towards a desired state) influence reactions in goal-striving. We extend theory bridging the self-regulation, occupational health, and career literatures by outlining the effects of discrepancy and velocity feedback for well-being, which we ground in cybernetic theories of stress, coping, and well-being. Further, we consider change at the macro scale by delimiting the impact of velocity, experienced in the pursuit of goals across Super’s (1980) career stages, on worker health. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of velocity and health over the career stages.

Research on self-regulation has tended to focus on goal-related performance, with limited attention paid to individuals’ affect and the role it plays during the goal-striving process. In this chapter we discuss three mechanisms to integrate affect within a control theory-based self-regulation framework, and how such integrations inform future research concerning employee stress and well-being. Specifically, affect can be viewed as a result of velocity made toward one’s desired states at work. Fast progress results in positive affect, which enhances employee well-being and reduces the detrimental effects associated with exposure to occupational stressors. On the other hand, slow or no progress elicits negative affect, which induces employee distress. Second, affect can also be considered an input of self-regulation, such that employees are required to regulate their emotional displays at work. Employees who perform emotional labor compare their actual emotional display against the desired display prescribed by display rules. Third, affect can function as a situational disturbance, altering employees’ perceptions or assessments of the input, comparator, and output for other self-regulatory processes.

Past research has primarily focused on the negative impact of workplace mistreatment or aggression on the individuals involved, workgroups, and organizations. Certain circumstances, however, create paradoxical effects in which mistreatment positively relates to desirable workplace outcomes and characteristics at the individual and/or organizational level. Reviewing the theoretical and empirical evidence of beneficial outcomes provides researchers and practitioners with a more comprehensive understanding of the progression of workplace mistreatment, allowing them to target specific mechanisms to mitigate detrimental effects and potentially discover important avenues that lead to desired outcomes. A qualitative review of 13 articles demonstrated that different forms of aggression such as bullying, abusive supervision, incivility, and ostracism have positive relationships with paradoxical outcomes and characteristics such as resilience, prosocial behaviors, socially desirable behaviors, job performance, job satisfaction, and creativity. The authors caution against leveraging mistreatment as a method for producing these desired outcomes; instead, the authors encourage researchers and practitioners to utilize the information to further their understanding of the nomological network of workplace mistreatment and its underlying mechanisms, such as cognitive reappraisal and social learning.

Given the increasing global focus of many aspects of our society, researchers have taken significant steps in understanding the impact of culture on various psychological states. This review focuses on the stressor–strain relationships within the context of cross-cultural and cross-national studies. Using research findings from the United States as a baseline, we identify common and unique themes concerning the stressor–strain relationships between different countries, and clarify the differences between cross-national and cross-cultural studies. Furthermore, we consider cross-cultural and cross-national occupational stress research from an individual differences perspective. We encourage future studies to adopt this perspective and carefully consider the implications of cultural values on occupational stress research at the individual, group, and country levels.