“environmental factors at work thatlead to individual strains—aversive and potentially harmful reactions of the individual” (p. 391).Although job stressors were typically seen as workplace factors that increase strain and impairperformance (Jex & Bliese, 1999; Motowidlo, Packard, & Manning, 1986), more recent researchwithin the framework of challenge and hindrance stressors has suggested more complex rela-tionships between job stressors and performance (LePine et al., 2005; Podsakoff et al., 2007).Previously, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) had proposed that reactions to stressors depend onindividual appraisals of stressors as threatening or challenging: Although stressors appraised asthreats trigger passive coping reactions, stressors appraised as challenges trigger active copingresponses.