schultz10e_ch12.ppt

Schultz & Schultz 10e 1
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.,
Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved
Psychology and Work Today
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Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
• Describe the physiological effects of stress
• Identify the contributions of individual differences in
stress responses
• Understand the nature of work-family conflicts
• Identify the causes and effects of stress in the
workplace
• Describe the various approaches to treating stress
in the workplace

What is Stress?
• Stress is physiological and psychological
responses to excessive and usually unpleasant
stimulation and to threatening events in the
environment
• Stress effects all levels of employees
• Stress is costly to employers and correlates
positively with health care claims and costs
• Up to half of all physician visits are precipitated by
stress
• Many physical complaints may be psychosomatic (i.e.,
physical disorders associated with emotional factors)

Stress-Related Physical Problems
• High blood pressure
• Ulcers
• Colitis
• Heart disease
• Arthritis
• Skin diseases
• Allergies
• Headaches
• Neck and lower back pain
• Cancer
• Increase in infectious diseases

Occupational Health Psychology
• The field of study dealing with the health effects
of job stress and other aspects of well-being
• Focus group in the Organizational Behavior
Division of the Academy of Management
• APA launched formal development of the field
with NIOSH
• Started Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

Physiological Effects of Stress
• Adrenaline is released, blood pressure rises, heart
rate increases, extra sugar is discharged into the
bloodstream
• Males and females respond differently to stress
• Male - fight-or-flight response
• Female - tend-and-befriend response
• Tending – nurturing activities designed to protect self
and offspring from stress
• Befriending – development of social groups or
networks that help defend against stress

Physiological Effects of Stress
• Few people regularly face extreme emergencies on
the job (e.g., firefighters and police)
• Most job stress is emotional (e.g., arguments with the
boss)
• Prolonged exposure to stress leads to physical and
psychosomatic illness
• These illnesses can contribute to stress
• Stress doesn’t affect everyone the same way
• Air traffic controllers are prone to hypertension but are no
more likely to have stroke or heart attack than rest of
population

Job Satisfaction and Control
• Those with high job satisfaction suffer few harmful effects
of stress
• Those with high levels of job dissatisfaction show
considerable stress-related effects
• Challenge-related stress includes time pressure and high
levels of responsibility
• Leads to fulfillment and achievement
• Hindrance-related stress includes excessive job demands
and constraints
• Leads to frustration and low satisfaction
• Top executives seem to handle stress better than middle
managers – have 40% fewer heart attacks

Coping with Stress
• High job satisfaction and control over working
conditions reduce a person’s susceptibility stress
• Culturally bound – e.g., lack of autonomy and control not
a major source of stress for Chinese workers (Liu,
Spector, & Shi, 2007)
• Social support helps coping with stress and a lack
of social support correlates with heart disease
• Employees with high levels of skills and abilities are
more resistant to stress
• Those in good general physical health suffer fewer
negative effects from stressful working conditions

Differences in Stress Responses
• Hardiness
• Self-efficacy
• Locus of control
• Organization-Based Self-esteem
• Self Control
• Negative affectivity
• Type of occupation
• Gender Differences

Hardiness
• Hardiness is a personality variable based on the
idea of control that may explain individual
differences in vulnerability to stress.
• Components (Kobasa, 1979, 1982):
• Control
• Commitment
• Challenge
• Hardy persons develop fewer physical
complaints under highly stressful conditions than
those who are not hardy
• How does this differ from locus of control?

Self-Efficacy
• Self-efficacy is our belief in our ability to
accomplish a specific task
• It is our sense of how adequate, efficient, and
competent we feel about coping with life’s
demands
• Two levels of self-efficacy:
• Traditional - individual-focused
• Collective - group-focused
• Those with high levels of self-efficacy feel more
control and are more stress resistant

Locus of Control
• Locus of control (LOC) refers to belief about
how much influence individuals have on the forces
and events that shape their lives
• Internal locus of control - Those who believe that
job performance, pay, and promotions are under
their control and dependent on their own behavior
• External locus of control - Those who believe
that life is outside their control
• High Internal LOC correlates with less stress and burnout
(Schmitz, Neumann, & Opperman, 2000)

Organization-Based Self-Esteem
• Self-esteem refers to how we feel about
ourselves
• Organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) is a
personality dimension relating to our assessment
of our adequacy and worth with regard to our
place in the employing organization
• High OBSE see themselves as important,
effective and worthwhile
• People low in OBSE are more affected by stress
and are more passive in coping with it

Self Control
• Personality characteristic related to the tendency to
restrain behaviors, desires, and emotions that
might interfere with the expectations of others
• Those higher in self control report greater stress
and anxiety
• Two components: impulse control and resisting
distractions (Schmidt & Neubach, 2007)
• Some self control is necessary – low self control
may be less stressed, but may not accomplish task

Negative Affectivity
• Negative affectivity (NA) is a “Big 5” personality
dimension characterized by a generalized life and
job dissatisfaction and by a focus on negative
aspects of events
• Closely related to neuroticism
• People high in NA are likely to experience distress
and dissatisfaction in all areas of life
• Research results are mixed as to relationship with
stress

Type of Occupation
• High stress jobs include laborer, secretary, clinical
laboratory technician, nurse, first-line supervisor,
restaurant server, machine operator, farm worker, and
miner
• Also stressful: police officer, firefighter, computer
programmer, dental technician, electrician, plumber,
social worker, telephone operator, city bus driver
• University professor is one of the least stressful
• Clerical and blue-collar generally more stressed than
managers and professionals

Gender Differences
• Women consistently report higher levels of stress
than men
• More headaches, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances,
and eating disorders
• More likely to smoke, drink and use drugs in response to
workplace stress
• More likely to use social support networks to cope
• Women in highly stressful jobs more prone to
spontaneous abortion and shorter menstrual cycles
• Women homemakers experience higher levels of
stress than those in paid positions

Work-Family Balance
• Both men and women report conflicts, but the
difficulties are usually greater for women
• Stresses of work-family conflict are independent of
type of job and working conditions
• Employed women enjoy better health than those
who stay at home
• More than 60% of women in US with children
under 6 work outside home
• They remain responsible for the bulk of child
and elder care – it’s like having two jobs

Organizational Assistance
• Presence of women managers increases
organizational responsiveness to work-family
conflicts:
• Reducing hours, flexible scheduling and telecommuting
• Supportive supervisors
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) absence
• Maternity leave
• However, highly paid women may be penalized for
taking extensive leave
• Companies with work-family conflict reduction
programs had higher stock prices (Arthur, 2003)

Are Family-Friendly Practices Fair?
• Family-friendly practices allow parents with
dependent children to have a flexible
schedule and avoid overtime
• What about those who don’t have children?
• There is a growing sense among childless
workers that they are being exploited
• They receive fewer benefits than parents
• Is it fair?
• What factors should be considered?

Workplace Stressors
• Work overload and work underload
• Organizational change
• Role ambiguity and role conflict
• Other stressors

Work Overload and Underload
• Work overload – being overworked
• Quantitative - there is too much work to perform
in the time available
• Qualitative - work that is too difficult for the
employee to perform
• Work underload results from work that is
too simple or insufficiently challenging for
one’s abilities
• Both conditions are positively correlated with
stress

Organizational Change
• Organizational change is stressful
• Those who view change as exciting and a
challenge are less vulnerable than those who
resist change or view it as a threat
• Older workers experience increased stress with
the increase in younger workers and ethnic
diversity which brings to the workplace unfamiliar
habits and cultural values
• Introduction of employee participation in decision
making can be stressful for higher-level managers

Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict
• Role ambiguity results when job responsibilities
are unstructured or poorly defined
• Components of role ambiguity
• Performance criteria – uncertainty about performance
standards
• Work method – uncertainty about procedures that lead to
success on the job
• Scheduling – uncertainty about timing and sequencing
• Role conflict results when there is a disparity
between job demands and the employee’s
personal standards

Other Stressors
• Supervisors and managers
• Problems of career development
• Taking responsibility for subordinates
• Working under a deadline
• Computer use
• “Stress carriers” – contact with others
experiencing stress
• Physical working conditions (e.g., assembly line)
• Computer-controlled performance monitoring

Effects of Workplace Stress
• Research has linked stress to long-term
psychological and behavioral consequences
such as:
• Tension
• Depression and anxiety
• Spousal and child abuse
• Overt hostility and sabotage
• Other effects include:
• Burnout
• Workaholism

Burnout
• Burnout is a condition of job stress that results from
overwork
• Burnout victims tend to become rigid about their
work, following rules and procedures compulsively
• Characterized by exhaustion, apathy, depression,
irritation, and boredom; work quality deteriorates but
not necessarily quantity
• Research strongly links physical illnesses (heart
disease in men and musculoskeletal disease in
women) to burnout (Honkonen et al., 2006)

Burnout Syndrome
•Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter (2001) identified
three components of Burnout Syndrome
• Emotional exhaustion – feeling drained and empty
• Depersonalization – feeling callous and cynical
• Reduced sense of personal accomplishment – feeling
efforts are wasted and worthless
•The Maslach Burnout Inventory has 4 subscales:
• Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, Reduced
sense of personal accomplishment, and Personal
involvement
• High score related to burnout and exhaustion

Experiencing Burnout
• Women no more likely than men to experience
burnout
• Single and divorced more likely than married
individuals to experience burnout
• Those under 40 more likely to experience burnout
• Those high in neuroticism more likely to
experience burnout
• Higher among external LOCs and those low in
hardiness and self-esteem
• Prolonged overwork and stress saps energy
leading to physical and psychological problems

Workaholism
• Workaholic - an employee addicted to work
• Dysfunctional, or they may really like their job
• 5% of workers are workaholics - most are content
• Healthy workaholics are high in Job Engagement
• High in energy, involvement and efficacy,
vigorous, fully committed to work, seldom
fatigued, persistent, enthusiastic and take pride
in their work
• Unhealthy workaholics are highly involved but
derive little satisfaction from their work

Stress Management Programs
• Organizational efforts
• These are a variety of programs designed to
provide employees a sense of control over and
fit in the organization
• Individual efforts
• Exercise – take advantage of employer-
provided fitness programs
• Relaxation training – relax one part of body after
another
• Biofeedback – monitor physiological responses
to stress and use results to control responses

Organizational Efforts
• Controlling the organizational climate by allowing
for participation
• Providing control
• Defining employee roles
• Eliminating work overload and underload
• Providing for social support
• Bringing pets to work
• Providing stress-management programs
• Providing fitness programs

Key Terms
• Biofeedback
• Burnout
• Hardiness
• Job engagement
• Locus of control
• Negative affectivity
• Occupational health
psychology
• Organization-based
self esteem (OBSE)
• Relaxation training
• Role ambiguity
• Role conflict
• Stress
• Work overload
• Work underload
• Workaholism

schultz10e_ch12.ppt

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