Stress & Learning

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Table of Contents
Stress ....................................................................................................................................................... 2
Eustress and Distress........................................................................................................................................... 2
Implications of Stress on Performance and Satisfaction....................................................................................... 3
Potential Sources of Stress .................................................................................................................................. 4
Organisational Stressors ............................................................................................................................................................ 4
Individual Stressors.................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Consequences of Stress ....................................................................................................................................... 6
Consequences for the individual ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Burnout ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Consequences for the Organisation .......................................................................................................................................... 7
Management of Stress ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Coping strategies at the Organisational Levels.......................................................................................................................... 7
Coping Strategies by Individuals ................................................................................................................................................ 8

Learning ................................................................................................................................................ 10
Nature of Learning ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Theories of Learning .......................................................................................................................................... 10
Classical Conditioning .............................................................................................................................................................. 11
Operant Conditioning .............................................................................................................................................................. 12
Cognitive Learning ................................................................................................................................................................... 13
Social Learning ......................................................................................................................................................................... 13

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Stress
Stress is an expression that creates physiological and psychological imbalances within a person. It is a body’s
reaction to any demands or changes in its internal and external environment.

In simple words, stress refers to pressures or tensions people feel in life. Stress is, therefore, a natural and
unavoidable feature of human life. In these days of competition, when one wishes to surpass what has been
achieved by others, leading to an imbalance between demands and resources, it causes psycho-social stress.
Thus, stress is a part of and parcel of everyday life.

R.S Schuler is of the view that stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an
opportunity, constraint or demand related to what he desires and for which the outcome is perceived to
the both uncertain and important.

Thus, when a student takes a test at a university, he/she feels stressed because he/she has to confront
opportunities, constraints and demands.
A good performance will lead to earning due credits, completion of a degree/diploma and even earning a
reward or medal.
But a bad performance may lead to failure, a compartment in some paper and a waste of time. In fact, sitting
in an examination is a potential stress for most students. The potential stress becomes actual stress when
the outcome is uncertain but is very important for the individual.

Stress is not necessarily bad in and of itself. While stress is typically taken in a negative sense, it also has a
positive value. It is an opportunity when it offers potential gain. Consider, for example, the superior
performance that an athlete or stage performer gives in “difficult” situations. Such individuals often use
stress positively to rise to the occasion and perform at or near their maximum.

In the context of work, work stress is defined as follows:

Work stress is a condition arising from the interaction of people and their work and is characterised by
changes within people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning.

Eustress and Distress

Stress is anything that changes our physical, emotional or mental state while encountering various stimuli in
our environment. Selye has used two separate terms to distinguish between the positive and negative effects
of stress on individuals even though bodily reactions to the two forms of stress are similar.

Eustress is ‘positive’ stress that accompanies achievement and exhilaration. It is the stress of meeting the
challenges such as those found in a managerial job.

Distress occurs when we feel insecure, inadequate, helpless or desperate as a result of too much, or too
polite, pressure or tension.

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Implications of Stress on Performance and Satisfaction

Selye suggested that optimum stress (or eustress) may be achieved at work and reflected in job performance
when the job provides adequate challenges, but not too little or too much pressure. Though optimum stress
level is different for different individuals, each individual can sense and determine how much stress is
functional for him to operate in a productive manner.

Under the situations of under-stress and over-stress, boredom and apathy creep in. The implications of
different levels of stress have been shown below.

Consequences of Different Levels of Stress

Basis Low Stress Optimum Stress High Stress
Reaction Boredom/Apathy High Energy Exhaustion
Low Maintenance
Anxiety and
Careless mistakes High Motivation
Nervousness
Psychological Heightened
Behaviour Indecisiveness
Withdrawal Perception High
Bad judgement
Physical Involvement
Inactivity
Performance Low Performance High Performance Poor performance
Insomnia
Health Effects Dull Health Good Health
Psychosomatic Illness

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Potential Sources of Stress

There may be numerous conditions in which people may feel stress. Conditions that tend to cause stress are
called stressors.
The factors which have the potential to cause stress may be grouped under two headings, namely:

• Organisational Stressors
• Individual Stressors

Organisational Stressors
Organisational stressors are various factors in the workplace that can cause stress. The general sets of
organisational stressors are as follows:

Task Demands: Task demands are stressors associated with the specific job a person performs. Some
occupations are by nature more stressful than others. The jobs of surgeons, air traffic controllers, and
professional football coaches are more stressful than those of general practitioners, aeroplanes,
baggage loaders, and football team equipment managers.

Role Demands: The sources of stress in the organisational role include role ambiguity, role conflict,
responsibility towards people and things and other stressors.
Role ambiguity involves a lack of clarity about the work objectives and expectations of
colleagues related to the scope and responsibilities of the job.
Role conflict arises when the individual is exposed to conflicting job demands or is required
to do things which he does not want to do.
Responsibility towards people is more stress-generating than responsibility towards things
(i.e., equipment, materials).
Other roles stressor include a lack of participation in decision-making, a lack of managerial
support and the need for maintaining high standards of performance.

Inter-personal Relationships at Work: The nature of the relationship with one’s boss, subordinates
and colleagues also forms a major source of stress.
- Poor relations involve low trust, low supportiveness and low interest in listening to and dealing
with the organisational problems of the members.
- The members feel more stressed if the boss is low on ‘consideration’. “Task-oriented”
managers cause more stress to subordinates than “people-oriented” managers.
- Stress is generated not only by the pressure of relationships but also by a lack of adequate
social support from colleagues during difficult situations.

Organisational culture and Climate: This source of stress involves a perception of being in the
organisation and a threat to one’s freedom, autonomy and identity. Specifically, such stressors include
little or no participation in decision-making, lack of belongingness, lack of effective consultation, poor
communication, restrictions or behaviour and politics by some organisational members.

Organisational Leadership: Leadership style also may cause stress. Suppose an employee needs a
great deal of social support from his heart but the leader shows no concern or compassion for him.
This employee will probably feel stressed. Similarly, assume an employee who has a strong need to
participate in decision-making and be active in all aspects of management. But his boss is very
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autocratic and refuses to consult subordinates about anything. But his boss is very autocratic and
refuses to consult subordinates about anything. Naturally, stress is likely to result.

Group Pressures: Group pressures may include pressure to restrict output, pressure to conform to the
group’s norms, and so forth.
For instance, it is quite common for work to arrive at an informal agreement about how much each
member will produce. Individuals who produce much more or much less than this level may be
pressurised by the group to get back in line. An individual who feels a strong need to vary from the
group’s expectations (perhaps to get a pay raise or promotion) will experience a great deal of stress,
especially of acceptance by the group also important to him or her.

Individual Stressors
Some stressors at the level of an individual may arise in the context of organisation life or personal life.

Career Development: There are two major clusters of stressors relating to career development:
I. Lack of job security (fear of redundancy, obsolescence or early retirement)
II. Status incongruity (under or over-promotion and frustration stemming from the attainment of
one’s career ceiling)

Type A and Type B Personality Profiles: In the chapter Personality, we have seen the complexity of, and
individual differences, in personality characteristics and traits. Personality characteristics, such as
authoritarianism, rigidity, masculinity, femininity, extroversion, anxiety, and need for achievement are
particularly relevant to individual stress. Both profiles of Type A and Type B presently are mentioned here:

Type A Personality Type B Personality

Is always moving Is never in hurry
Walks rapidly Is patient
Eats rapidly Does not brag
Is impatient Plays for fun, not for win
Does two things at a time Relaxes without guilt
Measures success by quantity Is mild mannered
Is aggressive Has no pressing deadlines
Is competitive
Talks rapidly
Feels pressure

People with personality A profile experience considerable stress. They are the ones who:

1. Work long hours under constant deadline pressures and conditions for overload
2. Often take work at home at night or at weekends and are unable to relax
3. Constantly compete with themselves, setting high standards of productivity that they seem driven to
maintain
4. Tend to become frustrated by the work situation, to be irritated with the work efforts of others, and
to be misunderstood by superiors.

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Life Change: A life change is any meaningful change in a person’s personal or work situation. Major changes
in a person’s life can lead to stress and eventually to disease. Several of these events relate directly (fired
from work, retirement) or indirectly (change in residence) to work.

Life Trauma: A life trauma is any upheaval in an individual’s life that alters his or her attitudes, emotions or
behaviours. To illustrate, according to the life-change view, a divorce adds to a person’s potential for health
problems in the following years. At the same time, the person will obviously also experience emotional
turmoil during the actual divorce process. This turmoil is a form of life trauma and will clearly cause stress,
much of which may spill over into the workplace.

- Life trauma is similar to life change, but it has a narrower, more direct, and shorter-term focus. Major
life traumas that may cause stress include marital problems, family difficulties, and health problems
initially unrelated to stress.
- For example, a person learns that he has developed arthritis that will limit his favourite hobby. His
dismay over the news may translate into stress at work. Similarly, a worker going through a family
breakup will almost certainly go through difficult periods, some of which will affect his job
performance.

Consequences of Stress
Consequences for the individual
Stress is the spice of life. Complete freedom from stress comes only in death. Stress becomes distressed
when we begin to sense a loss of our feelings of security and adequacy. It may produce physical, behaviour
and psychological consequences as discussed below:

Physical Consequences: The physical or medical consequences of stress affect a person’s physical well-being.
Heart disease and stroke, among other illnesses, have been linked to stress. Other common medical
problems resulting from too much stress include headaches, backaches, ulcers and related stomach and
intestinal disorders, and skin conditions such as acne and hives.

Behavioural Consequences: The behavioural consequences of stress may harm the person. One such
behaviour is smoking. Research has clearly documented that people who smoke tend to smoke more when
they experience stress. There is also evidence that alcohol and drug abuse are linked to stress, although this
relationship is less well documented. Other possible behavioural consequences are accident proneness,
violence and appetite disorders.

Psychological Consequences: The psychological consequences of stress relate to a person’s mental health
and well-being. When people experience too much or not enough. Stress may also lead to family problems
and sexual difficulties.

Burnout
Burnout is a general feeling of exhaustion that develops when an individual simultaneously experiences too
much pressure and has too few sources of satisfaction.

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Burnout is the most severe stage of distress. Career burnout generally occurs when we begin questioning our
personal values. Quite simply, we no longer feel what we are doing is important. Depression, frustration and
a loss of productivity are often symptoms of burnout. It can be done to a lack of personal fulfilment in the
job or a lack of positive feedback about performance. Thus, both supervisors and managers have a crucial
role to play in identifying job likely to result in employee distress or burnout and employees likely to suffer.

Consequences for the Organisation

The consequences of stress on individuals may have both direct and indirect impacts on the organisation.
Specifically, the organisation is affected in terms of the following parameters:

I. Too much stress might lead to a decline in the performance of the individuals. Thus, overall
productivity and quality will suffer leading to a reduced margin of profit.

II. The individuals under stress may withdraw from the scene. There may be increased rates of
absenteeism and labour turnover. An employee may withdraw psychologically ceasing to care about
the organisation.

III. Another direct organisational consequence of employee stress relates to attitudes. Job satisfaction,
morale and organisational commitment can all suffer, along with motivation to perform at high
levels. As a result, people may become more prone to complain about unimportant things, do only
enough work to get by, and so forth.

IV. Decision-making might be delayed or even poor decisions might be taken if the decision-makers are
under excessive stress.

V. If stress is common along employees, it will hamper communication and human relations in the
organisation.

Management of Stress
Stress is inevitable in human life. There is, therefore, no way out but to cope with stress or fight it out. There
are two strategies that can help employees to cope with stress. These are the coping strategies at the
organisational level and employee levels.

Coping strategies at the Organisational Levels

Organisational Role Clarity: People experience stress when they are not clear about what they are expected
to do in the organisation. This may happen because either there is ambiguity in the role or there is no conflict.
Such a situation can be overcome by defining each role more clearly.
Role analysis technique helps to analyse what the job entails and what the expectations are. Breaking down
the job into its various components will clarify the role of the job incumbent for the entire system. This will
help to eliminate imposing unrealistic expectations on the individual leading to reduced stress.

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Job Redesign: Job may be a source of stress to many individuals. Properly designed jobs and work schedules
can help ease stress in the individuals and the organisation.

Stress Reduction and Stress Management Programmes: Stress reduction programmes aim to identify
relevant organisational stressors and thus reduce their effects by redesigning, reallocating workloads,
improving supervisory skills, providing more autonomy or job variety, etc. Stress management usually
focuses on training individual employees or their work groups, to manage their stress symptoms in more
effective ways.

Collateral Programmes (Personal Wellness): A collateral stress programme is an organisational programme

specifically created for the well-being of employees. Organisations have adopted stress management
programmes, health promotion programmes, career development programmes, counselling and other kinds
of programmes for this purpose.

Supportive Organisation climate: Many organisational stressors emerge because of faulty organisational
policies and practices. To a great extent, these can be controlled by creating a supportive organisational
climate. A supportive organisational climate depends upon managerial leadership rather than the use of
power and money to control behaviour. The focus is primarily on the participation and involvement of
employees in the decision-making process. Such a climate develops belongingness among the employees
which helps them reduce their stress.

Counselling: Counselling is a discussion of a problem by a counsellor with an employee with a view to helping
the employee cope with it better. Counselling seeks to improve employees’ mental health by the release of
emotional tension which is also known as emotional catharsis. People get an emotional release from their
frustrations and other problems whenever they have an opportunity to tell someone about them.

Coping Strategies by Individuals

Individuals can use the following techniques to overcome stress:

Relaxation: Coping with stress requires adaptation. Proper relaxation is an effective way to adapt. Relaxation
can take many forms. One way to relax is to take regular vacations. It has been observed that people’s
attitudes toward a variety of workplace characteristics improve significantly following a vacation. People can
also relax while on the job. For example, it has been recommended that people take regular rest breaks
during their normal workday. A popular way of resting is to sit quietly with closed eyes for about 10 minutes
every afternoon.

Time Management: Time management is often recommended for managing stress. The idea is that many
daily pressures can be eased if a person does a better job of managing time. One popular approach to time
management is to make a list every morning of the things to be done that day. The things to be done may
be arranged in the list according to their importance. The strategy helps people get more of the important
things done every day. It also encourages the delegation of less important activities to others.

Role Management: Under this, the individual works to avoid role overload, role ambiguity and role conflict.
For instance, if a worker does not know what is expected of him he should ask for clarification from his boss.
A worker should accept extra work if he feels that he would be able to do that.

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Mediation: Another way to reduce stress is meditation. Mediation involves quiet, concentrated inner
thought in order to rest the body physically and emotionally. It helps remove a person from a stressful world
temporarily.

Support Group: It is a group of friends or family members with whom a person can share his feelings.
Supportive family and friends can help people cope with routine types of stress on an ongoing basis.

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Learning
Learning is a change in behaviour through education and training, practice and experience. It is accompanied
by the acquisition of knowledge, skills and expertise which are relatively permanent.

E.R. Hilgard has defined learning as a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of
prior experience. Ironically, it can be said that a change in behaviour indicates that learning has taken place
and that learning is a change in behaviour.

Nature of Learning
Based on the definition of learning, we can identify the nature of learning-

• Learning involves a change in behaviour, though the change is not necessarily an improvement over
the previous behaviour. Learning generally has the connotation of improved behaviour, but bad
habits, prejudices, stereotypes, and work restrictions are also learned.

• The behavioural change must be relatively permanent. Any temporary change in behaviour due to
fatigue or any reason is not a part of learning.

• The behavioural change must be based on some form of practice or experience. Thus, any
behavioural change because of physical maturation is not learning. For instance, the ability to work
which is based on physical maturation would not be considered learning.

• The practice or experience must be reinforced in order for learning to occur. If reinforcement does
not accompany the practice or experience, the behaviour will disappear.

Theories of Learning

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Conditioning

Social Behaviour

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Conditioning

Conditioning is when an effective object or situation becomes so effective that it makes the hidden response
apparent. In the absence of this stimulus, a hidden response is a natural or normal response. This is based on
the premise that learning is an established association between response and stimulus.

Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning states that behaviour is learned by a repetitive association between a stimulus and a
response (S-R association). The organism learns to transfer a response from one stimulus to a previously
neutral stimulus. Four elements are present in classical conditioning:

- Unconditional Stimulus (US) – like food which invariably causes to react in a certain way, that is,
salivation
- Unconditional Response (UR) – takes place whenever the US is presented, that is, whenever the
organism (dog in the original experiment) is given food (US), it salivates.
- Conditional Stimulus (CS) – the object that does not initially bring about the desired response like
the sound of the bell
- Conditioned Response (CR) - a particular behaviour that the organism learns to produce to the CS,
that is, salivation

The work of the famous Russian physiologist and Nobel Prize winner, Ivan Pavlov demonstrated the classical
conditioning processes.

A simple surgical procedure permitted Pavlov to measure accurately the amount of saliva secreted by a dog.
In the experiments, when Pavlov presented a piece of meat (unconditioned stimulus) to a dog, he noticed a
great deal of salivation (unconditional response).

On the other hand, when he merely rang a bell (neutral response), the dog had no salivation. Thus, it was
established that the ringing of the bell was having no effect on salivation.

In the next step, Pavlov accompanied meat with the ringing of the bell. On this, the dog salivated. This
experiment was repeated several times.

After that, Pavlov rang the bell without presenting the meat, and the dog salivated to the bell alone which
was originally a neutral stimulus having no effect on the behaviour (salivation). In the new situation, the dog
has become classically conditioned to salivate (conditioned response) to the sound of the bell (conditioned
stimulus)
Here Pavlov conditioned the dog to respond to a learned stimulus. It can be also called the “law of exercise”
which states that behaviour can be learned by a repetitive association between a stimulus and a response.

Thus, under classical conditioning, learning is a conditioned response which involves building up an
association between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus. Using the paired stimuli, one
compelling and the other neutral, the neutral one becomes a conditioned stimulus and hence, takes on the
properties of the unconditioned stimulus.
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This happens quite often in an organisational setting. In one case, there was a cleanliness drive in a hospital
to prepare for inspection by the top officials of the health ministry. Here the nurses and other staff showed
great attention to their duties. This practice showed their utmost attention to duties. This practice continued
for a considerable period. Eventually, nurses and other staff showed their utmost attention to duties
whenever the cleanliness drive was carried out in the hospital even though it was not linked with the
inspection by the health ministry official.

Operant Conditioning
Operant is defined as behaviour that produced an effect. Operant conditioning is based on the work of
B.F.Skinner advocated that individuals emit responses that are rewarded and will not emit responses that
are either not rewarded or are punished.

It is a voluntary or learned behaviour and it is determined, maintained and controlled by its consequences.

Operant conditioning is based on the premise that behaviour is a function of its consequences. People learn
to behave to get something they desire or avoid something they dislike. Behaviour is likely to be repeated if
the consequences are favourable and it is not likely to be repeated if the consequences are unfavourable.
Thus, the relationship between behaviour and consequences is the essence of operant conditioning.

The term ‘operant’ indicates that the organism operates on its environment to generate consequences. The
relationship between consequences and response summarises quite concisely a basic learning process that
occurs over time, in which a person changes his behaviour based on his past experience.

Reinforcement strengthens behaviour and increases the likelihood that it will be repeated. This is the
essence of operant conditioning.

Operant conditioning is a powerful tool for managing people in organisations. Most behaviours in
organisations are learned, controlled and altered by the consequences, i.e., operant behaviour.
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Management can use the operant conditioning process successfully to control and influence the behaviour
of employees by manipulating the reward system. If a manager wants to influence behaviour, he must also
be able to manipulate the consequences that are rewarding and increases the rate of response, while the
aversive consequences decrease the rate of response.

Difference between Classical and Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Learning
Cognitive learning is learning achieved by thinking about the perceived relationship between events and an
individual’s goals and expectations. For instance, the process motivation theories deal with explaining “why”
people decide to do things. They do so by examining how people come to view various work activities as
perceived opportunities to satisfy needs, pursue desired rewards and eliminate felt inequities.

Cognition refers to an individual’s ideas, thoughts, knowledge, interpretations, understandings, etc.

The cognitive theory of learning assumes that the organism learns the meaning of various objects and events
and learned responses depend upon the meaning assigned to stimuli.

The cognitive theory recognises the role of an organism in receiving, memorising, retrieving and interpreting
the stimulus and reacting to it.

Social Learning
Social learning is learning achieved through the reciprocal interactions between people, behaviour and their
environment. Social learning theory integrates cognitive and operant approaches to learning. It recognises
the importance of consequences as determinants of behaviours. It also emphasizes that people acquire new
behaviours by observing and imitating others in the social setting. Learning is not a case of environmental
determinism (classical and operant views) or of individual determinism (the cognitive view). Rather, it is a

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blending of both. Thus, social learning theory emphasizes the interactive nature of cognitive, behavioural
and environmental determinants of human behaviour.

People learn through observation and direct experience. Social learning theory is a behavioural theory. It
draws heavily from classical and operant conditioning concepts and even goes beyond that. Besides
antecedent stimuli and contingent consequences, social learning can also take place via:
- Modelling or vicarious learning
- Symbolism
- Self-control
In fact, we are all influenced by models such as parents and other family members, teachers, etc from our
childhood.

Modelling. Through vicarious learning or modelling, people acquire behaviours by directly observing and
imitating others. When the “model” such as the manager or a co-worker, demonstrates desirable behaviour,
it can have a major impact on a person’s work efforts. Many patterns of behaviour are learned by watching
the behaviour of models such as parents, teachers, superiors, film stars, etc.

The influence of models is central to the social learning viewpoint. The following processes determine the
influence that a model will have on an individual:

Attentional Process: People only learn from a model when they recognise and pay attention to its critical
features. We tend to be most influenced by models that are attractive, repeatedly appearing, which we think
are important, or we see as similar to us.

Retention Process: A model’s influence will depend on how well the individual remembers the model’s
action, even after the model is no longer readily available.

Major Reproduction Process: After a person has seen a new behaviour by observing the model, the matching
must be converted into doing. This process demonstrates that the individual can perform the modelled
activities.

Reinforcement Process: Individuals will be motivated to exhibit the modelled behaviour if positive incentives
or rewards are provided. Behaviours that are reinforced will be given more attention, learned better and
performed more often.

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