Source: Landy, Frank J; Comte, Jeffrey M.

Work in the 21st century: An introduction to

Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 3rd ed
 Lawsuit is one among many major costs associated with
work stress
$400 billion for medical and disability-related costs of heart
disease (American Heart Association, 2006)

Other costs:
o cold and flu, digestive difficulties,
headaches, insomnia, stroke, and
other physiological problems, as
well as to impaired psychological
well being and counterproductive
behaviors (Cooper, Dewe, &
ODriscoll, 2001; Krantz & McCeney,
2002)
 Theoretical framework for the study of stress in organizations (Kahn & Byosiere ,
1992)
 Walter Cannon (1929)
o studied animal and human reactions to dangerous situations
o fight-or-flight reaction : adaptive response to stressful situations
exhibited by animals and humans in which they choose to either
fight or attempt to escape

Hans Selye (1956)

o Defined stress as the non-specific response of the human body to
any demand made on it.
o Good stress (eustress) v.s. bad stress (distress)
o General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): (1) alarm reaction stage, (2)
resistance stage, and (3) exhaustion stage
 Problem-focused coping
o Directed at managing or altering a problem causing the stress
o Such coping may include defining the problem, generating
different solutions, and weighting their costs and benefits,
and acting to solve the problem (Lazarus, 2000)

Emotion-focused coping
o Directed at reducing the emotional response to a problem by
avoiding, minimizing, or distancing oneself from the problem
o Might involve obtaining social support from ones family and
friends
Common stressor in
the workplace
Heat, cold, noise
Stressor is physical or
Role stressors psychological demand to
Workload which an individual
Work pace, time pressure responds
work schedule
Interpersonal demands and
conflict Strains: reaction or
Situational constraint response to stressor
Perceived control
Emotional labour
Traumatic job stressor
 Uncontrollable noise is particularly stressful and leads to
lower task performance and diminished motivation (Vischer,
2007; Wickens & Hollands, 2000)

The demand of given job (pace of work,

workload, the number of hours worked)
can also contribute to the experience of
stress and to subsequent strains

Another physical/task stressor: light,

heat, cold, etc.
 Lack of Role stressor:
Interpersonal
control/ role ambiguity, role
conflict conflict, and role
predictability overload

Emotional labor:
Work-family
conflict Surface acting,
deep acting
Physical/medical/physiological
Heart disease and stroke, digestive problems, back pain and
arthritis, headaches, increased blood pressure and heart rate,
hormones

Psychological
Burnout, depressions, anxiety, family problems, sleep problems,
job-dissatisfaction

Behavioral
Absence, lateness, drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse, accidents,
sabotage, violence, etc.
 Burnout: extreme state of psychological strain
o First found in caring profession: nursing, social work, and teaching
Three component of burnout in health care and human
service setting: (1) emotional exhaustion; (2)
depersonalization; and (3) low personal accomplishment.

Check:
Maslach Burnout
Inventory (MBI)
0 Never
1 A few times a week
2 Once a month or less
3 A few times a month
4 Once a week
5 A few times a week
6 Every day
 Increase in
Stressful Stress
heart rate and
situation hormones
cardiac output

Cardiovascular outcomes
o Change in blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol
Gastrointestinal outcomes
o Digestive problem
Biochemical outcomes
o Increase in cortisol and catechol amines (stress hormone)
1) Information processing
Chronic stress has detrimental effects on memory, reaction times,
accuracy, and performance of a variety (Smith, 1990)
2) Job performance
Stress and performance (inverted U relationship)
3) Counter-productive work behavior

Source: www.stresstopower.com
 Shift Work
o Circadian cycle: the 24 hours physiological cycle in which humans tend
to be active during hours of light and inactive during hours of darkness

Flexible and Compressed Workweeks Schedules (4/10 plan)

Consequences:
o Increase workers satisfaction
o Higher productivity and lower absenteeism, but not in organizations that
depend heavily on teams and groups.
o The positive effect tend to diminish after the initial period of adjustment
 Demand-Control Model (Karasek, 1979)
o Suggest that two factors are prominent in producing job stress: job
demand (workload and intellectual requirement) and individual
control (autonomy in the job and discretion for using different skill).
 Person-Environment Fit Model (French, Caplan, & Harrison,
1982)
o Suggest that the fit between a person and the environment
determines the amount of stress that person receives
o This model focus explicitly on the perceptions of individuals
concerning their skills and abilities relative to the demands of the
works environment

Person-Job (P-J) Fit

o Skill, abilities and interest
Person-Organization (P-O) Fit
o Value
 Locus of control (LOC)
o Construct that refers to the beliefs of individuals that what happens
to them is under their control (internal LOC) or beyond their control
(external LOC)

Hardiness
o A set of personality characteristics that provide resistance to stress
o Control, commitment, challenge

Self-esteem
o A positive self-worth or self-concept that is considered to be an
important resources for coping
 Personality: Type A
o Type A behaviour pattern (TABP)
o Sometimes known as coronary-prone personality
o Characteristics: ambitiousness, impatience, easily aroused hostility,
and time urgency

Are you a Type A Person?

Always do everything very rapidly?
Become extremely impatient with the speed at which thing are
accomplished?
Always think about or try to do two or more things at the same time?
Feel guilty when you are on vacation or trying to relax for a few hour?
Fail to be aware of interesting or beautiful things?
Always try to schedule more events and activities than you can properly
attend to?
 Score :
o Always True = 0
o Often true = 1
o Sometimes true = 2
o Seldom true = 3
o Never true = 4
 Occupational Health Psychology
o Involves the application of psychology to improving the
quality of work life and to protecting and promoting the
safety, health, and well-being of workers

Primary Prevention Strategies: Stressor-directed

1

Secondary Intervention: Response-directed

2

Tertiary Intervention: Symptom-directed

3
 Stressor-directed Stress prevention strategy concerned
with modifying or eliminating stressors in the work
environment

Work and Job Design

o Work and jobs can be designed or redesigned to reduce such
stressors as noise, interruptions, time pressure, role ambiguity, and
the number of hours worked
Cognitive Restructuring
o Type of stress intervention that focuses on changing perceptions
and thought processes that lead to stress
 Response-directed stress prevention strategy that
involves modifying responses to inevitable demand or
stressor (damage control or Band-Aid approach)
o Stress management training
o Relaxation and biofeedback techniques
o Social support

Cognitive-behavioural skills training combination of

primary and secondary strategies
o Stress inoculation: (1) an educational component, (2) rehearsal,
and (3) application
 Symptom-directed stress prevention strategy focused on
healing the negative effects of stressor

Employee assistance program (EAP)

o Counselling provided by an organization to deal with workplace
stress, alcohol or drug difficulties, and problems stemming from
outside the job
 The workforce of tomorrow will be more culturally and
ethnically diverse, and will include larger numbers of older
workers and women, than the workforce of previous
decades
Different values in different cultures
The increasing role of technology
 end of presentation