Chapter 2: Stress

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Chapter 2 Stress
Fincham Rhodes Principles of Organizational
Behaviour 4e

• What is stress
• Types of stress
• Individual differences
• Occupational stress management

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The victims

• Stress affects both
• managers the middle class
• Common causes long hours, fast pace, competitive
  culture, uncertain environment, shift working,
  excessive fatigue,

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The cost

• Health Safety Executive (HSE)
• 2003 the UK industry lost 370 million
• 2003 the UK paid 3.75 billion to treat
• stress-related illness and other social
  consequences

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What is stress?

• The term is widely used does not mean anything
• A cause, an effect or a combination of the two?
• Three different approaches
• Stress as a response
• Stress as a cause
• The appraisal concept

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Stress as a response

• The general adaptation syndrome (Hans Selye)
• Stage1 stage of alarm
• (the organism identifies an environmental demand
  as threatening)
• Stage 2 stage of resistance
• (organism gathers resources to cope with the
  demand)
• Stage 3 stage of exhaustion
• (demand is not met and resources are worn out-
  serious damage may occur)

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Stress as a response

• Stress is seen as a physiological response to an
  external demand
• The GAS may affect a subsystem or an entire
  organism
• Criticism too simplistic, neglects stress as a
  cause

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Stress as a cause

• Emphasis on sources of stress (stressors), i.e.
  a cause/a factor that may be causing stress
• Examples objective features of work
• and work roles
• Criticism too simplistic
• neglects the frequency, duration, intensity and
  severity of stressful events
• assumes that all individuals react similarly to
  similar situations

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The appraisal concept of stress

• Stress a function of an individuals
• appraisal of a situation
• SITUATION
• (assumption the situation is not necessarily
  stressful)
• APPRAISAL
• (what is at stake - available resources)
• High stress Low stress

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The appraisal concept of stress (s and s)

• (-)
• What do we mean by appraisal?
• How do we measure appraisal?
• Appraisal dimensions
• Time pressure (right now!)
• Sense of injustice (its not fair)
• Distress intolerance (I cant stand this)
• Catastrophizing (the worse will happen)

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The appraisal concept of stress (s and s)

• ()
• Psychological factors (i.e. personality) are
  taken into consideration in this approach
• If you are a high hardy personality
• Life is meaningful, controllable, manageable
• You retain a basic sense of purpose
• Believe in yourself what you are doing!
• Feel that you can make things happen, things
  dont happen to you!

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The appraisal concept of stress

• Emphasis on the evaluative processes (i.e. what
  is at stake, resources) through which we make
  sense of stressors
• Stress is transactional, not interactional,
• i.e.
• Stress a process itself, not an element of a
  process
• Modern concept of stress founded on the appraisal
  concept

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Types of stress at work

• Some aspects of work may cause strain to a
  significant proportion of individuals
• Why study?
• To improve quality of working life
• Role stressors
• Decision-making stress
• Workplace stressors

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Types of stress at work role stressors

• Role ambiguity
• i.e. dont know what is expected
• Boundary-spanning roles
• i.e. taking the activities of the company to the
  outside world
• Single role conflict
• i.e. where various components of a role conflict

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Types of stress at work role stressors

• Multiple role conflict
• where the demands of one role clash with the
  demands of another role
• Work role transitions
• Stress caused by entering a new job
  experiencing a new, uncertain environment

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Types of stress at work role stressors

• Entrapment (source of stress)
• i.e. when the individual feels trapped in a role
• Common causes - career path blocked
• - no/ limited opportunities for
  advancement/ to retrain (middle age)
• Dealing with entrapment Negotiate career plans,
  involve in project teams, restructure the company

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Types of stress at work role stressors

• Entrapment
• Frustration
• Apathy
• BURNOUT
• i.e. where the individual has a negative attitude
  towards the job
• (extreme emotional state)

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Types of stress at work role stressors

• Burnout
• Emotional exhaustion emotional resources are
  inadequate for emotionally demanding problems
• Cynicism indifference to work and others
• Professional efficacy having negative
  expectations of ones own effectiveness
• Burnout affects employee health!

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Types of stress at work role stressors

• Factors that predict burnout
• Satisfaction
• Commitment
• Social support
• Participation in decision making
• Autonomy
• Emotional exhaustion (only) been related to
  performance

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Types of stress at work decision-making stress

• Stress caused when having to make a decision
• Impaired ability judgement!
• Cause Stress
• Manifestation categorical thinking-
• only one right answer

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Types of stress at work decision-making stress

• 5 approaches to decision-making stress
• Unconflicted adherence dont do anything
• Unconflicted change uncritically adopting a
  course of action
• Defensive avoidance delay finally pick the
  easiest
• Hypervigilance frantically searching for an
  immediate solution
• Vigilance making a well-informed decision!

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Types of stress at work decision-making stress

• Training judgement under stress
• Conceptualization
• Understand the situation
• Understand why one feels stressed
• Skill acquisition activation
• Identify lack of skill
• Identify lack of ability to apply skills
• Rehearsal application
• Practice apply new skills (e.g. role play)

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Types of stress at work decision-making stress

• Psychological context
• (i.e.attitudinal, personality cognitive
  variables)
• is deeply embedded in individuals
• Transfer training to the workplace
• Commitment (trainee peers)
• Intensive training

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Types of stress at work Workplace stressors

• Examples poor work environment
• poor work design
• poor management
• noise, vibration, heat
• Normal function under conditions of
  moderate stimulations

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Types of stress at work Workplace stressors

• 1) Under-stimulation
• frequently underutilization of skills
• Cause
• Repetitive work
• Responses
• low motivation, absenteeism, apathy,
  stress-related illnesses, etc.

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Types of stress at work Workplace stressors

• 2) Over-stimulation
• coping with too much!
• Responses
• ulcers, hypertension, depression, etc
• Stressor
• deadlines
• Coping strategies/moderators
• long hours, control (Karaseks model)

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Types of stress at work Workplace stressors

• 3) Workplace hassles
• i.e. daily re-occurring demands
• Higher impact on low-complexity tasks
• Lower impact on more complex tasks
• More complex tasks offer more coping options

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Types of stress at work Workplace stressors
4) Quality of relationship (colleagues,
supervisors, customers, etc)

• Social stressors
• Animosities
• Bullying
• Harassment
• Outcomes
• - Depressive symptom

• Social support
• - Work performance
• - Work outcomes
• Outcomes
• Burnout

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Individual differences

• Different people act in different ways
• Different people experience stress differently
• Self-esteem self-efficacy

• Low?
• Internalize anxieties
• Blame themselves
• Failure criticism hurts more

• High?
• Less susceptible to external events
• Setbacks dont affect self-esteem

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Individual differences

• Negative affectivity (NA)
• i.e. is the glass half-full or half-empty?

• High NA (Half-empty)
• More pessimism
• Feel less resilient
• More negative moods
• Identify more stressors in the environment
• Create more stress for themselves others!

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Individual differences

• Type As Type Bs
• Type A
• Achieve goals
• Compete
• Desire for recognition promotion
• Multitasking
• Doing things fast
• High alertness
• Type B relaxed

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Individual differences As Bs

• Time urgency
• For As time passes too quickly
• Competitive hard driving style
• As work faster harder than Bs
• Suppression of symptoms
• As report less fatigue complain less than Bs
• Hostility Aggressiveness
• As more impatient, aggressive, hostile than Bs

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Occupational Stress Management

• Occupational Stress Management
• i.e. an attempt to deal with the effects of
  stress
• Individual differences are still important!
• Strategies
• Individual Strategies
• Organizational strategies

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Occupational Stress Management Individual
Strategies

• Appraisal focused a) Logical analysis
• b) Cognitive redefinition
• c) Cognitive avoidance
• Problem focused a) Obtain guidance
• b) Direct action
• c) Role innovation
• Emotion focused a) Affective regulation
• b) Resigned acceptance
• c) Palliatives
• d) Emotional discharge

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Occupational Stress Management Organizational
Strategies

• Physical exercise, fitness, nutritional advice
• i.e. provide a gym, etc
• Biofeedback
• i.e. measuring pulse, blood pressure, etc
  providing feedback
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• i.e. relax high levels of residual muscle
  tension
• Imagery training
• i.e. imagining being in a restful place