Chapter 7
Organizational Behavior:
Foundations, Realities, & Challenges
Nelson & Quick, 5th edition
Stress and Well-Being
at Work
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What is Stress?
Stress – the unconscious preparation to
fight or flee that a person experiences
when faced with any demand
Stressor – the person or event that triggers
the stress response
Distress – the adverse psychological,
physical, behavioral, and organizational
consequences that may arise as a result
of stressful events
Strain – distress
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What is Homeostasis?
Homeostasis – a steady state of bodily
functioning and equilibrium
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4 Stress Approaches:
Homeostatic/Medical Approach
Homeostasis
+
External environmental
demand
=
Fight
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Flight
4 Stress Approaches:
Cognitive Appraisal Approach
• Individuals differ in their appraisal of
events and people
• What is stressful for one person is not
for another
• Perception and cognitive appraisal
determines what is stressful
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4 Stress Approaches:
Cognitive Appraisal Approach
Problem-focused coping
emphasizes managing
the stressor
Emotion-focused coping
emphasizes managing
your response
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4 Stress Approaches:
Person–Environment Fit Approach
• No undue stress
Good person-environment fit: a person’s
skills and abilities match a clearly
defined, consistent set of role
expectations
• Stress, strain, and depression
occur when role expectations are
confusing and/or conflicting, or when the
person’s skills and abilities do not meet
the demands of the social role
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4 Stress Approaches:
Psychoanalytic Approach
Ego Ideal – the
embodiment of a
person’s perfect self
Self-Image – how a
person sees oneself,
both positively &
negatively
= the difference
between ego ideal and
self-image
The Stress Response
Release of
Sympathetic
chemical
nervous system
messengers,
and the
primarily
endocrine
adrenaline, (hormone) system
into the
activated
bloodstream
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• Blood redirected from the
skin and internal organs
to brain and large
muscles
• Increased alertness:
improved vision, hearing,
and other sensory
responses
• Release of glucose and
fatty acids for sustenance
• Depression of immune
system, digestion, and
similar restorative
processes
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Sources of Stress at Work
Work Demands
Task Demands
Change & uncertainty
Lack of control
Career progress
New technologies
Work overload/underload
Interpersonal Demands
Abrasive personalities
Sexual harassment
Leadership styles
Role Demands
Role conflict:
 Interrole
 Intrarole
 Person–role
Role ambiguity
Physical Demands
Extreme environments
Strenuous activities
Hazardous substances
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Stress Sources at Work
Nonwork Demands
Family Demands
Personal Demands
Marital expectations
Religious activities
Child-rearing/day care
Self-improvement
arrangements
tasks
Parental care
Traumatic events
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Stress Benefits and Costs
Benefits of Healthy, Normal Stress (Eustress)
Performance
Health
Increased arousal
Cardiovascular
efficiency
Bursts of physical strength
Enhanced focus in an
emergency
Costs of Distress
Individual
Organizational
Psychological disorders
Participation problems
Medical illnesses
Performance
decrements
Behavioral problems
Compensation awards
Yerkes-Dodson Law
Performance arousal
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High
Low
Low
(distress)
Optimum
(eustress)
High
(distress)
Stress level
Boredom from
understimulation
Optimum
stress load
Conditions
Distress from
perceived overstimulation
as stressful
Positive Stress
• Stress response itself is neutral
• Some stressful activities (aerobic
exercise, etc.) can enhance a person’s
ability to manage stressful demands or
situations
• Stress can provide a needed energy
boost
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Negative Stress
Negative stress results from
– a prolonged activation of the stress
response
– mismanagement of the energy induced
by the response
– unique personal vulnerabilities
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Individual Distress
Work-related psychological disorders
(depression, burnout,
psychosomatic disorders)
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Organizational Distress
Participative Problems – a cost
associated with absenteeism, tardiness,
strikes and work stoppages, and turnover
Performance Decrement – a cost resulting
from poor quality or low quantity of
production, grievances, and unscheduled
machine downtime and repair
Compensation Award – an organizational
cost resulting from court awards for job
distress
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Dealing with Stress
Achilles’ heel
phenomenon –
a person breaks down
at his or her weakest
point
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Are There
Gender-Related Stressors?
Sexual harassment
Early age fatal health problems
Long term disabling health problems
Violence
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Type A Behavior Patterns
Type A Behavior Patterns – a
complex of personality and
behavior characteristics
– sense of time urgency
“hurry sickness”
– quest for numbers (of
achievements)
– status insecurity
– aggression & hostility
expressed in response to
frustration & conflict
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Personality Hardiness
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Personality Hardiness – a personality
resistant to distress and characterized by
– challenge (versus threat)
– commitment (versus alienation)
– control (versus powerlessness)
Transformational Coping – a way of
managing stressful events by changing
them into subjectively less stressful
events (versus regressive coping –
passive avoidance of events by
decreasing interaction with the
environment)
Self-Reliance
Self-Reliance – a healthy, secure,
interdependent pattern of behavior related to
how people form and maintain supportive
attachments with others
Counterdependence – an unhealthy,
insecure pattern of behavior that leads to
separation in relationships with other people
Overdependence – an unhealthy, insecure
pattern of behavior that leads to preoccupied
attempts to achieve security through
relationships.
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Preventative Stress
Management
Preventative Stress Management – an
organizational philosophy that holds that
people & organizations should take joint
responsibility for promoting health and
preventing distress and strain
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Preventative Stress
Management
Primary Prevention – designed to reduce,
modify, or eliminate the demand or
stressor causing stress
Secondary Prevention – designed to alter
or modify the individual’s or the
organization’s response to a demand or
stressor
Tertiary Prevention – designed to heal
individual or organizational symptoms of
distress and strain
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Preventative Stress Maintenance
Organizational Context
Organizational stressors
• Task demands
• Role demands
• Physical demands
• Interpersonal demands
Preventive Medicine Context
Primary
prevention
Health risk factors
stressor
directed
Stress responses
• Individual
• Organizational
Secondary
prevention
response
directed
Asymptomatic
disease
Distress
Individual problems
• Behavioral
•Medical
• Psychological
Organizational costs
• Direct
• Indirect
Tertiary
prevention
symptom
directed
Symptomatic
disease
SOURCE: Based on J. D. Quick, J. C. Quick, and D.L. Nelson. “The Theory of Preventive Stress Management in Organizations,” in C. L. Cooper, ed. Theories of Organizational Stress (Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press. 1998), 246-268.
Organizational Stress
Prevention
• Focuses on people’s work demands
• Focuses on ways to reduce distress
at work
• Most organizational prevention is
primary
– job redesign
– goal setting
– role negotiation
– social support systems
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Job Strain Model
Workload
Low
High
Low
Selfdetermination
Unresolved
strain
(ill health)
Passive
job
Active
job
SOURCE: B. Gardell, “Efficiency and Health Hazards in Mechanized Work,” in J. C. Quick, R.S. Bhagat, J. E. Dalton, and J. D. Quick, eds., Work Stress: Health Care
Systems in the Workplace. Copyright © 1987. Reproduced with permission of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT.
Social Support at Work and Home
Organizational
Supervisor
Colleagues
Subordinates
Clients
Professional
Physicians
Psychologists
Counselors
Lawyers
Family
Spouse Children
Parents In-laws
Individual
Clubs
Business associations
Social clubs
Athletic groups
Church
Minister/Rabbi
Friends
Support groups
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SOURCE: From J. C. Quick J. D. Quick, D. L. Nelson and J. J. Hurrell, Jr., in Preventive Stress Management in Organizations, 1997, p. 198. Copyright© 1997 by The American
Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.
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Individual Preventive
Stress Management
Primary Prevention
Alters the person’s internal self-talk and
reduces depression
Time management:
Improves planning and prioritizes activities
Leisure time activities: Balance work and non-work activities
Learned optimism:
Secondary Prevention
Physical exercise:
Relaxation training:
Diet:
Improves cardiovascular function and muscular
flexibility
Lowers all indicators of the stress response
Lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and
improves overall physical health
Tertiary Prevention
Opening up:
Professional help:
Releases internalized traumas and emotional
tensions
Provides information, emotional support, and
therapeutic guidance
What Can Managers Do?
• Learn how to create healthy stress
without distress
• Help employees adjust to new
technologies
• Be sensitive to early signs of distress
• Be aware of gender, personality, and
behavioral differences
• Use principles and methods of preventive
stress management
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