Chapter 7
Stress
Stress and Health
Health Psychology is the field of psychology that uses
psychological principles to encourage healthy lifestyle and
to minimize the impact of stress.
Stress is Any events or circumstances that strains or exceeds
an individual’s ability to cope
Sources of Stress
1) Life events- psychologically significant events that occur in
a person’s life
Negative life events
- Crime and violence -Loss of family member -Nature disaster
-Terrorism -Dairy hassles
Positive events
- College graduation -Birth of child -Job promotion
2) Frustration- the situation that is the result of being unable
to satisfy a motive
3) Conflict- occur when two or more motives cannot be
satisfied because they interfere with other.
-Approach-Approach conflict: conflict to choose
between two positive goals
of approximately equal values
-Avoidance-avoidance conflict: conflict to
choose between two negative outcomes of
approximately equal values
-Approach-Avoidance conflict: conflict which
achieving a positive goal will
produce a negative outcome as well
-Multiple Approach-Avoidance: conflict that requires
the individual to
choose between alternatives each of which of contain both
positive and negative consequences
4) Pressure- stress that arises from the threat of negative
events.
5) Environmental Condition- stress that arises from
temperature, noisy, air pollution, humidity.
General aspects of stress reactions
When we are under stress, we feel it and react to it.
Understand two important insights about stress.
1. We react to stress as a whole. Stress usually produces
both psychological and physiological
reactions.
2. Our psychological and bodily reactions to stress are highly
similar, whether the stress is physical or psychological.
Psychological Reaction to stress
Stress leads to changes in many aspects of our
psychological states and process (emotion, motivation,
cognition)
Physical Reactions to stress and health
Biopsychosocial model of health: The theory that physical
health is influenced not only by biological factors but also by
psychological and social factors
General Adaptation syndrome (GAS)
According to Hans Selye, the mobilization of the body to
ward off threats, characterized by a three-stage pattern
of the alarm reaction, the resistance stage and the
exhaustion stage.
Alarm Reaction : The body’s initial response to any
threats, including psychological
stress, is to mobilize its stored resources. (Nervous
system increase heart rate, blood pressure, muscles)
Resistance Stage: The body resources have been
stress is fully mobilized and resistance to
high.
Exhaustion Stage: If stress continues, the
individual’s resources may become
exhausted and resistance to stress and infection is low.
Health and Unhealthy Aspects of the GAS
-GAS is the body’s protective response to dangers or
stress, it work best during emergencies (Best defense and
own worst enemy)
-Modern-day stressor call for all of the body’s reactions of
general adaptation syndrome. Although
GAS is a Life Saver in emergencies, it can be life-threatening
if stress is prolonged.
Stress, the GAS and Immune System
Immune System: The complex body system of defenses to
illness, such as white cells and natural killer cells of the blood.
Depression and Health:
High depressions are common among individuals
undergoing stress.
The poor health practices of depressed persons harm their
immunity and result in negative effects on
their physical health.
Coping with stress
Coping attempts by individuals to deal with source of stress
and control their reactions to it.
Effective coping
1. Removing stress: one effective way of dealing with stress
is to remove the source of stress from our lives.
2. Cognitive coping: our cognitions are intimately linked to our
reactions to stressful events. One effective method of coping
then is reappraisal. Reappraisal is a changing how a person
thinks about or interprets a potentially stressful event to
reduce its stressfulness. This refers to changing how we think
about or interpret the stressful events that push and shove
our lives.
3. Managing stress reactions: when the source of stress
cannot realistically be removed or changed,
another effective option is to manage our psychological and
physiological reactions to stress.
Ineffective Coping
1. Withdrawal: withdraw from the stress
2. Aggression: react aggressively to frustration and other
stressful situation
3. Self-medication: cope stress by using tobacco, alcohol and
other drugs
4. Defense mechanisms: according to Freud theory, the
unrealistic strategies to defend the person from
uncomfortable tension
Methods of defense mechanism
1. Displacement: redirecting emotions to a substitute target.
2. Sublimation: redirecting 'wrong' urges into socially
acceptable actions.
3. Projection: attributing uncomfortable feelings to others.
4. Reaction Formation: overacting in the opposite way to the
fear.
5. Regression: going back to acting as a child.
6. Rationalization: creating false but credible justifications.
7. Repression: pushing uncomfortable thoughts into the
subconscious.
8. Denial: claiming/believing that what is true to be actually
false.
9. Intellectualization: taking an objective viewpoint.
Changing health-Related behavior Patterns
1. Learning to relax, progressive relaxation training teaches
individuals to deeply relax their large body muscles.
2. Eating right, exercising, and doing
just what the doctor ordered
-Improving
eating habits
-Regular
Aerobic
Exercise
-Medical
Compliance
3. Human Diversity: Psychology
and Women’s health
-Changes in highrisk behavior
-Different equation between health
behaviors and illnesses
Stress and conflict
Stress is an adaptive response
to an external situation
1) Stress is not
simply anxiety
2) Stress is not simply
nervous tension
3) Stress is not necessary something
damaging, bad or to be avoided
Burnout is the
type of stress
-Stress is normal and often quite healthy, when the ability to
cope with stress begins to let us down, we may experience
the road of burnout (losing sense of basic purpose and
fulfillment of the week, sense of isolation, relate differently to
other an work they do)
- Closely associate with
helping profession
The cause of stress
Extra organizational Stressors: including things such
as societal and technological change, globalization, the
family, reaction and economic, etc.
Organizational
Stressors:
1 Administrative Policies and strategies Ex.
Downsizing ,advanced technology
2 Organizational structure and
design Ex. Specialization
3 Organizational processes
Ex. Tight control
4 Working conditions Ex.
Toxic , poor light
Chapter 8
Groups And Teams
Group – an important sociological and social psychological
unit of analysis.
Group Dynamic –the interactions and forces among group
members in social situations.
Theories of group formation
1. Forming 2. Storming 3. Norming 4. Performing 5.
Adjourning
Practicalities of Group Formation
1. Economically 2. Security 3. Social Need
Type of group
1) Primary Group feeling of comradeship, loyalty, and
common sense of value among its members
2) Coalitions the characteristics of coalition are as follows
-Interacting group of individual
- Deliberately constructed by the members for specific
purpose
- Independent of formal organization’s structure
- Lacking a formal internal structure
- External Forms
Other types of Group
- Membership group
- Reference group
- In-group Vs. Out-group
- Formal group
• Functional department committee / standing
committee / cross functional team
- Informal • Factional group / Team
group
• Political group
• Friendship group
• Common interest
Group Effectiveness
- Organize work around intact group
- Selection, training, and rewarding of members
- Enforce strong norms
- Distributing resources to a group rather than an individual
basis
- Promoting intergroup rivalry
The Dynamics of Informal Group
Norm and Roles in Informal Group
Norm – the ought of behavior.
Role – a position that has expectations evolving from
established norms.
Boundary spanner – facilitators and
bridge between units or group. Buffer –
protect and filter negative or
disappointing news.
Lobbyist – promote and tell others how successful
and important the group is to
outsi
de.
Negotiator – act on behalf of the group to
get resources and make deals.
Spokesperson – voice of the group.
The informal organization
1. Make for a more effective total system
2. Lightens the workload on management
3. Fills in gaps in a manager’s abilities
4. Provides a safety value for employee emotions
5. Improves communication
The Dysfunctions of groups and team
Norm Violation and Role Ambiguity/Conflict
Norm Violation: antisocial behaviors
Role Ambiguity: when the group member unclear about the
dictates
Role Conflict: perform conflicting task or perform task that
conflict with his/her own personal value
The groupthink: Conformity problem
Groupthink: a deterioration of metal efficiency
Risky Shift phenomenon
Risky Shift phenomenon: make more risky decision than the
individual member would on their own.
Social Loafing
Social Loafing: member reduce their efforts and performance
levels.
Teams in the workplace
The nature of a team: the characteristics of team (shared
leadership role, mutual accountability,
Specific purpose, collective and synergetic work product,
open-end and active
The more emphasize present types of team
Cross Functioning Teams
Virtual Team
Self-Managed Team
How to make Team more effectiveness
1. Creating the right environment
2. Interdependent task
3. Small team size
4. Members are motivated and being competent
5. Team cohesion
Research evidence to enhance team effectiveness
1. Team Building 2. Collaboration 3. Group leadership 4.
Cultural / Global Issues
Chapter 9
Effective Leadership Process
The Historically Important Studies on Leadership
Iowa Leadership Studies (1930s)
-First study to analyze leadership from the standpoint of
scientific reactions
-Different styles can produce different reactions
Three different styles of leadership
1) Authoritarian : very directive and allow no participation
2) Democratic (Leader follower) :encourage group discussion
and decision making
3) Laissez Faire : give complete freedom to the group
Ohio state leadership studies (After world war II)
After developed leader behavior description questionnaire
(LBDQ) to analyze leadership in numerous groups and
situations, researcher understood how leader carry out their
leadership function
-Initiating structure: concern task and goal orientation
-Consideration: recognize individual need and relationship
Early Michigan leadership studies (Same time as Ohio)
Survey Research Center at Michigan State began their
studies of leadership at Prudential Insurance
Company “The pairs of groups were selected for examination”
Finding of the experiment
-Leadership in high producing section general, employeecentered
-Leadership in low producing section close, productioncentered
-Employee satisfaction was not directly related to productivity
Traditional Theories Of leadership
1) Traits Theories of Leadership
- Intelligence (Leader was more intelligence than the average
group)
- Big five traits (OCEAN)
2) Emerging State and skill for leadership
- Based capacities those open to development and change
- Study of leader “competencies” that related to leader
effectiveness
- Drive - Leadership motivation - Integrity -Self confident
- Intelligence -Knowledge of the business – Emotional
3) Group Exchange Theories of Leadership
Exchange theory- there must be a positive exchange between
the leader and follower in order for group goals
Follower’s impact on Leader: followers may affect leader
as much as leader affect followers Leader-Member
Exchange Theory (LMX)/Vertical dyad linkage (VDL):
leader treat individual subordinate differently
Leader-follower dyad
In-group: Leader will be more responsive and spend more time
to lead subordinates
of the
group
Out-group: leader trend to supervise and depend on
formal role and authority
4) Contingency Theory of Leadership (Fiedler’s contingency)
Theory that emphasize the important of both situation and
the leader’s characteristics in determining leader
effectiveness
Leader’s characteristic (styles)
Human-oriented: leader who wants to be like by and
get along well with their
subordi
nates
Task – directed: leader who performs at high level
and accomplish all of their
assigne
d tasks
Leader Preferred Coworker Scale (LPC Scale)
- High LPC Leader : least preferred coworker in positive term
- Low LPC Leader : least preferred coworker in negative term
Situational Characteristics
-Leader-member relation: the relationship between a leader
and his or her follower
- Task structure: The extent to which the work to be performed
by a group is clearly defined
-Position Power: the amount of formal authority a leader has
- Leader Style is difficult to be changed; therefore it will be
assigned to the situation
- Leader match : the company needs to match leader to the
situation
5) Path-Goal Theory of leadership (Robert House)
Four leader styles of leadership
- Directive Leadership : leader gives specific direction,
subordinates know exactly
-Supportive Leadership : Leader is friendly and approachable
- Participative Leadership : leader asks for and use
suggestions
-Achievement-orient Leadership : Leader set challenging
goals for subordinates and show confident
Three guidelines leader needs to concern
1) Determine what outcome
2) Giving subordinates desired outcome to achieve their goal
3) Make sure subordinates believe that they can obtain their
work goal
Modern Theoretical Processes of Leadership
1) Charismatic Leadership Theory (Robert House)
Charismatic leadership : profound and extraordinary effect on
followers
- Characterized by self confidence, confidence in their
associates, ideological, and the use of personal
- Effects on followers: emulate leader’s value and behavior,
performance beyond expectation
2) Transformational Leadership Theory
-Transactional leadership : involve exchange relationship
between leader and followers
- Transformational leadership : leader’s shifting the values,
belief, and needs of their followers
3) Social Cognitive Theory
Leader and associate have a negotiable, reciprocal interactive
relationship and more consciously aware
of how they can modify each other’s behavior through
cognition and the contingent environment
4) Substitute for Leadership - Substitutes for leadership:
make leader behavior unnecessary and redundant
- Neutralizers for leadership: prevent leader from having in a
certain way or that counteract the
behavior
5) Authentic Leadership
- Owning one’s personal experiences: the real acting and me
inside accord with the true self
6) Leadership Across Culture
- Personal Value (both manager and followers)
- Background of the manager (education, social class, and
family status)
- Interpersonal styles and skills
7) Project GLOBE and the future of international Leadership
Studies
Global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness
(GLOBE) based theory to describe
understand and predict the impact of cultural variables on
leadership
- Power distance: degree to which member expect power to
be distribute equally
- Uncertainty avoidance: the extent a society, organization
or group rely on norms and procedures to alleviate the
unpredictability of future events
- Humane orientation: encourage and reward individuals for
being fair, generous caring and kind to others Institutional
collectivism: encourages and rewards the collective
distribution of resource and collective action
- In-group collectivism : express pride, loyalty and
cohesiveness in their organization and family
- Assertiveness : assertive, confrontation, and
aggressive in their relation with others
- Gender egalitarianism : collective
minimizes gender inequality
- Future Orientation: engages in future-oriented
behavior (planning, investing in the future)
- Performance Orientation : collective encourage and
reward group members for performance improvement
and excellence
Chapter 10
Communicating
Communication
Fundamentals
Communication: the transfer of information and
understanding from one person to another
The Importance of
Communication
- Every act of communication influences
the organization in some way.
-When communication is effective in tends to encourage
better performance and job satisfaction
- Open communication is generally better
than restricted communication.
Ex: Open-book management: provide employees with
financial and other operating numbers
The
Two-way
Communication
Process
The process by which a sender reaches a receiver with
a message (always requires eight steps)
Ways
of
communication
process
1 Develop ideas: what
sender wants to send
2 Encode the message: convert the
ideas in to suitable words
3 Transmit the message: finding a
channel to communicate with
4 Receive the message: the message
was transferred to the receiver
5 Decode the message: receiver must
decode the message to understand
6 Accept the message: receiver decides to accept or reject
the message
7 Use the message: receiver is in control of the message and
what to do
8 Provide feedback: respond to sender
Potential problems
1. Potential problem 2. Defensive reasoning 3.cognitive
dissonance 4.face-savig 5.self-concept
Communication barriers (noise)
: communication interferences that may entirely prevent
communication, filter out part of it or give it incorrect
meaning understanding
1. Personal Barriers
-Human emotion, value, and poor listening habits
-Difference in education, race, sex, socioeconomic status and
other factors
-Distracting verbal habits (repetition of “Ah”, or ending
sentence with “you know”)
-Psychological distance: a feeling of emotionally separated
2. Physical Barriers: communication interference that
occur in the environment in which the communication take
place (Ex: distracting noise, distance between people,
walls around worker’s
cubicle, static that interfere radio message)
-Proxemics: the study of physical distance between two
parties as they communicate
3. Semantics Barriers: the science of meaning,
communication is symbolic (word, picture and action) that
suggest certain meaning, this barrier arise from limitations in
the symbols with which we communicate
Communication Symbols
- Verbal Communication: communicate with other by using
words
Context: every word has several meaning (surround
key word with the context of
other
words)
Social cue: positive or negative bits of information
that influence how people react to
a communication
Readability: the process of making wring and
speech more understandable (adapt the
of
word)
Picture: pictures (blueprint, chart, diagram, map,
visual aid, etc.) are used to clarify
word communication
- Nonverbal Communication (Action): communicate with others
by using action
Actions have meaning
Failure to act is an important way of communicating
Actions speak louder than words
Credibility gap: the difference between what someone says
and does
Body language Ex: facial expression (eye contact, frown,
furrowed brow), physical touch, hand and hip moment and
sighing, etc.
Nonverbal communication can be
advertent or intentional Interpretation is
highly subjective and loaded with
potential for errors The Impacts of
Barriers
All Barriers (personal, physical and semantic) can and do
affect the effectiveness of communication at all eight stages
Downward Communication
: the flow of information from higher to lower levels of
authority
Prerequisites and Problems
1.Develop a positive communication attitude
2. Must continually work to get informed
3. Plan for communication
4. Develop trust
Communication
overload
Acceptance of
communication
Communication
needs
1. job instruction
2. Performance feedback
3. News
4. Social support
Upward Communication
Upward Communication: the flow of information from
lower levels of authority to the higher management
Difficulties
- Delay: slow movement of information up to higher level
- Filtering: screening out of information
- Organizational silence: withholding information about the
problems or issues on the part of employee
- Need for response: the more responsive from manager can
encourage further upward message
- Distortion: willful modification of message intended to
achieve one’s personal objective
Upward communication practices
-Questions
-Active listening
-Employee meeting
-An open-door policy
-Participation in social group
Other Forms of Communication
Lateral Communication: communication across chains of
commands, necessity for job coordination Boundary
spanner: employee who perform lateral communication
(strong communication link with their department, other units,
and external communities)
Networking: a group of people who develop and maintain
contact to exchange information informally,
usually a shared interest
Electronic Communication
Electronic mail: communication system that allow you to
send a message to someone (or hundreds of people) almost
instantaneously
Blogs: online diary or journal created and update frequently
by individual to express their personal
thoughts, musings, and commentaries on topic of interest to
them
Telecommuting: working electronically from one’s home
Virtual office: physical office desk is replaced with
communication tools (e-mail, cell phone, laptop,
palm, fax, modem, teleconference)
Informational Communication
1 Grapevine: is an informal communication system
that coexists with managements formal
communications systems
-Send message orally, written, handwritten, and even
electronics
-feature is like cluster chain: each link in the chain tends to
inform a cluster of people instead of only one
-Liaison individuals: an active communication in the grapevine
2 Rumor: Interest and ambiguity situations/messages are
normally the cause
Chapter 11
Decision Making
Decision making: the process by which managers respond
to opportunities and threats by analyzing options, and
making decisions about goals and courses of action.
Types of Decision
Programmed Decision: specific procedures developed for
repetitive and routine problems
Nonprogrammer Decision: decision required by unique and
complex management problems
The Decision Making Process
Decision
: means to achieve some results or to solve
some problems
: Organizational mechanisms that
attempt to achieve desired state
1. Establishing Specific Goals and Objective and Measuring
Results
-Establishing Specific Goals and Objective will dictate which
results must be achieved
2. Identity the Problems
-Problem is indicated by the gap between organization
goal and objectives and the levels of actual performance
-Identifying the exact problem can be hindered by certain
factors
1) Perceptual problem: negative information may by
selectively perceived to distort its true meaning it may also be
totally ignored
2) Define problems in terms of solutions: from of jumping to
conclusion (which suggest a particular solution)
3) Identify symptoms as problems: symptom of situation may
not be the real problem
3. Developing Alternatives
-The search process: relevant internal and external
environment of the organization are investigated to provide
information that can be developed into possible alternatives
to solve the problem
-Scenario Analysis: one means to broaden the development
of new alternatives that would have been
overlooked under traditional practices
4. Evaluating Alternative
-Evaluation should be guided by previously established goals
and objectives
-Three Possible Conditions of Alternative-Outcome
relationship
Certainty: decision maker has complete knowledge of
the probability of the outcome of each alternative
Uncertainty: decision maker has absolutely no knowledge
of the probability of the outcome of each alternative
Risk: decision maker has some probabilistic estimate of the
outcome of each alternative
5. Choosing an Alternative
-When manager choose an alternative, two objectives cannot
be fully achieved simultaneously (one
objective is optimized, the other is sub optimized)
-Organizational objective may also be at the expense of
societal objective
-Optimal solution: are often impossible decision (cannot
possible know all of the available alternatives and the
consequences occurring of these alternatives)
-Satisficing: select the alternative that meets an acceptable
(satisfactory) standard
6. Implement the Decision
Decision must be transformed into behavior in an
organization (Decision involve people)
7. Control and Evaluation
Measure of results (Actual result Vs. Planned result) and
changes must be made if deviations exist
Behavioral influence on individual decision
making.
1. Ethics decision making - It is systems that guide line the
individual’s behavior.
2. Value - Decision maker use when confronted with a
situation required choice.
3. Personalities
-Personality variables - Attitude, believe, and need of
individual.
-Situation variables - External situation in which individual find
themselves.
-Interaction variables - The responsibility of individual in each
situation.
4. Propensity for risk
5. Potential for dissonance - Reduce cognitive dissonance
- Seek information to support your decision.
- Distort information in your way/ your decision.
- Reduce your weakness negative aspect and increase you
strength positive aspect.
6. Escalation on commitment - Self-justification
Decision maker don’t want to admit about their mistake in
their decision.
Group Decision Making Techniques
Individual Vs. Group Decision Making
-Group is superior to individual decision making (majority
vote, more expertise, and perspectives)
Research on group decision making
-As decision more from individual to consensus decision
making, group do improve the quality of the decision
Techniques for Stimulating Creativity in Group Decision
Making
Brain storming: technique that promote creativity by
encouraging ideas generation through noncritical
discussion
-State any ideas regardless of how extreme or outlandish (No
idea is too ridiculous)
-Idea presented belong to the group, not to the person so
members can utilize and build on other’s idea
-Generate idea but not evaluate (No idea can be criticized)
Delphi process: technique that promote creativity by using
anonymous judgment of ideas to reach a consensus
decision
-Questionnaires are sent to members via mail, members
independently generate ideas (completed questionnaire
are return)
-Analysts summarize response as the group consensus and
feed summary back to members together with a second
questionnaire for reassessment
-Members independently evaluate their earlier responses
Nominal Group Technique (NGT): technique that promote
creativity by bringing people together in
a very structured meeting that allow little verbal
communication (group decision is the mathematically pooled
outcome of individual votes)
-Group of 7-10 members sit around table: do not speak to
one another, each write ideas on a pad of paper
-Each member present idea in “round robin fashion” until all
ideas are presented (recorder write ideas
on chart)
-Structured discussion occurs, each idea receive attention
-Each member votes by ranking alternative (Group decision is
mathematically pooled vote outcome)