XV.

Stress Management

Dealing with the Demands of Life and Work

❑ Stress is defined as the psychological and physical reaction to certain life events or situations.

❑ The stress process begins with life events or situations that cause stress. These life events are
called stressors and include such things as weddings, job interviews, dentist appointments,
basketball games, deadlines, and traffic jams.

❑ If we perceive these events as being stressful, our bodies respond in many ways, including
elevated blood pressure, increased heart rate, muscle tension, and perspiration. These reactions
are called stress reactivity.

❑ If these physical reactions occur for periods longer than our body can tolerate, negative physical
and psychological consequences can occur. These consequences are called strains.
❑ Eustress (from the root eu-, meaning something that is proper) occurs when stressors result in
feelings of challenge or achievement—the feelings of stress get converted into positive energy and
actually become motivating.

❑ If you are too stressed, your performance will decline. This is what is known as the optimal level of
arousal, or inverted-U theory. According to the inverted-U theory, having little arousal or too much
arousal results in poor performance, whereas a moderate level results in the highest levels of
performance.

❑ Bad or negative stress, known as distress, happens when there is too much stress and when
nothing is done to eliminate, reduce, or counteract its effects. Distress usually occurs in situations
or at events on which you place great importance (e.g., interviewing for a job), that put great
demands on you, and over which you eventually perceive you have little or no control.
Predisposition to Stress

There appear to be individual differences in the extent to which people are susceptible to stress or are
predisposed to tolerate stressors. These individual tolerances can be explained by the following factors.

1. Stress Personalities

Type A Personalities

❑ Type A individuals are characterized mainly by achievement striving, impatience and time urgency,
and anger and hostility. They tend to do many things at one time (called multitasking).
❑ They are achievement-oriented, competitive individuals who tend to place work before pleasure.
❑ These characteristics become exaggerated when the Type A personality experiences stress.
❑ Type A employees under stress are more likely than others to exhibit high blood pressure and high
levels of stress-related hormones.
❑ Type A individuals are slower to recover after the stressor is removed.
Type B Personalities

❑ Type B individuals seem to be more laid-back. That is, when a potentially stress-producing event
occurs, they are better able to keep it in perspective and use more positive ways to deal with it.
They are more relaxed and more agreeable.

Neuroticism

❑ Although research over the years has identified several individual personality traits related to stress
(e.g., pessimism, negative affectivity, reduced hardiness, and self-esteem), research indicates that
these individual traits fall under the general trait of neuroticism.

❑ Neurotics are anxious, often depressed, and pessimistic and lack hope.
2. Gender, Ethnicity, and Race

The best interpretation of the research on sex and stress is that women may experience certain
stressors more often than men (e.g., sexual harassment, work/family conflict), and men and women
may react differently to certain types of stressors.

Though there is not much research on the topic, it appears that members of minority groups have
higher levels of stress than do nonminority. Furthermore, racial, and ethnic differences mostly concern
physical reactions to stress. For example, African American men seem to experience higher rates of
hypertension than White men.
3. Stress Sensitization

The amount of stress you have experienced throughout your life seems to affect how you will handle
future stress. For instance, if you are exposed to high levels of stress (such as abuse) over a long
duration, studies suggest that you are likely to react more quickly and more negatively to situations
that are potentially stress producing because, in a sense, you have become ―trained to respond in
such a way.
Sources of Stress

What determines whether something will be a stressor depends a great deal on its importance and the
amount of perceived controllability.

Personal Stressors
Personal sources of stress deal with such nonwork issues as family and intimate relationships, marriage,
divorce, health issues, financial problems, and raising children. Many stressors can be considered as our
reaction to change, whether the change is moving to a new home, ending, or beginning a new relationship, or
changing ourselves.
✓ Fear - When we voluntarily or involuntarily leave a stage of our lives that has become comfortable and predictable, we enter another
stage in which we don’t know what will happen. The challenge and potential excitement from the change can produce eustress in people
who thrive on unpredictability. But to many of us, fear of the unknown produces negative stress.

✓ Resistance - A good illustration of resistance to change is holding on to old traditions that are no longer feasible.

✓ Resentment - Finally, changes that are forced on us, particularly those that we feel we had no control over or input into, can cause
resentment. If we don’t want the change, don’t understand why we have to make the change, and don’t like how the change makes us
feel (e.g., scared and confused), it raises feelings of resentment.
Occupational Stressors

A. Job Characteristics

Three main job characteristics cause stress: role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload.

1. Role conflict occurs when our work expectations and what we think we should be doing don’t match
up with the work we actually have to do. Role conflict can also occur when an employee has
competing roles or conflicting roles. For example, an employee’s role as manager may require her to
work on a Saturday, but her role as a mother requires her to attend her daughter’s soccer game on the
same day.

2. Role ambiguity occurs when an individual’s job duties and performance expectations are not clearly
defined. In the preceding example, the woman experienced not only role conflict but role ambiguity
because what her boss expected her to do was different from what the other staff expected her to do.

3. Role overload develops when individuals either feel they lack the skills or workplace resources to
complete a task or perceive that the task cannot be done in the required amount of time.
B. Organizational Stressors

Organizational characteristics that are likely to cause stress include such factors as person–organization fit,
organizational rules and policies, supervisory relationships, and organizational change.

1. Person–Organization Fit-The term person/organization fit refers to how well such factors as your skills,
knowledge, abilities, expectations, personality, values, and attitudes match those of the organization.

2. Change - A major contributor to organizational stress is change, which occurs most often from downsizing
and restructuring.

3. Relations with Other - Our coworkers and customers can be a major source of workplace stress.

4. Organizational Politics – These are self-serving behaviors employees use to increase the probability of
obtaining positive outcomes in organizations. Positive politics are behaviors designed to influence others
with the goal of helping both the organization and the person playing the politics. Examples of positive
politics include portraying a professional image, publicizing one’s accomplishments, volunteering, and
complimenting others. Negative politics are manipulative behaviors designed to achieve personal gain at the
expense of others and the organization. Examples of negative politics include backstabbing, withholding
important information from others, and spreading rumors.
Stressors in the Physical Work Environment

✓ Noise - High levels of noise increase stress, reduce performance, and make workers unhappy.

✓ Temperature - Research indicates that extremely high or low temperatures can affect performance
on cognitive, physical, and perceptual tasks. Hot temperatures had their greatest effect on reaction
time and on performance on attentional, perceptual, and mathematical tasks. Cold temperatures
had their greatest effect on reasoning, memory, and learning tasks.

✓ Minor Frustration - is stress we encounter in our daily lives, and it might include irritations such as
waiting in traffic or not being able to get some information from the library.

✓ Forecasting - The stress from forecasting develops from our constantly worrying about the future
and wasting time and energy on ―what ifs?

✓ Residual Stress - is stress that is carried over from previous stressful situations that we refuse to ―let
go. Minor frustrations can become residual stress if we don’t handle those daily problems effectively
and rehash them over and over again. Many people continue to carry grudges, hurt, or anger from
past situations that keep them in a constant state of stress.
Consequences of Stress

Personal Consequences
❑ Physical
❑ Psychological
❑ Mental
❑ Behavioral

Organizational Consequences
❑ Job Performance - Studies show that in general, high levels of stress reduce performance on many tasks.
However, as mentioned earlier, a curvilinear relationship between stress and job performance may exist in
that moderate levels of stress actually improve productivity, increase energy levels, and heighten creativity.
❑ Burnout, the state of being overwhelmed by stress, is usually experienced by highly motivated professionals
faced with high work demands. Initial studies on burnout targeted people in the health care field as
employees most likely to experience burnout. People who feel burned out lack energy and are filled with
frustration and tension. Emotional symptoms of burnout include dreading coming to work each day.
❑ Absenteeism and turnover, resulting in loss of productivity and subsequently revenues, are highest
during times of burnout and increased stress as employees struggle to deal with physical and
emotional ailments.

❑ Drug and Alcohol Abuse - Unfortunately, as stress levels rise and anger increases, often so does the
abuse of drugs and alcohol. Most incidents of domestic and other types of violence occur after an
individual has been drinking or using drugs.

❑ Health Care Cost - One other organizational, as well as personal, consequence of stress is an increase
in health insurance premiums. Because of the high use of medical facilities and options by others
suffering from illnesses caused by stress, organizations that at one time paid the full cost for health
insurance benefits are passing the increases on to the employees. This additional financial burden to
some employees can be a new source of stress! The answer is to reduce the number of ailments
causing stress, thereby decreasing the need to seek medical attention.
Managing Stress

Managing stress before it happens means incorporating daily practices (e.g., exercise) that will prepare
your mind and body to handle the effects of stress. During stress you should continue with your
prestress management techniques (such as reducing caffeine), as well as incorporate some others.
Finally, after the stressor is eliminated , continue to proactively manage your stress.
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