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The Job Demand-Control(-Support) Model and Psychological Well-Being: A Review of 20 Years of Empirical Research
Work & Stress
Abstract
The Job Demand-Control (JDC) model (Karasek, 1979) and the Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) model (Johnson, and Hall, 1988) have dominated research on occupational stress in the last 20 years. This detailed narrative review focuses on the JDC(S) model in relation to psychological well-being. It covers research from 63 samples, published in the period 1979-1997. In the review a distinction is drawn between two different hypotheses prevailing in research on the models. According to the strain hypothesis of the JDC model, employees working in a high-strain job (high demands-low control) experience the lowest well-being. The buffer hypothesis states that control can moderate the negative effects of high demands on well-being. Translating these hypotheses to the expanded JDCS model, the iso-strain hypothesis predicts the most negative outcomes among workers in an iso-strain job (high demands-low control-low social support/isolation), whereas the buffer hypothesis states that social support can moderate the negative impact of high strain on well-being. Although the literature gives considerable support for the strain and iso-strain hypotheses, support for the moderating influence of job control and social support is less consistent. The conceptualization of demands and control is a key factor in discriminating supportive from nonsupportive studies. Only aspects of job control that correspond to the specific demands of a given job moderate the impact of high demands on well-being. Furthermore, certain subpopulations appear to be more vulnerable to high (iso)strain, whereas others benefit more from high control. On the basis of the results of this review, suggestions for future research and theoretical development are formulated.
... As we noted, there is consensus in organizational research on the need to mitigate the negative consequences of workload (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007;Demerouti et al., 2001;Lesener et al., 2019). Yet, despite considerable research on factors mitigating the negative consequences of workload (e.g., Demerouti et al., 2001;Karasek, 1979), results are mixed (e.g., Cohen & Wills, 1985;Sargent & Terry, 1998;Totterdell et al., 2006;Van der Doef & Maes, 1999), with the buffering role of such factors receiving generally inconsistent support. ...
... That is, for stressors that do not represent pure threat (i.e., might also have potential benefits), we show that their effects can be either mitigated or exacerbated by the extent to which they are expected, and how these configurations might impact employees' emotion and behavior. Incorporating this viewpoint could help address various inconsistent findings in other literature (see Totterdell et al., 2006;Van der Doef & Maes, 1999) and provide a comprehensive view of how context and experiences affect employees at work. ...
Workload is a ubiquitous feature of the workplace and an exemplar occupational stressor. In contrast to other such experiences, workload represents a necessary aspect of employment that cannot be alleviated or removed. It also has both aversive and beneficial aspects; research, therefore, has aimed to examine the circumstances under which its negative effects can be alleviated while still maintaining its potential benefits for individuals and organizations. Such efforts, however, have had mixed success. In this paper, we propose a new way forward by examining the extent to which the concordance of individual expectations about daily workload and actually experienced workload is associated with aversive affective responses (with ultimate impacts of the latter for cross‐day functioning). We test these propositions in two daily studies and find that when experienced workload levels do not align with expectations, individuals experience higher levels of anxiety. Importantly, these effects of unexpected workload are overall stronger in magnitude than the effects of high but expected workload; furthermore, they operate through their impact on individuals’ sense of control. These workload patterns are further indirectly associated with next‐day functioning through sense of control and anxiety. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, together with directions for future research.
... jobs. We again assessed these commonly self-reported JDCS model components (Van der Doef & Maes, 1999) at a single measurement point as they represent relatively stable work environment attributes (Saavedra & Kwun, 2000). However, data on criterion variables were collected with a time lag (creativity a month later at Time 2 and innovation six months later at Time 3). ...
... However, the stress-management model of job strain [9] (Karasek Jr, 1979) posits that high job demands (role overload) are not necessarily harmful; however, when these demands are accompanied by low decision latitude, psychological strain can result. Studies have found positive relationships between high job demands, indices of strain, and negative mental health [51][52][53][54]. Role overload was also found to moderate the direct effects of self-efficacy and work performance in a sample of service industry employees [55]. ...
Background
There have been few longitudinal studies on Chinese bus drivers and the individual differences in the relationships between organizational justice and job satisfaction. This study examined the organizational justice and job satisfaction in bus drivers and the individual differences in this relationship.
Methods
A two-wave longitudinal study design was employed. A first survey was conducted on 513 Chinese bus drivers in October 2021 that collected socio-demographic information and asked about their perceptions of organizational fairness. A second survey was conducted six months later that asked about role overload and job satisfaction and assessed their proactive personality type. An effect model was then used to explore the moderating effects of role overload and proactive personality type on the relationships between organizational justice and job satisfaction.
Results
Both procedural and interactive justice predicted the bus drivers’ job satisfaction. Proactive personalities and role overload were found to enhance this relationship.
Conclusions
Organizations could benefit from screening at the recruitment stage for drivers with highly proactive personalities. Relevant training for drivers with low proactive personalities could partially improve employee job satisfaction. When viewed from a Chinese collectivist cultural frame, role overload could reflect trust and a sense of belonging, which could enhance job satisfaction. Finally, to improve employee job satisfaction, organizations need to ensure procedural and interactive justice.
... The cognitive effort required to cope with mental health challenges can deplete these crucial cognitive resources needed for fulfilling regular work responsibilities effectively and safely. Consequently, people are more likely to feel overwhelmed by the demands they face at work when coping with mental health challenges (Sanne et al., 2005;Van der Doef & Maes, 1999), increasing their vulnerability to work injuries given the link between job demands and unsafe behavior, adverse events, and injuries (Nahrgang et al., 2011). ...
The link between work injuries and mental health challenges significantly impacts individuals, organizations, and society. However, an integrated understanding of their relationship is lacking due to fragmented research across various disciplines. Drawing from uncertainty in illness theory, our comprehensive meta‐analysis (147 samples, N = 1,457,562) clarifies the bidirectional relationship between work injuries and mental health challenges. We estimate the average strength of the association, compare temporal ordering (work injuries preceding mental health challenges, and vice versa), explore underlying mechanisms, and identify potential moderating factors. Results from a random‐effects model reveal a moderate association between work injuries and mental health challenges (k = 147, ρ = .21, 95% CI = .19, .24, 95% CR = −.11, .50). Notably, the relationship is stronger when work injuries precede mental health challenges (k = 40, ρ = .23, 95% CI = .18, .29, 95% CR = −.10, .52) compared to the reverse (k = 18, ρ = .11, 95% CI = .03, .19, 95% CR = −.23, .42). Negative cognitions and perceived job demand underlie the bidirectional relationships between work injuries and mental health challenges. These findings highlight the interconnected nature of work injuries and mental health challenges, illustrating the need for comprehensive rehabilitation approaches that integrate physical and psychological care, and paving the way for future research and interventions.
... However, employment settings could potentially capture variation in workforce outcomes. Cronise et al. (2016) found a statistically significant relationship between overall job satisfaction and employment in community settings and/or peer-run programs, potentially because such settings may offer social support to alleviate the impact of stress in high-demand, low-control jobs (Häusser et al., 2010;Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). The ZipRecruiter data provide information to capture the type of employment setting, which could be used in future research. ...
Peer-based recovery support services are evidence-based practices used to achieve long-term recovery. Fundamental to these services are peer recovery workers, who use their lived experience of long-term recovery to form trusting, supportive relationships with individuals initiating self-directed journeys to mental health or substance use recovery. However, peer recovery workers report low salaries and workplace environments that cause unnecessary stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, and suboptimal service provision. We compare mean state peer recovery worker wages with prevailing state living wages by utilizing a living wage calculator and assembling data on wage offers from a national job-posting platform in the US. Our results suggest significant wage insufficiency. Among single-worker households with children, the living wage exceeds mean peer wages in every state. We conclude with guidance to public health researchers and practitioners to address the social justice implications of wage insufficiency. ARTICLE HISTORY
... On the other hand, Table 2, presents a set of prominent sources of stress coming from interpersonal relationships within the social and organisational context of work (i.e., the workplace) [22], such as workplace discrimination [28], workplace bullying [29], workplace violence [30], and harassment [31], and individual risks factors that can predispose workers to psychosocial perils related to personality [32], gender, [33], deprivation [34], and non-work factors [35]. ...
Emerging digital and smart technologies, including wearable and collaborative ones, related to the Industry 4.0 paradigm are playing an assisting, collaborative, and augmenting role for the Operator 4.0, and just as in previous industrial revolutions, the nature of work and the workplace for operators on the shop floor is changing. This literature review aims to look into the impact of digital and smart technologies adoption on the workers' psychosocial stage under the light of the Operator 4.0 typology. Based on the review conducted, a theoretical framework for assessing the psychosocial impacts (risks) of Industry 4.0 technologies adoption in the Operator 4.0 is proposed. The framework can be utilised by company managers, researchers, production engineers, and human resources personnel for carrying out a psychosocial risk assessment of the Operator 4.0 in assembly, maintenance, and training operations as these operations get digitally transformed and smartified based on self-report questionnaires. Findings reveal that the nature of work, the social and organisational environment of work, and related individual factors are key categories that might affect the Operator 4.0 psychosocial stage on the shop floor.
... Work stress theory predicts that resources help individuals meet stressful challenges (Demerouti et al., 2001;Hobfoll et al., 2018). Job control is one such resource that is frequently investigated in occupational health research (Häusser et al., 2010;Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). Considered a significant advantage of workplace flexibility, job control refers to the autonomy one has to make decisions about the way in which one's work is done (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). ...
... In the realm of occupational stress research, the Chronic Stress Predictive Model offers a sophisticated approach to quantifying stress levels by incorporating a range of both environmental and personal factors, aligning well with psychosocial stress theories like the Demand-Control-Support Model [31]. This model postulates that stress results not merely from high demands in the workplace but also from a lack of control over one's work and insufficient support from colleagues and supervisors. ...
Extensive research has highlighted the strong association between chronic stress and negative health outcomes. This relationship is influenced by various factors, including sociobehavioral, environmental, and genetic and epigenomic forces. To comprehensively assess an individual's stress levels, we propose the development of the Chronic Stress Indicator (CSI), a novel comprehensive multifaceted tool that incorporates key biological, anthropometric, behavioral, and socioeconomic factors. The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the CSI compared to Allostatic Load (AL), a type of chronic stress, in identifying health issues related to stress. The objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of the CSI versus AL in detecting adverse health outcomes within the U.S. demographic aged 20-49. The information used for this study was sourced from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), carried out from 2001 to 2004. Logistic regression modeling was employed to calculate odds ratios and confidence intervals. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was employed to assess differences in means, whereas the chi-square test, accompanied by Cramer's V statistic, was used to examine the association among categorical variables. Additionally, the relationship between continuous variables was analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Our association tests show that the length of occupation activity and health status were among the strongest associations to CSI risk. Based on our logistic regression models, age and sex were found to be significant factors in determining AL. We also found that age, smoking, and longest occupation activity were significant factors of CSI risk. These findings suggest a need for individuals to limit smoking as it may lead to higher overall stress despite its common use as a coping mechanism for stress. We should also review the level of occupational activity a job has before continuously working on it as this may also lead to higher cumulative stress.
... Another popular model, along similar lines, is the effort-rewardimbalance model (Siegrist, 1996), and describes how internal motivations and external pressures act together, with perceived rewards buffering their influence on job satisfaction, health outcomes and well-being. Both models have received empirical support in the literature, and are the most notable examples of several with overlapping assumptions (Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). ...
The study seeks to bring together literature on decision-making, the effects of work-related demands and stress, and individual differences in trait anxiety on near and far transfer effects of emotional working memory training (eWM). A sample of 31 students and working participants underwent emotional working memory training through an adaptive dual n-back method or a placebo face match training task for 14 days. Pre- and post-training measures were taken of a near transfer task, digit span, medium transfer measure of executive control, emotional Stroop, and a far transfer task of decision-making under uncertainty, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). In line with previous studies, eWM was expected to show gains in transfer task performance between pre- and post-training, and, especially for those scoring high on trait anxiety and workplace measures of stress demands (taken from COPSOQ), for whom there is more scope for improvement in emotional regulation. Gains in emotional Stroop specifically were further expected to show support for the effects of eWM training on emotional well-being in addition to decision-making. Results fell short of replicating previous work on transfer gains, though interference effects in Stroop did lessen in the eWM training group. Relationships between work demands, anxiety, stress and performance in the training itself reinforce previous research showing that work stress and anxiety lead to cognitive failures, highlighting the importance of intervention studies in the organizational field, but they were not linked to benefits of the training. Resource and methodological limitations of the current study are considered, especially those involved in conducting pre-post designs and cognitive testing online.
... According to various authors, the reasons for dropping out should not only be sought within PhD students themselves, but also in the underlying structures of the academic environment (Smith et al. 2006;Lovitts 2002). Issues such as an excessive workload, insufficient decision-making power, a low status in the academic hierarchy, and inadequate funding (Winefield et al. 2008), as well as low support and isolation (Van der Doef and Maes 1999;van Rooij, Fokkens-Bruinsma, and Jansen 2021), and an imbalance between work and private life (Bell, Rajendran, and Theiler 2012) all add up to the occupational stress of PhD students and eventually result in dropout. ...
This article investigates whether experiences of the PhD trajectory during the first year of enrolment predict dropout during a later stage. More specifically, we studied how supervisor support, time pressure and passion for research relate to dropout among PhD students and assessed the role of discipline in this process. We used longitudinal data from four waves of the PhD Survey (2018 through 2021; N = 589), conducted at a university in Belgium, as well as administrative data on the enrolment status. Results show that supervisor support is negatively related to dropout, and that this is especially important for PhD students in the human sciences. Time pressure is positively related to dropout. When stratified by scientific discipline, this effect was only significant for PhD students in human sciences and in the life sciences and medicine. Passion for research showed a negative association with dropout. Stratification by discipline showed that this effect was only found among PhD students in natural sciences and engineering. Furthermore, teaching assistants showed higher dropout rates, and female PhD students in human sciences and life sciences and medicine were less likely to drop out. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Notons également que le modèle a été bonifié par l'ajout du facteur de soutien social, qui atténue la tension ressentie et permet aux travailleurs de recevoir une aide extérieure afin de réaliser leurs tâches (Karasek et Theorell, 1990 ;Karasek et al., 1982). Or, si le modèle à trois facteurs est fréquemment utilisé, l'effet modérateur du soutien social est moins largement supporté (voir la recension des écrits scientifiques de Van der Doef et Maes, 1999). ...
p>The scientific literature that aims to identify the determinants of psychological distress at work essentially focuses on psychosocial risk factors that are widespread in various types of jobs, such as task characteristics (Karasek, 1979). These are factors that can be associated with many occupations since their conceptualization is generic (e.g., quantitative workload). However, studies that focus on factors that are specific to the very nature of the jobs studied are still a minority in the literature on psychological distress. In our study, we investigate the stress factors associated with the role of the first-line manager, which is recognized for its so-called “paradoxical” nature (Hales, 2005). We aim to identify the stress factors associated with their role, and then to verify their influence on first-line managers’ psychological distress. Therefore, we opt for a mixed methodology by deploying a sequential exploratory design (Creswell, 2009). This type of design begins with an inductive approach that allows the collection of qualitative data (N=14) conducive to the discovery of specific stress factors. The quantitative study then makes it possible to verify the effect of these stress factors on the level of psychological distress using data provided from a larger sample (N= 243). Our research highlights the specific risk factors associated with the role of first-line managers, namely the accountability / control conflict as well as the role conflict related to the paradoxical position they occupy. Also, the hypothetico-deductive study shows that these specific factors contribute to influencing first-line managers’ psychological distress along with generic risk factors (i.e., quantitative workload). Our results provide a better understanding of how tasks and responsibilities contribute to engender psychological distress in addition to positioning risk factors that are specific to first-line managers as a relevant research avenue to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon of psychological distress at work.</p
... Karasek et al. [23] elaborated on the notion that increased job demands, autonomous working without adequate support and a sense of an inability to address issues during work contribute to increased levels of job strain. Within the Demand Control Support model [27], the primary foundations of work-related stress are identified as psychological demands (Demands), representing the psychological stressors associated with workload; decision latitude (Control) regarding one's control over job-related decisions; and support or perceptions of the support received from superiors and colleagues. Dallner et al. [28] as well as and Lindström et al. [29] suggested psychological and social factors as fundamental aspects related to workplace stress. ...
Background
In Sweden, older people in residential care had the highest mortality rates, followed by those who received home care, during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Staff working in the care of older people assumed responsibility for preventing the spread of the virus despite lacking the prerequisites and training. This study aimed to investigate the psychosocial work environment during the COVID-19 pandemic among staff in the care of older people and examine the factors associated with staff’s perceptions of the clarity of instructions and the ability to follow them.
Methods
A cross-sectional study design was employed using a web survey. The staff’s perceptions of their psychosocial environment were analysed using descriptive statistics. The association between organisational and individual factors, as well as the degree of clarity of the instructions and the staff’s ability to follow them, were assessed using multivariate (ordinal) regression analysis.
Results
The main findings show that perceptions of the clarity and adaptability of the instructions were primarily correlated with organisational factors, as higher responses (positive) for the subscales focusing on role clarity, support and encouragement in leadership at work were associated with the belief that the instructions were clear. Similarly, those indicating high job demands and high individual learning demands were less likely to report that the instructions were clear. Regarding adaptability, high scores for demands on learning and psychological demands were correlated with lower adaptability, while high scores for role clarity, encouraging leadership and social support, were associated with higher adaptability.
Conclusions
High job demands and individual learning demands were demonstrated to decrease the staff’s understanding and adoption of instructions. These findings are significant on an organisational level since the work environment must be prepared for potential future pandemics to promote quality improvement and generally increase patient safety and staff health.
... It is well established that working environment affects wellbeing (e.g., Häusser et al., 2010;Niedhammer et al., 2021;Nixon et al., 2011;Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). Managers' wellbeing has explicit implications for their leadership behaviours (Harms et al., 2017;Joseph et al., 2015;Kaluza et al., 2020), as well as for employees' wellbeing (Skakon et al., 2010). ...
Purpose
Given the importance of small businesses for society, and the significance of managers’ wellbeing for employee health, leadership, and business performance, more knowledge is needed on the sources of managers’ wellbeing. This study explored factors within the small business context that were perceived by managers to hinder or enable their wellbeing.
Methods
Data were collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews with 20 managers from 12 small companies, and analysed with content analysis.
Results
The factors that these managers in small businesses experienced as enhancing or hindering their personal wellbeing covered five categories: demands and resources in the daily managerial work, achievement of results, social factors, organizational factors, and individual factors.
Conclusions
The specific context of managerial work in small companies encompasses unique factors. For instance, the small company managers’ wellbeing was affected by vulnerability due to the smallness of the business and the absence of available resources. Simultaneously, a small company context provided a strong social climate and close relationships with employees and customers that strengthened the managers’ wellbeing. The findings suggest that the availability of financial, personnel, and organizational resources varies between small companies of different size, which may have implications for small business managers’ work and wellbeing.
... More specifically, from an employee perspective, a significant deviation from the venture's previous growth trajectory entails changes in the workplace, such as the addition of management structures, building, planning, and forecasting capabilities, and adjustments to the venture's culture (Picken, 2017). These changes are likely to increase their workload (Ganster and Schaubroeck, 1991;Van der Doef and Maes, 1999) and generally affect employees' perceived physical and emotional demands . First, some employees are likely to be promoted and transferred to handle the increased volume, while others are not. ...
Although academic interest in organizational scaling is growing, extant research has focused primarily on the antecedents and processes, neglecting how employees experience scaling. Drawing on the scale-up, firm growth, and well-being literature, we take an employee perspective to examine the impact of scaling on employee burnout and job satisfaction. Using a sample of 10,908 new venture employees in Sweden, we show that scaling is positively associated with employee burnout, and negatively with job satisfaction. We also show that the link between scaling, burnout, and job satisfaction depends on whether the employee is in a managerial position or has prior new venture experience.
... Conversely, in a low-demand, high-control situation, this situation does not occur. In the buffer hypothesis, work control is expected to mitigate (buffer) the negative impact of work demands on well-being [129]. Therefore, WC is closely related to various factors of work demands. ...
The construction industry is notorious for the tremendous mental and physical stress employees
bear, which is a significant contributor to talent shortages and brain drain. However, scholars
mainly focus on the single sources of stress, anxiety, and depression for construction workers,
lacking a systematic study of the subjective well-being of managerial employees. To address the
academic shortfall, this study initially identified the influencing factors of employee well-being
(EWB) in the construction industry, and defined them in seven aspects: occupational wellbeing,
social well-being, income and welfare, health, safety and protection equipment, work
environment, and the nature of work. Then, based on 511 sample data, the Gaussian graphical
models, the Graphical Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, and the Extended
Bayesian Information Criteria methods were used to build a reliable network and to visualize the
relationships between the factors. Finally, this study dissected the significant factors affecting
EWB and their interrelationships based on network analysis. The study discovers that fair and
adequate salary is the most crucial factor in terms of centrality, followed by sufficient salary for
family and personal needs, as well as access to personal protective equipment. Job satisfaction
and work-family balance sit at the center of the network, able to influence other factors most
quickly. The contribution of this research is twofold: first, it deepens understanding of influencing
factors to EWB through the introduction of a novel analytical technique-factor network analysis;
and second, companies can then improve EWB, ultimately mitigating labor shortage and brain
drain in the construction industry.
... Furthermore, ICTs can foster employees' adaptiveness because the systems are themselves clear and flexible (Béguin & Clot, 2004), in the sense that they can leave sufficient leeway for the activity to be performed efficiently, both in terms of productivity and in terms of health management (Chatterjee et al., 2017). Thus, ICTs can alleviate certain organizational constraints (shortening decision-making circuits, decentralizing and democratizing access to knowledge, making the transmission of information more fluid) by significantly increasing employees' autonomy ( Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). This results in an evolution from a passive work situation (where the employee is a mere performer of mechanistic externallydesigned tasks) to an active work situation (the employee becomes more the architect of their own activity, using and developing capacities for action and innovation). ...
Introduction: Using the job demands control support (JDCS) model, we examined the impact of introducing information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the working conditions of civil servants in a major public institution in Gabon. We hypothesized that perceived ICT usability moderates the temporal beneficial/detrimental (dis)continuity of job demands and job control before and after their introduction. For exploratory and complementary purposes, we also investigated changes in social support. Methods: To this end, we conducted a quantitative two-wave longitudinal study of 162 civil servants, with measures before and after the introduction of ICTs for one subsample, and compared them to another subsample for which ICTs had not already been introduced (control group). Results: At baseline (T1), the two subsamples were similar regarding JDCS variables; at follow-up (T2), civil servants without ICTs reported, on average, a slight increase in job demand and a strong decrease in job control, whereas civil servants with newly introduced ICTs reported unchanged levels of job demand and job control. Similar observations, albeit of a lesser magnitude, occurred for social support. The analyses revealed that perceived usability marginally moderated the temporal stability of job control, whereas high job control at T1 favored similarly high job control at T2 only when ICTs were perceived as very highly usable. Discussion and Conclusion: The discussion addresses the possible existence of a downward social comparison effect for civil servants without ICTs, suggests the likely role of coping strategies to explain the mixed results, examines the study contributions and limitations, and delineates practical implications.
... The strain hypothesis of the JDCS model proposes that job demands, autonomy, and perceived social support additively predict well-being and behavior (see Van der Doef & Maes, 1999). Research suggests mixed empirical support for the strain hypothesis. ...
Pro-environmental or “green” behavior is an increasingly studied topic in the work context. Research on the relations between job characteristics and employee green behavior generally suggests that positive features of work contexts free psychological resources that lead to higher levels of employee green behavior. However, knowledge on these associations is so far limited in the literature, and most findings are based on single time point (i.e., cross-sectional) research designs. Such designs are not well-suited for understanding the unique contributions of within- and between-person variability in job characteristics to the prediction of employee green behavior. Here, we adopt a four-wave longitudinal research design, with data collected from n = 307 employees across 1.5 years. Based on predictions from job design theories, we model within- and between-person levels of important job characteristics (i.e., job demands and autonomy, as well as coworker and supervisor support), along with baseline levels of proenvironmental attitudes, as predictors of three forms of employee green behavior (i.e., task-related, proactive, and counterproductive). We also consider interactions between proenvironmental attitudes and job characteristics over time. Although the pattern of relationships we anticipated was generally observed, it was neither consistent across job characteristics nor across between- versus within-person levels of analysis. The strongest predictor of task-related and proactive employee green behavior was between-person level coworker social support, whereas the strongest predictor of counterproductive employee green behavior was between-person job autonomy. The results of this study have implications for the development of job design interventions to encourage (discourage) positive (negative) employee green behavior.
In this chapter we describe much of the research literature focusing on workload management programs that organizations institutionalize to achieve higher levels of employee work-life balance. We also discuss how workload management programs are customarily implemented. We then discuss program implementation through four objectives, namely reducing workload and time pressure, providing mutual help, working smarter, and minimizing work demand during off-work time. We then describe conditions under which workload management programs are more effective: personal, organizational, and environmental moderators.
Background
This review synthesizes evidence from etiologic and intervention studies of workplace‐related determinants of mental health in workers in food and bar workers in the hospitality industry in Western high‐income countries.
Methods
Peer‐reviewed literature published between January 2000 and August 2023 was gathered from five bibliographic databases. Any study design was eligible. Study quality was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute tools for appraisal.
Results
A narrative analysis was conducted for 26 included studies (total n = 15,069 participants) across Australia (3), Ireland (1), Norway (1), Spain (2), the United States (17) and the United Kingdom (2).
Individual and task‐related factors such as high emotional job demands and low job control were associated with high burnout and depression. Uncivil and hostile interpersonal interactions with customers, management, and colleagues were found to contribute to poor mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and burnout.
Conclusion
Findings from included studies highlight the impact of workplace culture, including management practices and workplace social support, on mental health. Organization‐level interventions may therefore be most effective for addressing individual, interpersonal, and organizational determinants of mental health in food and bar occupations, particularly when implemented as part of broader organizational efforts to support health and wellbeing. Industry‐wide policy changes may also be necessary to address structural concerns, including job and financial insecurity, job strain and access to benefits, such as secure sick leave and minimum contract hours.
The study aims in analyzing the role of workplace stressors on occupational stress levels. A descriptive and explanatory research design has been used. A mean scale as a measure of central tendency was used to explain the existing situation. Correlation and multiple regression have been implemented to measure the association of variables and the stress level prediction ability of the constructs. A random sampling technique was used in determining the sample size. Mainly primary data is collected through a structured questionnaire and distributed to people online through Google form. Occupational stresses have shown a strong and significant association with stress constructs. The cumulative prediction ability of the constructs is stronger on the occupational stress level of the organization. Social support and job control are inversely associated with occupational stress levels. However. role ambiguity and role overload have a direct relationship with the magnitude of occupational stress.
Introducción:
El bienestar psicológico es una categoría fundamental en el desempeño del personal asistencial, pues contribuye tanto a mejorar la atención integral al mismo como a sustentar su actuación profesional.
Objetivo:
Explorar las principales tendencias de conceptualización y líneas temáticas en el desarrollo de la categoría bienestar psicológico.
Método:
Se condujo un estudio con diseño de revisión semisistemática, que permitió la selección de un total de 30 artículos, su procesamiento y establecimiento de tópicos fundamentales en un espacio temporal de cuatro décadas.
Resultados:
Los principales resultados alcanzados sugieren que se ha producido un proceso de especialización en el estudio del bienestar psicológico, los enfoques y escuelas psicológicas dirigidos a su estudio se han consolidado y los principales cambios se manifiestan en la relación entre variables y el compromiso con la promoción de la salud mental.
Conclusiones:
La categoría estudiada ha ganado en relevancia en la literatura, con predominio de posiciones positivistas y estudios dirigidos a grandes poblaciones, sin que se aprecie profundidad en los aspectos profesionales de su observación por parte del personal asistencial. Se concluye en la necesidad de estudios mixtos que atiendan a la singularidad de los contextos y las necesidades de especialistas de la salud, pacientes y familiares.
Psychological well-being is among the concepts that have attracted significant attention from researchers in the fields of social life, work life, and health in recent years. We conducted bibliometric mapping and content analysis to reveal current trends in the concept and contribute to the literature. Using VOSviewer, Citespace, Bibliometrix and MS Office Excel programs, we analysed 16,885 academic studies published in the Web of Science database between 1980 and 2022. The research results show a continuous increase in publications and citations, with a notable surge observed after 2016. The United States accounts for over a third of the publications. Furthermore, the International Journal of Environment Research and Public Health and Frontiers in Psychology stand out as the most productive journals, whereas Carol D. Ryff is the most prolific and cited author in the field. When the footprints of the keywords over the past 10 years are interpreted, some notable trends are identified. Initially, research themes mainly revolved around children, dementia, and social support. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic emerging as a new thematic focus and the disruption of the person-job and person-environment order due to the repercussions of lockdowns, the emphasis has shifted from the theme of social support to mindfulness, loneliness, and support. Notably, motivation and rehabilitation have emerged as significant focal points, with increased attention on social isolation and healthcare workers in recent publications.
The aim of this study was to assess the moderating and mediating effects of work meaningfulness on job satisfaction as perceived by teachers. To achieve this, we utilized self-reported questionnaire responses from 4,813 Chilean teachers. We conducted moderation and mediation analyses based on A. Hayes' framework using this dataset to test our hypotheses. The results provide evidence for the significant moderating and mediating role of work meaningfulness, demonstrating its positive impact on teachers' job satisfaction. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, along with their limitations and future research directions.
Keywords
Teacher’s Work; Laboral Satisfaction; Meaningfulness of Work; Moderation; Mediation
The aim of this study was to assess the moderating and mediating effects of work meaningfulness on job satisfaction as perceived by teachers. To achieve this, we utilized self-reported questionnaire responses from 4,813 Chilean teachers. We conducted moderation and mediation analyses based on A. Hayes' framework using this dataset to test our hypotheses. The results provide evidence for the significant moderating and mediating role of work meaningfulness, demonstrating its positive impact on teachers' job satisfaction. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, along with their limitations and future research directions.
Keywords
Teacher’s Work; Laboral Satisfaction; Meaningfulness of Work; Moderation; Mediation
We examined whether employees (N = 710) who experience low levels of political fit and who self-censor their political opinions at work, are more likely to display lower job satisfaction and perceived social community, and higher turnover intentions, burnout, and fear of social isolation. The results largely confirmed these associations and showed that the associations between perceived political fit and job satisfaction, social community, turnover intentions, and burnout were statistically mediated by willingness to self-censor. This suggests that employees who experience lower levels of person-organization fit with regards to their political ideology have a higher tendency to censure themselves, which is negatively related to their well-being, perceived social belonging, and job satisfaction. Furthermore, we found that the willingness to self-censor political opinions at work was slightly higher on average among those who were politically to the left, female, younger, and less educated. The findings point to the complexity of navigating political ideologies in the workplace.
RESUMEN Introducción: el bienestar psicológico es una categoría fundamental en el desempeño del personal asistencial, pues contribuye tanto a mejorar la atención integral al mismo como a sustentar su actuación profesional. Objetivo: explorar las principales tendencias de conceptualización y líneas temáticas en el desarrollo de la categoría bienestar psicológico. Método: se condujo un estudio con diseño de revisión semisistemática, que permitió la selección de un total de 30 artículos, su procesamiento y establecimiento de tópicos fundamentales en un espacio temporal de cuatro décadas. Resultados: los principales resultados alcanzados sugieren que se ha producido un proceso de especialización en el estudio del bienestar psicológico, los enfoques y escuelas psicológicas dirigidos a su estudio se han consolidado y los principales cambios se manifiestan en la relación entre variables y el compromiso con la promoción de la salud mental. Conclusiones: la categoría estudiada ha ganado en relevancia en la literatura, con predominio de posiciones positivistas y estudios dirigidos a grandes poblaciones, sin que se aprecie profundidad en los aspectos profesionales de su observación por parte del personal asistencial. Se concluye en la necesidad de estudios mixtos que atiendan a la singularidad de los contextos y las necesidades de especialistas de la salud, pacientes y familiares. Palabras clave: bienestar psicológico; personal asistencial; promoción de salud; salud mental
ABSTRACT Introduction: psychological well-being is a fundamental category in the performance of healthcare personnel, as it contributes both to improving their comprehensive care and to supporting their professional performance. Objective: to explore the main conceptualization trends and thematic lines in the development of the psychological well-being category. Method: a study was conducted, with a semi-systematic review design, which allowed the selection of a total of 30 articles, their processing and fundamental topics ranging in a time period of four decades. Results: the main results achieved suggest that a specialization process has occurred in the study of psychological well-being, the psychological approaches and schools aimed at its study have been consolidated and the main changes are manifested in the relationship between variables and the commitment to mental health promotion. Conclusions: the category studied has gained relevance in the literature, with a predominance of positivist positions and studies aimed at large populations, without any depth being appreciated in the professional aspects of its observation by healthcare personnel. It is concluded that there is a need for mixed studies that address the uniqueness of the contexts and the needs of health specialists, patients and families.
Teacher stress, burnout, and attrition are well-documented problems that have been amplified as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent efforts to study and improve teacher well-being in response to such high levels of burnout are promising. However, the field continues to lack a unified definition of teacher well-being and consistent use of tools with which to measure teacher well-being. These inconsistencies may limit the ability to compare interventions and improve teacher well-being over time. Clarifying how teacher well-being is defined and operatio-nalized can enable others to understand what a particular intervention or study does or does not improve. This systematic review explored 97 studies of teacher well-being and documented tools used to measure the construct. The studies reviewed relied on a wide variety of instruments, ranging from mental health tools to subjective well-being and teacher efficacy measures, with few using specific Teacher Well-Being Scales. Findings suggest the need for more uniform approaches to measurement and the need for a clearly articulated definition of teacher well-being that is distinct from stress or burnout. Researchers recommend the use of a multi-factor scale that includes elements of teacher efficacy, school support, workload and time pressure, and job satisfaction. K E Y W O R D S measurement, systematic review, teacher well-being Psychology in the Schools. 2023;1-22. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pits
This paper aims to enhance our understanding of work and wellbeing in the entrepreneurial society. We integrate research on proactive personality (PP) and job design to explore how entrepreneurs' PP impacts their employees' job satisfaction by shaping employee job design in a multi-source multilevel study of 43 entrepreneurs/firms and 511 of their employees. In contexts of firm instability, entrepreneurs' PP was negatively associated with employee job satisfaction due to higher employee job demands. In stable firms, PP related positively to employee job satisfaction due to higher employee job control and social support. We replicate these findings for mental health as a broader indicator of employee wellbeing. Our study extends research on entrepreneur PP by considering its effect on employees. It advances understanding of the bright and dark sides of PP for others in the organization, and contributes new insights on the origins of job design and the quality of work in entrepreneur-led firms.
Variable work hours are an understudied source of work-to-family conflict (WFC). We examine the relationships between the magnitude and direction of work hour variability and WFC and whether work hour control and schedule predictability moderate these relationships. We estimate a series of linear regressions using the 2016 US General Social Survey, examining women and men workers separately and together. Findings indicate that as the magnitude of work hour variability increases, so does WFC, controlling for the usual number of hours worked. Work hour control helps to protect workers, especially women, from WFC when work hour variability is high and hours surge. Although schedule predictability tempers the relationship between work hour variability and WFC, its potency diminishes as variability increases. Our study emphasizes the potential benefit to workers and families of government policies and employer practices that promote work hour stability, schedule predictability, and equity in employee work hour control.
The cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the relationship between work-related factors, perceived work fatigue (PWF) and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among handicraft artisans. 364 artisans participated in a questionnaire survey, and a structural equation model (SEM) was developed to explore the direct and indirect relationships between these factors using partial least squares analysis. The SEM explained 98.2% of the variance in MSDs and revealed that exposure to biomechanical factors had a direct impact on PWF and MSDs, with PWF mediating the effect of biomechanical factors on MSDs. Additionally, job demand was found to be positively associated with MSDs, while job control and social support reduced the risk of MSDs. The findings underscore the importance of strategic initiatives to mitigate the risk of developing MSDs among artisans. The study also highlights the potential of SEM as a novel framework for understanding the complex pathogenesis of MSDs in occupational health research.Practitioner summary: The study sought to comprehensively examine the intricate relationships among work-related factors, PWF, and MSDs. To achieve this, an SEM approach was employed to capture both direct and indirect relationships between these factors, employing partial least squares analysis. Findings revealed SEM as an innovative framework for understanding the intricate development of MSDs.
Work forms both a direct and an indirect determinant of health and of health disparities. This chapter briefly summarizes the indirect health benefits of work via generating income and establishing social status; it describes conceptions of work-life balance. The main part of the chapter then focuses on the direct and potentially negative impacts of work situations on health, beginning with the hazards of insecure employment. It reviews the leading conceptual models that explain how stressful work can damage health. The models include the Job Demand and Control Model, the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model, the Job Demands and Resources Model, the RIASEC Personality Model, and others. The health effects of unemployment are documented, and various explanatory models are described, including the Latent Deprivation Theory, the Agency Restriction Model, and the Status Passage Model. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the impact of welfare systems in mitigating the effect of unemployment on socioeconomic status.
We review theory and research on how work events and experiences influence employee well-being, with a particular focus on the day-to-day effects of positive events and experiences. Then we discuss how employees can amplify the beneficial effects of work on well-being by savoring and reflecting upon positive events and experiences from work, and by capitalizing on them via interpersonal means, such as sharing work events and experiences with others. We integrate theory and research on savoring and interpersonal capitalization within affective events theory and the broader job demands–resources (JD-R) theory—and we explain how these approach-oriented agentic strategies that employees can easily use to derive additional psychological benefits from work experiences can extend JD-R theory. Specifically, we discuss how using these strategies can build additional resources, fulfill employees’ basic psychological needs, and make their jobs more meaningful, thereby enhancing well-being at the day-to-day level and in the long term.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Volume 11 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
This mixed-methods study draws on survey data collected from 268 elementary school educators working in New York State to explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on levels of stress and job dissatisfaction. Through the lens of the Job Demand-Control-Support (JCDS) framework, we explore factors which exacerbated educators’ stress levels and those which may have mitigated them. Quantitative analysis shows that having more demands relative to control and support was associated with increased work-related stress, work-life balance challenges and job dissatisfaction. Qualitative findings further elucidate the experiences of stress experienced by elementary school teachers during the pandemic as well as the significance of job control and support. The article concludes by discussing implications for policymakers, leaders and educators seeking to better support elementary school educators in this post-pandemic moment. We also weigh the utility of the JDCS framework in exploring the issue of stress among educators during the pandemic.
Job burnout and turnover among those who work for correctional agencies have increased dramatically in recent years and are of primary concern to administrators and staff alike. Recent efforts to curb the exodus have focused on recruiting individuals who are theoretically well-suited for prison work, including former or current members of the U.S. military. We evaluate this strategy by assessing the presence of a “veteran effect” for those employed by the Utah Department of Corrections while also examining its impact across other criminal justice agencies where similar strategies have been implemented, including the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the Salt Lake City Police Department. Our results indicate that correctional employees are especially susceptible to burnout relative to those in police work, and that veteran status might insulate staff members from reporting these feelings. Implications for theory and policy are discussed, especially as they relate to addressing the current staffing crisis and litany of other benefits that accompany hiring military veterans as corrections personnel.
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to more deeply understand how stress impacts the physical and mental health of employees and what management can do to attenuate the impact of stress on employee health. While the relationship between stress and employee health has received some empirical support in the literature (e.g. Cooper and Cartwright, 1994), less is known about workplace variables that may mitigate the negative effects of stress on health. This study aims to contribute to the literature by exploring three important workplace variables that could lessen the negative effects of stress on health.
Design/methodology/approach
A diverse group of employees from two healthcare organizations in the United States of America were surveyed about their work environments, job stress, mental health and physical health. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to investigate three unique workplace mitigators of the stress-health relationship.
Findings
Results support perceived organizational support, procedural justice and managerial perspective-taking as variables that serve to make individuals hardier to the health consequences of stressful work. However, different moderating processes seem to account for mental health (perceived organizational support) and physical health (perspective-taking), while procedural justice mitigates the effect of stress on both mental and physical health.
Originality/value
This study contributes to an enhanced understanding of the relationships between stress and mental and physical health in the workplace. In particular, three workplace factors associated with managerial practices were identified that organizations can utilize to protect employees from the negative health consequences of stressful work. These findings can assist managers and organizations who are interested in improving employee health.
Despite the continuous interest in psychological adjustment of entrepreneurs as important factor in wellbeing and business outcomes, lawyers in private practice especially in Nigeria have not been covered and largely documented in the body of literature that exist. Hence this study that examined the roles played by work-family conflict and job demand control on psychological adjustment among lawyers as entrepreneurs in private practice. It involved a sample of 156 male and female lawyers in Ibadan metropolis. Three hypotheses were tested by using pearson ‘r’ and multiple regression statistics. It was found that work-family conflict was negatively related to psychological adjustment (r = -0.412, P<.01) while job demand control positively correlated with psychological adjustment (r = -0.185, P<.01). Also, work-family conflict and job demand control jointly predicted psychological adjustment (F (2,153) = 20.55, P <.01). Independently, predictions were found for work-family conflict (B=-0.640, t = 5.86, P<.05) and job demand- control (B=-O.077, t=-2.85, P<.05). It was concluded that work-family conflict and job demand-control are important factors in the psychological adjustment of lawyers in private practice. It implies that the variables are deserving of attention in personal development for lawyers as entrepreneurs. More so, attempt at improving their adjustment capacity need to focus on preparing them with coping skills to balance work-family demands and exercise control over their job related activities.
The key features which influence mental health both in jobs and unemployment are brought together within a single perspective. Three principal axes of affective well-being are identified as warranting investigation, and it is suggested that nine environmental features are of primary importance. The impact of these features on mental health is viewed as analogous to the influence of vitamins on physical health, with an explicit non-linearity in the relationship. This ‘vitamin model’ is extended to permit examination of individual differences (for example, in terms of baseline values and specific matching characteristics), and empirical evidence is summarized. It is concluded from previous research that job features do not interact synergistically in relation to employee well-being, although this possibility may not yet have been adequately tested. The framework is suggested to be adequately comprehensive, but, as is the case with other models, it requires development in respect of the specific mechanisms operating between environmental features and mental health.
This article reviews the role of individual differences in work stress processes, with particular reference to personality and coping as moderator variables. Vulnerability/resilience and person-environment fit (congruence) models of moderator effects are contrasted and relevant issues of methodology and analysis are outlined. Personality traits (locus of control, hardiness, Type A, optimism, and neuroticism) that act as moderators of stress/strain relations are reviewed; the characteristics and limitations of available measures are described. Associations between personality and coping, inventories for the assessment of coping, and the dimensions of coping behaviour, are then considered. The implications of structural and transactional models of stress for coping assessment are discussed with reference to dispositional versus situational approaches and other psychometric issues. The need for research into coping flexibility and consistency is emphasized. No attempt is made to provide a comprehensive account of empirical research into individual difference moderator effects, but relevant review articles are cited, together with some recent studies. Finally, several areas which would merit further attention (including specificity of moderator effects, conjunctive and disjunctive patterns, and moderation of relations between objective and perceived stressors) are identified.
objective and subjective measures of stress at work
discuss the consequences of using longitudinal designs
problems of longitudinal studies / different models of the time course of cause and effect / different kinds of stressors and of dysfunctioning and the time course of the models / person and environmental parameters and their mediating and moderating effect on the time course and the models
problem of small correlations in stress research (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The demand-control-support model was developed by R. Karasek and his colleagues during the 1980s. The model operates with three main dimensions: job demands, job decision latitude and job social support. According to the model, workers with jobs characterized by high demands, low decision latitude and low social support (so-called iso-strain) have a higher risk of poor psychological well-being and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The model has been tested in relation to CVD in 16 epidemiological studies of which only two have been negative. Moreover, the model has been used in studies with a large number of other endpoints. Recently the model and the methods used in connection with the model have been criticized by several research workers. In this article the studies on iso-strain and CVD are reviewed and a number of methodological problems are discussed. It is recommended that future studies are prospective and use non-representative population samples of well-chosen occupations. Each of the key variables -job stressors, stress and sickness - should be measured in three independent ways in order to increase the methodological and theoretical strength of the research performed.
Building on the Job-Strain Theory, we estimated three relationships in a random sample of 201 full-time employed men and women in dual-earner couples interviewed three times over a 2-year period. We first estimated the main effects relationships between change over time in employees' experiences of job demands and job control and change over time in psychological distress. Then we estimated the interaction effects relationship of change in job demands on the relationship between change in job control and change in distress. Finally, we estimated the interaction effects of gender on these relationships. Job control was disaggregated into two conceptually distinct job conditions: skill discretion and decision authority. Controlling for other potentially stressful job conditions such as pay adequacy, job security, and relations with supervisor, as well as trait anxiety (an indicator of negative affectivity), change over time in job demands and skill discretion, but not decision authority, was related to change over time in psychological distress. Equally, for full-time employed women and men in dual-earner couples, if concerns about having to do dull, monotonous work increase over time, distress increases; if concerns about having to work under pressure of time and conflicting demands increase over time, distress increases. Finally, neither average skill discretion nor change over time in skill discretion moderated the relationship between job demands and psychological distress. Thus, at every level of skill discretion, high job demands were related to high distress. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Using structural equations, we estimated the relationship between employees' experiences of seven job conditions, that have been identified as potential job stressors, and psychological distress in a random sample of 504 full-time employed men and women in dual-earner couples. The seven job conditions were: skill discretion, decision authority, schedule control, job demands, pay adequacy, job security, and relations with supervisor. We found that two job conditions — skill discretion and job demands — were related to psychological distress, whereas five other conditions were not. These findings lend partial support to Karasek's job demand — job control model. In our analysis, skill discretion, one of the two components of job control (referred to jointly as decision latitude) was related to distress, however, decision authority, the second component, was not. A third aspect of control, schedule control, was also unrelated to distress. For full-time employed women and men in dual-earner couples, the additive effects of feeling concerned about having to do dull, monotonous work and having to work under pressure of time and conflicting demands were associated with psychological distress. Finally, the magnitude of the relationships between these job experiences and psychological distress did not differ between men and women.
Empirical research on Karasek's job demand–control (JD-C) model has often failed to demonstrate the predicted interaction effect of high job demands and low job control on measures of strain. It has been suggested that the conceptualization of the control dimension as well as the neglect of workers' individual characteristics in the JD-C model may be responsible for its relative lack of empirical support. In the current study among 367 Dutch nurses from 18 intensive care units, a more focused measure of control was used. In addition, two individual characteristics (i.e. active coping and need for control) were included as potential moderators in the JD-C model. The demand-control interaction effect as predicted by the JD-C model could not be demonstrated. However, active coping turned out to moderate the interaction between job demands and job control. A misfit between level of control and individual coping style intensified the stress-enhancing effect of job demands. Further research on the extension of the JD-C model with personal characteristics is recommended.
Karasek (1979) proposed that job demands and decision latitude interact to cause psychological strain. Main effects of these job variables on strain have been often found, but the predicted interaction between them has been less consistently demonstrated. We argue that this lack of support results from inadequate specification and operationalization of the independent variables. In particular, most empirical tests of the interaction have been based on a general measure of decision latitude which encompasses a wide range of job properties including control, task variety and learning opportunities. Yet, theoretically, it is control which is the crucial factor. In this study we used more focused measures of demands and control, with a sample of 1451 manufacturing employees, and found clear evidence of the predicted interaction effect. Parallel analyses using a measure of decision latitude rather than of job control did not show an equivalent effect. It is recommended that greater attention be paid to congruence between theory and measurement.
The effects of social support, job control, participative decision making practices, and locus of control upon the relationship between occupational stress and psychological well-being have been well discussed and researched. In order to synthesize these areas of research, a 1-month follow-up study of 244 accountants was conducted. The results indicated complex interactions between stressors, locus of control, and social support or job autonomy in predicting psychological well-being, controlling for initial measures of well-being. These interactions reveal that an internal locus of control, and social support/job autonomy synergistically buffer the effects of stressors upon well-being.
Karasek (1979) drew attention to the possibilities that job characteristics may be non-linearly associated with employee well-being, and that they may combine interactively in relation to well-being. This paper examines those issues, and finds that both linear and non-linear components are present in relationships between job features and well-being. However, there is no evidence for a synergistic interaction between decision latitude and job demands. Those job features are differentially predictive of two aspects of well-being: job-related depression-enthusiasm and anxiety-contentment.
Models of occupational stress have often failed to make explicit the variable of control over the environment, as well as the role of job socialization in shaping personality characteristics and coping behaviours. This neglect has helped maintain the focus of stress reduction interventions on the individual. A new model of occupational stress developed by Robert Karasek incorporates control and socialization effects and has successfully predicted the development of heart disease and psychological strain.
A survey instrument derived from the model was distributed to 771 hospital and nursing home employees in New Jersey, and 289 (37.5 per cent) were returned. Respondents did not significantly differ from non‐respondents by age, sex, job tenure, union membership status, job satisfaction, job perceptions and attitude towards employer and union.
The results support the hypothesis that reported job strain (job dissatisfaction, depression, psychosomatic symptoms) and burnout is significantly higher in jobs that combine high workload demands with low decision latitude. This association remained significant after controlling for age, sex, education, marital status, children, hours worked per week and shift worked. Other job characteristics (job insecurity, physical exertion, social support, hazard exposure) were also associated with strain and burnout.
The survey instrument also identified high strain jobtitles in the surveyed workplaces. The results are discussed in relation to directions for future research, research on stress in nursing, and approaches to stress reduction.
We examined the impact of stressful job demands on employee attitudes and attendance. Using Karasek's (1979) theory of job decision latitude as the conceptual foundation, we hypothesized that mental and physical work demands would interact with employee beliefs of personal control. Survey data from 90 male manufacturing employees regarding their control beliefs were combined with objective job analysis data concerning mental and physical demands and one year's worth of archival data regarding unexcused absences, sick days, and days tardy. There were significant interactions between control and objective psychological demands that indicated that these demands were associated with higher levels of tardiness and sick days only under conditions of low perceived control. In contrast, subjective workload ratings showed no relationship with tardiness and sick days, but, in interaction with control, predicted work satisfaction and voluntary absence. We discussed these results in terms of a stress process that affects health-related attendance independent of employee attitudes.
The most striking development in modern work organizations is the changing nature of work itself and its increased mental and emotional workload. Since the early sixties, many attempts have been made to gain more insight into the particular relationship between work-related psychosocial risks and employee health by means of theoretical models. One of these models is the Demand-Control-Support (DCS) Model. The DCS Model distinguishes itself from other work stress models by its simplicity and the extent to which it has gained a paradigmatic function in research in the field of work and health. The aim of the current paper is to examine its theoretical and empirical status from a work psychological perspective. Studies into the DCS Model can roughly be divided into (1) epidemiological studies, (2) cross-sectional, homogenous, or heterogenous studies, (3) psychophysiological studies, and (4) intervention studies. It is concluded that (1) epidemiological studies offer the most support for the DCS Model, (2) its interaction hypothesis is not often supported, and (3) examples of carefully examined evaluations of interventions are rather scarce. Furthermore, nine critical comments on the model are discussed. In conclusion, although there are various relevant comments on the model, the core structure of the model still holds. Directions for future research are depicted.
Empirical research on Karasek's job demand-control (JD-C) model has often failed to demonstrate the predicted interaction effect of high job demands and low job control on measures of strain. It has been suggested that the conceptualization of the control dimension as well as the neglect of workers' individual characteristics in the JD-C model map be responsible for its relative lack of empirical support. In the current study among 367 Dutch nurses from 18 intensive care units, a more focused measure of control was used. In addition, two individual characteristics (i.e. active coping and need for control) were included as potential moderators in the JD-C model. The demand-control interaction effect as predicted by the JD-C model could not be demonstrated. However, active coping turned out to moderate the interaction between job demands and job control. A misfit between level of control and individual coping style intensified the stress-enhancing effect of job demands. Further research on the extension of the JD-C model with personal characteristics is recommended.
It was hypothesized, based on the cybernetic stress model, that the occupational stress-strain relationship is moderated by private self-consciousness (PSC) and control. If the possibility to control is perceived as favourable, high PSC was assumed to buffer against strain by increasing the likelihood of active coping with stressors. In the opposite case, when the possibilities of controlling job stressors are experienced as low, high PSC was assumed to exacerbate the relationship between stress and strain, because paying attention to internal reactions to stressors beyond one's control only intensifies the experience of distress. Support for these hypotheses was obtained by the questionnaire method and hierarchical moderated regression analyses with a sample of 377 nurses. Consistently with the cybernetic model, the effects of work overload on mental strain symptoms depended on perceived control, especially among high PSC individuals. Work overload produced fewest mental symptoms when PSC and control were high, and most mental symptoms when PSC was high but control low. If PSC was low, the effects of stressors were between the two extremes. Implications for further research on the cybernetic stress model are discussed.
A study was designed to test the association between job demands and job decision latitude and coronary heart disease (CHD)
risk and psychological strain among working men and women in the FRG. The data are from the 1984 FRG national health survey.
The sample used for this research was composed of 795 persons: 476 working men and 319 working women. Following the work of
Karasek, the results indicate that psychological strain was related to high job demands and low job decision latitude. However,
an association between CHD risk and high job demands and low job decision latitude was not supported by the findings. Correlational
analyses revealed moderate correlations between psychological strain and CHD risk. Multiple regression analyses indicated
that low decision latitude may be a stressor that grows more severe in the presence of high job demands in terms of negative
health outcomes. Significant differences between men and women were also found.
The study investigates whether changing jobs is related to work-related well-being of people with musculoskeletal impairments. In order to assess this relationship subjects who began new jobs after rehabilitation (N=52) were compared with subjects who returned to their former employment (N=63). Work-related well-being was measured by means of the scales "job satisfaction" and "need to recover after work." After controlling for individual characteristics (gender, age, working hours per week, and pain complaints) and job characteristics (job demands and decision latitude), job satisfaction could be predicted by job change. Recovery need after work was predicted by pain complaints, job demands, and decision latitude, but not by job change.
The amount of tedium, job stress, and home and work social support, were compared for men and women employed by four northeast Ohio employers. The differential effects of each source of support (i.e. supervisor, co-worker and partner) on tedium and job stress were also assessed. A sample of 116 individuals (61 males and 55 females), participated. Women and men reported similar amounts of job stress and similar amounts of work support. As predicted, women reported the experience of more tedium than men, and men reported the receipt of more household assistance than women. Also as predicted, workplace support was found to be more effective for men than for women. The data revealed that for men, household assistance was related to lower tedium, but for women, household assistance was related to greater tedium. The differential influence of home and work support for men and women was discussed.
Previous research regarding the effect of children on mental health is mixed, with some studies suggesting that mothers are more depressed than their childless counterparts, and others finding no difference. Using a sample of 500 Canadian women, I test how resources and demands in the primary roles of parent, worker, and partner account for variation in the mental health of employed women. Demands are measured as job demands and as chronic strains in home roles. Resources are measured as job control and as partner support. Results indicate that when partner support and job control are high or average, employed mothers are significantly less distressed than employed nonmothers. Conversely, when role demands are high and resources are low, mothers are significantly more distressed than nonmothers. These results are discussed with respect to the interrelationships between social roles, resources, and mental health, and in terms of directions for future research.
Karasek'sJob Strain model was tested in a sample of 122 office workers. Two rounds ofdata were collected and used to examine the reliability of the results and the relationships between job characteristics and worker strain over time. Moderated regression analyses based on standard scores of the independent variables were conducted to examine the interaction of job control and workload, and of skill utilization and workload, on various indicators of worker strain. The results indicated that there was neither multiplicative nor adhtive effect ofjob control/skill utilization and workload on worker strain. Some of the relationships between job characteristics and worker strain were not stable over time. The cross-lagged correlation analysis showed that workload at Time 1 had some effect on one ofthe worker strain indxators at Time 2, but not the reverse.
The main effects of four domains of control (task, decision, resource, physical environment) on job satisfaction and their interactions with three types of job stressors (task demands, role conflict, interpersonal conflict) were examined in a sample of 765 Canadian nurses. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the proportion of variance in job satisfaction that could be accounted for by job stressors, control, and the interaction of stressors and control in that order. The job stressors were analysed separately and as a composite job demands score, as were the four domains of control. The results indicated that the proportion of variance in job satisfaction increased with the addition of control for the composite scores and for task, resource, and physical environment control. However, decision control did not account for additional variance in job satisfaction above that for any of the job stressors. In addition, none of the stressor x control interactions were significant. The results support previous attempts to test the moderating effects of control, suggesting that perceived control is not a moderator of job stress but rather that it has a direct influence. The relevance of the different domains of control for nurses is discussed.
This study examined the predictive contribution of occupational and marital stress to the development of symptomatolgoy, affective disorder, and alcohol-related problems in a sample of 325 male power plant employees interviewed at baseline and one-year follow up. After controlling for known clinical and social risk factors, we found statistically significant predictive effects of job demands on affective disorder and job decision latitude on alcohol problems. In addition, the specific combination of high job demands with low decision latitude was important in predicting the occurrence of alcohol problems. Marital stress was not predictive of poorer mental health. The analyses provided only minimal support for a stress-buffering rote of social support.
The author compares the work role centrality of married working women and men and the factors related to it. The factors of socialization, status, status inconsistency, and work values as well as job satisfaction are examined. Although in the aggregate women are found to be less work-centered than men, further specification indicates that this is true mainly in the intermediate socioeconomic status (SES) categories, but not in others. The author proposes that this is related to the greater status inconsistency that women experience in these SES categories, and to their dual role as wives and mothers and employed workers. For women only, country of origin is of relevance to work role centrality (WRC), suggesting the importance of socialization. A combined model of status, work values, and job satisfaction explains WRC best for men, whereas status, socialization, and job satisfaction explains it best for women.
In this study, various hypotheses were tested in relation to car mechanics working in a sample of domestic car garages in South Limburg, The Netherlands. These concerned the negative relationships between the degree of control over the work process, and occupational strain, blood pressure, skin disorders and problems in the locomotor system. The relevant intermediate variables used were task latitude, social support from supervisor and colleagues, and positive appreciation (which were expected to weaken the major hypothesized relationships), and time pressure, mental load, and involuntary task interruption (which were expected to strengthen the major hypothesized relationships). The analysis also included the possible effects of age and seniority. Controls based on craft methods, blood pressure and skin disorders were measured through observation. The effect of controls based on craft methods, and occupational strain were demonstrated. Effects were also shown of occupational strain on diastolic blood pressure and on problems in the locomotor system, and of positive appreciation on non-contact skin disorder.
it has been suggested in this chapter that the concept of control is of importance because it provides a parsimonious integration of many seemingly unrelated concepts, because it may help us in the interdisciplinary research, and because it clearly is an issue amenable to intervention
viewing control as an integrating concept permits me to better understand why higher rates of disease are found among people who have poor social support, who have been mobile, who have had stressful life events, who are in jobs with little latitude and little room for discretion, who are in lower socioeconomic positions, and who exhibit Type A behavior
the interdisciplinary search for causes of disease / defining control / the prevention of disease (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Studied the relation between job strain and physiological and psychological stress among 60 male, urban, public transit operators (aged 21–63 yrs). Bus drivers experiencing high job strain in comparison to their co-workers with low strain had greater workday elevations in catecholamines but not blood pressure. They also evidenced higher occupational stress as measured both by an unobtrusive behavioral index of stress while driving the bus and according to a standardized questionnaire measure of job stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the relationships between social support and personality factors as moderators of stress arising from demands in the workplace. Data on personal, demographic, and job characteristics as well as measures of individual traits, social support, and psychological well-being were collected from a sample of 117 entrepreneurs and employees. The results showed significant differences in the work patterns and personality characteristics between the 2 occupational groups, but no differences in well-being were found. Extraversion and need achievement jointly predicted perceived support, with interpersonal control being the strongest predictor. Extraverts and internals reported the highest levels of interpersonal support compared with introverts and externals. Overall, the findings provide evidence for the buffering role of social support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two studies examined the role of social support in the context of the demand–discretion theory of job stress, with particular reference to additive vs interactive models. In Study 1, data from 145 health-care workers were analyzed using regression methods. Job satisfaction was predicted by the main effect of support, and by the demand × discretion interaction. In contrast, somatic symptoms were predicted by a 3-way demand × discretion × support interaction, support mitigating the adverse effects of high strain as compared with low strain conditions. In Study 2, longitudinal data from 180 student teachers were analyzed to examine Time 2 somatic symptoms, controlling for Time 1 levels. Again, the demand × discretion × support interaction was significant; its form was closely similar to that found in Study 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Tested a model of social support buffering using data on coworker and supervisor support elicited from 1,016 male workers in the 1972 US Quality of Working Life Survey. This model narrows the definition of buffering to a nonsymmetrical relationship tested by subgroups in which the associations between stressors and psychological strain are contingent on social support. In simultaneous multivariate regressions, both task stressors and social support revealed significant linear additive effects in the hypothesized direction. Evidence for the conventional buffering model was provided by the finding that for both emotional and instrumental supervisory and co-worker support, a higher level of the support variable was associated with a weaker relationship between the individual level task strain composite (stressors) and mental strain. Contrary to expectations, conventional buffering effects were fairly uniform across all factors. Evidence to support the "stress-transfer" aspect of the author's model was also found—stress was negatively related to strain when social support was strong. This mechanism, even while occasionally adding extra burdens to some individuals, is of great benefit to the social unit as a whole in that it reduces the chances of any of its members experiencing stress above a dangerous threshold. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper examines the relative merits of main and interactive explanations of the effects of assembly-line work on the job satisfaction, absence and mental health of a sample of women operators. In an empirical study, it was found that assembly-line work had a direct effect on job satisfaction thus confirming previous findings for men. No effect was found for absence. There was an interaction effect of assembly-line work on mental health. It occurred for those who felt their job denied them the opportunity to use their abilities, and who daydreamed for substantial periods of time. The role of daydreaming is interpreted as a personal predisposition to disengage cognitively. Social support was not found to have a moderating role for any of the dependent variables.
The effects of work-load (WL) and perceived control (PC) on the psychological well-being of Type A and Type B industrial workers were studied using Karasek's Job Demands-Control model (1979). Subjects were 3562 male workers from 21 factories in Israel.
Compared to Type B, Type As showed higher stress symptoms (irritability, somatic complaints, anxiety) but also higher job satisfaction. Contrary to our hypotheses, Type As were not more stressed under conditions of low load or low PC. These findings run counter to intuitive deductions based on the ambitious, hard-driving characteristics and control needs attributed to Type As. However there is some indication that a combination of low load and low PC (passive jobs) can be stressful for Type As, as indicated by high irritability scores. In addition, Type As were adversely affected by high load while Type Bs were not. Moreover, Type Bs reported high job satisfaction. Tests of Karasek's model revealed significant main effect for WL and PC on all dependent variables, but no interaction effects. Finally, incorporating Type A/B into the model indicated that the hypothesized high strain jobs combining high load and low PC proved to be stressful for Type As only.
Karasek's (1979) demand-discretion theory of job strain and satisfaction was tested in a cross-sectional survey of informal carers of elderly people (n= 108) identified from a preliminary screening survey. The theory was largely supported by the findings. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that carer well-being and satisfaction with caring work were predicted by high levels of demand arising from the needs of elderly dependents and the interaction of high demands with discretion over meeting demands. The results allow some clarification of previously inconsistent findings from caregiver well-being research and have implications for the design of services to relieve carers of the burden of care.
Although previous theory suggests that social support, job autonomy, and hierarchical level moderate role characteristics-employee outcome relationships, the strength of these moderating effects among 2046 bank employees was practically zero. These theoretical moderators and three role characteristics (conflict, ambiguity, and overload) did have direct relationships with the outcomes (job satisfaction and job search intent), as summarized by canonical correlation. Recommendations for future research are offered.
Karasek's (1979) demand–discretion model of occupational stress has been highly influential but has been criticized as confounding social class variables (Payne and Fletcher, 1983), ignoring the curvilinearity of relationships (Warr, 1991), and because it has inconsistently predicted heart disease (Ganster and Fusilier, 1989). The present study examines the ability of the model to predict raised blood pressure (a risk factor in the development of CHD), anxiety, depression, job and life satisfaction, in a large heterogeneous sample of over 3000 people. It examines the predictability of the model for men and women, taking occupational classification (manual and non-manual workers) into account, to allow some control over social class confounding. It also examines nonlinear relationships in the data.
The study showed that demands and discretion do separately predict psychological strain, job and life satisfaction, though they account for a very small percentage of the variance. There was no evidence of interactive effects which are central to the model. Where the model was able to predict blood pressure, relationships were consistently in the opposite direction to that hypothesized. There was also little evidence of curvilinear relationships. Interpersonal support was found to add significantly to the predictability of the dependent variables. The findings cast doubt on Karasek's model and suggest that emphasis should be shifted to those models which are more encompassing of support factors.
Recent research suggests that the occurrence of operational problems in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) places stressful demands on operators. Applying Karasek's demand–control model, we predict that two properties of operational problems, namely technological uncertainty and abstractness, interact with timing and method control to predict operator strain. The results failed to confirm ordinal effects for timing or method control, but showed a dis-ordinal (crossover) interaction for timing control. While these findings provide little support for the demand–control model, they suggest that two new processes, namely ‘traction–distraction’ and ‘passivity–challenge’, are critical to understanding the nature of the relationship between operational problems and operator strain in AMT systems. We describe these processes and examine the implications for future research. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Only in several controlled studies have organizational or situational stressors (in contrast to individuals) been targeted for change in order to reduce occupational stress. This study evaluates the impact of an intervention which was based on organizational development, action research and Karasek's job strain model. Employee committees conducted problem diagnosis, action planning, and action taking in two departments in a public agency. Waiting list control departments and pre- post- and follow-up assessment were utilized. Results indicated a mixed impact of the intervention in one department, but a negligible or negative impact in the other. Obstacles to the effective implementation of the intervention strategy are discussed. These included a limited focus for the committees (department-wide rather than agency-wide), the negative impact of a major agency reorganization, and the lack of a more formal management and labour commitment to maintaining the stress reduction and organizational change process.
Research into stress among health care professionals has tended to neglect staff employed in psychiatric settings. This article reports a study of psychiatric health care workers which focuses on objective work factors (job type, and community versus hospital setting) and the subjective work environment (perceived demand, discretion, and supervisor and co-worker support) as predictors of two affective outcomes (somatic symptoms and job satisfaction). Data were collected by questionnaire (n = 145) and analysed within the framework of the demand–discretion model of job stress. Objective job characteristics were significantly related to the perceived environment measures. Hierarchical regression was used to examine the extent to which each outcome was predicted by age, gender and negative affectivity (NA), by job type and work setting, and by the work environment measures. For somatic symptoms, the major predictors were NA, job type (higher occupational levels being associated with lower symptom scores), and perceived demand. In contrast, satisfaction was predicted by discretion, by both measures of support, and by the demand–discretion interaction; markedly low satisfaction was associated with high demand, low discretion conditions. Over and above these effects, NA, job type and hospital versus community work setting were significant predictors of outcome. These results are discussed in relation to the literature on stress in psychiatric health-care, and job stress more generally.
The prominence of the personality trait of Negative Affectivity (NA) in the stress literature has increased over the last decade. Negative affectivity has been widely reported both to have direct effects on measures of strain, and to act as a potential confounding variable of stressor–strain relations in self-report research (Watson and Clark, 1984). However, more recent work has demonstrated that NA can also moderate environment–outcome relationships, acting as a vulnerability factor in the stress model, or alternatively that its influence may be mediated through perceptions of the work environment. In the present study, these four possible pathways through which NA may be implicated in job satisfaction and symptom report were examined.In terms of symptom report, NA was found to have direct effects, to act as a partial confound, and to play a significant moderating (vulnerability) role. In contrast, for the prediction of job satisfaction, the influence of NA was found to be mediated through perceptions of the work environment. It is concluded that all these potential roles of NA should be more thoroughly considered in future stress research.
As a test of the job strain (job demands-control) model, 297 healthy men aged 30–60 were recruited at eight New York City worksites. The association among job demands and control, social support, and psychological outcomes was tested using both ANCOVA and moderated multiple regression, controlling for demographic variables. The job strain model was supported by various psychological outcome measures, with workers in active jobs reporting the highest level of Type A behavior, job involvement, and positive attributional style, workers in low-strain jobs reporting the lowest job dissatisfaction and trait anxiety, workers in passive jobs reporting the most external locus of control and trait anxiety, and workers in high-strain jobs reporting the highest job dissatisfaction. Low social support was associated with greater symptomatology, and a significant three-way interaction (demandscontrolsupport) for job dissatisfaction was observed. While selection of subjects into jobs may partially explain these findings, the results support the hypothesis that working conditions influence psychological attributes and distress.
The study investigated the combined additive and interactive effects of psychosocial resources, perceived control (PC) and social support (SS), on psychological outcomes of job demands. Previous studies looked at their effects separately. The study adopted the expanded Job Demands-Control-Support (JD-CS) model. It addressed existing criticisms of many studies based on the original JD-C model, by using a broad spectrum measure of job demands, a more valid PC index, and modeling statistical interactions. The results among 267 female social workers indicate that PC and SS exert an additive effect in attenuating the impact of job demands. The lowest burnout level and the highest job satisfaction were found under conditions of low stress, i.e. low demands, high PC, and high SS. The opposite occurred under high stress, i.e., high demands, low PC, and low SS. As in most other studies of the JD-C or the JD-C-S models, no evidence of an interactive effect was found.
The literature on occupational stress contains two relatively independent bodies of literature, one of which shows that stress results from high work demands and the other which indicates that stress is associated with low levels of autonomy/discretion. Recent work has also shown that social support moderates the relationship between environmental stress and psychological strain. This paper uses a model of stress which assumes that stress is a function of the balance of demands, supports, and job constraints. The model is tested on a homogeneous professional group of workers because a previous study had suggested that models of this kind are powerful enough to detect differences in psychological strain when unskilled groups are compared with managers, but not when managers are compared with managers. The empirical results of this study of teachers show very modest support for the model, but confirm that the percentage of variance accounted for by these sorts of measures is rather small.
Tested R. A. Karasek's (1979) hypothesis that perceived control interacts with various job stressors in affecting employee satisfaction and health. It was proposed that high levels of perceived stress would only be associated with poor health and negative affect in the presence of low control. 136 clerical workers (mean age 43 yrs) at a university completed questionnaires containing the measures of interest. Results fail to support the interaction hypothesis. However, measures related to both control and job stressors were found to correlate with satisfaction and health outcomes, as has been found in prior research. Limitations of the self-report and correlational methodology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)