chapter 4 management 110 lecture

Stress

A feeling of emotional or physical tension.

Stressors

Conditions, events, or demands that can produce emotional or physical tension.

Strain

The feeling experienced when a person's resources become depleted by demands.

Workplace stress

Tension connected to employment demands, conditions, relationships, or expectations.

Sustained stress

Tension that continues over an extended period and can damage well-being and work results.

Individual and organizational consequences

The two levels at which the chapter examines the effects of work-related tension.

Increasing work demands

The trend in which employers expect people to accomplish more, contributing to greater pressure.

Gig-economy uncertainty

Pressure associated with freelance arrangements that may involve unreliable income and irregular hours.

Always-connected technology

Digital access that makes it difficult to separate employment from personal time.

Up to 80 percent

The proportion of U.S. workers reported in the chapter's cited research as experiencing significant tension in their jobs.

55 percent after 11 p.m. and 59 percent on holidays

The shares of employees in a cited survey who accessed work email during these off-duty periods.

Selective perception under pressure

The tendency to notice only part of the available information when demands become intense.

Fixation on one solution

Becoming stuck on a single answer to a problem rather than considering alternatives under pressure.

Returning to old habits

Relying on familiar responses to current problems when demands become intense.

Reduced creativity

A performance consequence of excessive tension in which people generate fewer fresh ideas.

Overestimating how quickly time passes

The distorted sense of elapsed time described among the effects of high pressure.

Physical and psychological health consequences

The two broad categories of personal harm the chapter associates with prolonged tension.

Sleep dysfunction

Problems with the amount or quality of rest, discussed as both a consequence of tension and a source of workplace problems.

Poor sleep and workplace outcomes

The chapter's association between inadequate rest and job dissatisfaction, misconduct, injuries, and abusive supervision.

Higher health costs, absence, and turnover with lower commitment

The organizational outcomes the chapter associates with excessive employee tension.

Up to 300 billion dollars annually

The historical estimate the chapter gives for the yearly U.S. organizational costs of work-related tension.

Over 120,000 U.S. deaths

The estimate attributed to a research report in the chapter concerning mortality associated with workplace tension.

Eustress

Controlled, productive pressure that provides helpful arousal and motivation.

Hans Selye

The researcher identified as the father of stress research who named its productive form.

Distress

Harmful pressure that exceeds a person's helpful level and interferes with functioning.

Stress-performance curve

The inverted-U diagram showing results rising with increasing pressure up to a peak, then falling as pressure becomes excessive.

Optimum stress level

The point on the chapter's curve at which pressure supports the highest performance.

Too little and too much pressure can both reduce performance

The central comparison illustrated by the chapter's inverted-U curve.

Different people have different optimum levels

The principle that the amount of pressure supporting a person's best work varies from one individual to another.

Manage stress rather than eliminate all of it

The chapter's recommendation to understand and regulate pressure so its useful effects are preserved and harm is reduced.

Constant checker

A person who frequently monitors email, texts, and social media updates.

86 percent

The share of U.S. adults identified in the chapter's cited APA survey as frequently monitoring digital messages and updates.

29 percent

The share of frequent phone users in the cited survey who said that checking their devices was itself stressful.

42 percent versus 27 percent

The survey comparison between frequent and less-frequent device users who worried about social media's effects on their health.

Feeling disconnected while physically with family

The relationship problem reported more often by frequent digital-message monitors in the cited survey.

Political and cultural social-media discussions

The online activities singled out in the chapter as potentially adding to digital pressure.

Digital detox

A deliberate break from connected devices or online activity.

65 percent endorsed breaks, but 28 percent took them

The gap the cited survey found between valuing time away from technology and actually doing it.

Disable notifications and set device-free times

The practical suggestions in the chapter for reducing digital interruptions during meals and time with friends or family.

Environment, relationships, work tasks, and personal dispositions

The broad sources the chapter says can help explain why people experience tension.

Diagnosing the source before selecting a response

The principle that an effective coping approach depends on understanding where pressure comes from.

Hindrance stressors

Demands perceived as blocking achievement, growth, or progress toward goals.

Challenge stressors

Demands perceived as opportunities for learning, development, or accomplishment.

Both challenge and hindrance demands can create strain

The shared effect of the two categories even though their other outcomes may differ.

Better attitudes and performance with less turnover

The outcomes generally associated with growth-oriented demands in the research described.

Worse attitudes and performance with more turnover

The outcomes generally associated with demands experienced as barriers to progress.

Role ambiguity

Uncertainty about what an employee is expected to do or how the work should be performed.

Role conflict

Incompatible expectations connected to multiple responsibilities or sources of direction.

Role overload

Work expectations that exceed the available time, resources, or personal capacity needed to meet them.

Unclear, incompatible, and excessive expectations

The comparison among the three main work-role barriers discussed in the chapter.

Matrix organization

A structure in which employees may report to both a department manager and a project manager.

Two managers with incompatible instructions

The example in which an employee cannot satisfy both sources of direction at the same time.

Working hard on the wrong activities

A possible result of unclear expectations, when effort is spent on tasks unrelated to the required goals.

Safety lapses, dissatisfaction, reduced commitment, and intentions to quit

The negative outcomes associated with work-role barriers in the chapter's research discussion.

Daily hassles

Small but frequent demands or obstacles that slow people down and make progress more difficult.

Interruptions at work

The common example of repeated minor obstacles whose accumulated effects increase tension and reduce well-being.

Mood, fatigue, and perceived workload

The outcomes the chapter identifies as especially affected by frequent minor obstacles.

Work-family conflict

Incompatible demands between employment and home responsibilities, with interference possible in either direction.

Work interfering with family and family interfering with work

The two directions in which employment and home demands can clash.

Emotional exhaustion, lower performance, and greater workplace conflict

The work-related consequences the chapter links to high levels of incompatible home and job demands.

Time pressures

Deadlines or milestones that create urgency and can focus effort when expectations remain reasonable.

Course-project deadline example

The illustration that a due date can encourage students to start and concentrate on important work.

Impossible deadlines lose their positive effects

The limitation that urgency cannot help when demands make acceptable results unattainable.

Workload

The amount of work assigned to an employee.

Moderate workload versus role overload

The distinction between a manageable amount of effort that can encourage engagement and expectations that exceed capacity.

Engagement, dedication, and learning

The outcomes associated with moderate assigned work in the research described.

Level of responsibility

The scope of an employee's accountability for work and results.

Greater accountability can encourage goal achievement

The reason the chapter classifies increased responsibility as a potentially productive demand.

Transactional theory

The explanation that a person's response to pressure develops through interaction with the environment and interpretation of demands.

Primary appraisal

The initial judgment of how a potential demand or threat could affect you.

Secondary appraisal

The assessment of what you can do and what resources you have to respond to a perceived threat.

Coping

Mental or behavioral efforts used to respond to a demanding situation.

Primary appraisal, secondary appraisal, and coping

The sequence of interpreting potential impact, judging available responses, and taking action in the chapter's transactional account.

Changing the environment

A coping approach that removes or avoids a source of pressure when doing so is possible.

Changing one's response

A coping approach that uses different interpretations, relaxation, or breathing when the source cannot easily be avoided.

Seeking help from others

A coping response that draws on another person's assistance or encouragement.

Personality influences stress appraisal

The principle that personal tendencies affect both how demands are interpreted and which responses are chosen.

Type A behavior pattern

A style marked by urgency, intense achievement striving, competitiveness, speed, and a desire to control circumstances.

Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman

The cardiologists named for studying the connection between personality patterns and cardiovascular disease.

Doing everything quickly and seeking control

The behaviors the chapter associates with a highly competitive, hurried approach to achievement.

Demand-control model

The explanation that job pressure depends on both what the work requires and how much discretion the employee has.

Job demands

The physical, intellectual, and emotional requirements placed on a worker.

Job control

The employee's freedom and discretion in deciding how to carry out work.

High demands combined with low control

The combination the chapter associates with particularly high pressure and greater illness risk.

Nurses, food-service workers, and customer-service representatives

The occupations used to illustrate demanding work with relatively strict procedures and limited discretion.

Managers, journalists, and engineers

The occupations used to illustrate demanding work that may also allow greater discretion.

Telecommuting

Working away from the employer's usual workplace, often from home for part of the week.

59 percent of U.S. employers

The historical share the chapter estimates offered some form of regular or occasional work from home.

Less exhaustion, greater satisfaction and commitment, and less quitting

The employee outcomes associated with working from home in the research summarized.

Mixed performance effects of telecommuting

The finding that moderate home working may improve results or have no effect, rather than guaranteeing higher productivity.

Well-being benefits rather than guaranteed productivity gains

The chapter's main reason for considering home-working arrangements.

Social support

Comfort, encouragement, or practical help received from coworkers, supervisors, friends, or family.

Buffering effect

The way assistance from others can reduce the harmful impact of difficult demands.

Burnout

A state of depletion or exhaustion associated with prolonged work-related demands.

Resilience

The capacity to withstand pressure, adapt, and recover from difficulties.

No coping strategy works for everyone in every situation

The chapter's caution to match an approach to the individual and the particular demands involved.

Psychological hardiness

The ability to remain mentally stable and healthy while facing significant pressure.

Physical fitness, commitment, control, social connectedness, and challenge

The five factors the chapter identifies as helping people stay well under pressure.

Physical fitness

Maintaining bodily condition through activity, which the chapter links to greater energy and better resistance to tension.

Active workstations

Work setups that allow employees to walk or cycle while carrying out their duties.