1. Worker Stress, Negative Attitudes, and Counterproductive Employee Behavior INP3004
Dr. Victoria L. Pace

2. Today We will look at Worker Stress Negative Attitudes
Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)
Today

3. Defining Worker Stress
A stressor is an environmental event that is perceived by an individual to be threatening
Worker stress involves the physiological and/or psychological reactions to events that are perceived to be threatening or taxing
Negative stress (or distress) can cause stress-related illness and can affect absenteeism, turnover, and work performance
Defining Worker Stress

4. Sources of Worker Stress
Situational stress is stress arising from certain conditions that exist in the work environment or the worker’s personal life
Stressful occupations include air traffic controller, health-care provider, police officer, and firefighter
Characteristics of these jobs related to worker stress include heavy workload, poor working conditions, physical dangers, and dealing with difficult clients and coworkers
Sources of Worker Stress

5. Sources of Worker Stress
Some negative organizational conditions that can cause stress and affect work performance include work task stressors, such as
Work overload, which results when a job requires excessive speed, output, or concentration
Underutilization, resulting from workers feeling that their knowledge, skills, or energy are not being fully used
Sources of Worker Stress

6. Sources of Worker Stress
Organizational sources of worker stress include work role stressors, such as
Job ambiguity, which results from a lack of clearly defined jobs and/or work tasks
Lack of control, a feeling of having little input or effect on the job and/or work environment
Physical work conditions, including extreme temperatures, loud/distracting noises, crowding, poor lighting and ventilation (Human Factors is a field that studies the interaction of people and their environments, particularly when doing tasks)
Interpersonal stress, which results from difficulties dealing with others (coworkers, customers, supervisors) in the workplace
Sources of Worker Stress

7. Sources of Worker Stress
Work role stressors (continued)
Emotional labor, which involves the demands of regulating and controlling emotions in the workplace
Harassment, including sexual harassment, harassment due to group membership (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation), and being singled out by a coworker or supervisor
Organizational change, including mergers, changes in work technology, personnel/managerial changes
Work-family conflict: cumulative stress that results from duties of work and family roles
Sources of Worker Stress

8. Emotional display rules are particularly pertinent for employees in customer service roles.
However, smiling when you’re not feeling happy can take its toll. We call the effort needed to display emotion that may be inconsistent with our actual feelings emotional labor.
Emotional dissonance is stressful
Emotional labor can take two forms:
Surface acting– pretending (to not be angry when actually fuming over a rude customer, for example)
Deep acting– getting yourself to actually feel the positive emotion (convincing yourself that your displayed emotions are authentic)
We know from research that deep acting tends to lead to less stress and fewer negative effects on the part of the person doing emotional labor than does surface acting.
Emotional Labor

9. Sources of Worker Stress
Individual (dispositional) sources of work stress include
The Type A behavior pattern, a personality characterized by excessive drive, competitiveness, impatience, and hostility
Measured by the Jenkins Activity Scale (JAS) and the Framingham Type A Scale (FTAS)
Susceptibility to stress vs. hardiness, the notion that some people may be more resistant to the health-damaging effects of stress
Self-efficacy, an individual’s beliefs in his/her abilities to engage in courses of action that will lead to desired outcomes
Sources of Worker Stress

10. Measurement of Worker Stress
Physiological measures of stress include blood pressure monitoring, EKGs for heart rate, or blood tests for stress-linked hormones (cortisol) and cholesterol
Difficulties with such measures include variation of such physiological processes within each person throughout the day, and variation between individuals
Medical personnel are needed to administer such measures
Measurement of Worker Stress

11. Measurement of Worker Stress
Self-report assessments of stress include reports about organizational conditions and reports about psychological and/or physical states
Reports on organizational conditions involve questions about job autonomy, feedback, task identity, task significance, skill variety, workload, etc.
Self-report measures of psychological/physical stress include the Stress Diagnostic Survey, the Occupational Stress Indicator, and the Job Stress Survey
Measurement of Worker Stress

12. Measurement of Worker Stress
Measurement of stressful life events involves self-reports of significant events in a person’s recent history that can cause stress
One measure is the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, a checklist where individuals total the numerical “stress severity” scores associated with significant life events experienced in the past year
Research suggests that persons with high personal stress indexes perform more poorly, have higher absenteeism, and change jobs more frequently (Bhagat, 1983)
Measurement of Worker Stress

13. Measurement of Worker Stress
Person-environment fit (P-E fit) refers to the match between a worker’s abilities, needs, and values, and organizational demands, rewards, and values
P-E fit is positively related to organizational commitment and negatively related to turnover (Hult, 2005)
Measurement of P-E fit involves assessing worker skills and abilities, along with job demands and features of the work environment
Measurement of Worker Stress

14. Effects of Worker Stress
Stress-related illnesses include ulcers, colitis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and migraine headaches. Stress can worsen common colds and infections.
The relationship between stress and performance is complex, and generally is curvilinear (involving an inverted U), where both very low and very high stress are associated with poor performance
Effects of Worker Stress

15. Effects of Worker Stress
Job burnout is a syndrome resulting from prolonged exposure to work stress that leads to withdrawal from the organization
Burnout is especially high in human service professions
Burnout can be measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory
Burnout occurs in three phases:
Emotional Exhaustion– often also accompanied by feelings of being drained or physically weary
Depersonalization– treating the people you serve, care for, or instruct as objects
Low Personal Accomplishment– frustration over lack of importance or meaning of the work
Effects of Worker Stress

16. Emotions at work Ashkanasy, Hartel, & Daus (2002) found that
Negative moods were associated with low job satisfaction, and more absence and turnover
Others have linked negative emotion to increased levels of Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)
Emotions at work

17. Counterproductive Work Behavior includes such things as
Forms of Withdrawal: Lateness, Absence, Turnover
Withholding effort and/or information
Interpersonal Aggression (bullying, gossiping, incivility), Sabotage, Theft
Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB): Subtle and More Obvious Forms of Aggression

18. Negative Employee Attitudes and Behaviors
Counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) are deviant, negative behaviors that are harmful to an organization and its workers
Meta-analyses suggest that CWBs are more prevalent in younger employees and those with lower job satisfaction (Lau et al., 2003)
CWBs, and workplace aggression and violence, are linked to trait negative affectivity, anger, and other personality variables (Douglas & Martinko, 2001)
The incidence of CWBs is negatively related to the incidence of organizational citizenship behaviors (Dalal, 2005)
Negative Employee Attitudes and Behaviors

19. Negative Employee Attitudes and Behaviors
Alcohol and drug use in the workplace is related to workplace accidents, decreased productivity, increased absenteeism and turnover, costing billions of dollars annually
Workers who report problems with alcohol or drugs have greater job instability and lower job satisfaction
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) involve counseling provided for a variety of worker problems, particularly drug and alcohol abuse
Negative Employee Attitudes and Behaviors

20. Counterproductive Work Behavior
What motivates employee withdrawal and aggression?
Personality factors:
Negative Affectivity, Trait Anger and Trait Anxiety have been positively linked to CWB
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability have displayed negative relationships to CWB
Needs:
Need for well-being
Need for self-esteem
Need to uphold norm of justice
We will look at these needs on the next few slides
Counterproductive Work Behavior

21. Lack of Well-Being Frustration
They’re holding you back from your goal or introducing barriers to goal attainment
Frustration can lead to aggression against those considered at fault, but also those not associated with the frustrating event. (Encounter rude customers at work get annoyed with your roommate)
Environmental Stressors
Heat, smoke, noise
Lack of Well-Being
Hostile attribution bias (Nasby, Hayden, & DePaulo, 1979)

22. Threat to Self-Esteem, Violation of Norms
They’re engaging in physical or verbal abuse toward you or those you care about
How we interpret the other’s motives (intentional, directed at us) influences our response; some people exhibit hostile attribution bias (aggressive people are more likely to think of others as having hostile intent)
Retaliation can also occur due to embarrassment, shame
Norms
“That’s not how we do things”
Justice: “It’s not right/fair”; Desire to even the score
Enforcing social rules and understandings
Threat to Self-Esteem, Violation of Norms

23. Coping with Stress Organizational coping strategies
Stress management programs and other training
Job redesign to enhance person-job fit
Orientation/socialization and buddy/mentoring programs (especially for newcomers)
Increasing employee sense of control (responsibility, autonomy)
Using rewards rather than punishments
Eliminate unhealthy work conditions
Encourage co-worker support and teamwork rather than competitiveness
Enhance communication (more information and understanding can facilitate tasks and lead to greater feelings of security)
Employee assistance programs (EAPs)
Coping with Stress

24. Coping with Worker Stress
Individual coping strategies are techniques such as exercise, meditation, humor, cognitive restructuring, or letting it go (forgiveness) that can be used to deal with work stress
More efficient work methods, including time management, may also be used, although their success depends on individual commitment
Vacation time and voluntary absences may also be used to reduce stress, although the missed work may increase stress upon the employee’s return to work
Coping with Worker Stress

25. Summary Today, topics included Employee Stress Negative Attitudes CWB
Next lecture, we cover
Leadership and Power in Organizations (Chapter 13 and parts of 14)
Don’t forget!
The Service Learning Project presentations are coming (ask one group member to submit it per group; see Syllabus for due date). The class will view and rate the presentations and you may later deliver your group’s “product” to a client organization. Let’s do such a great job that those clients rave and send me a letter or  (If they do, I’ll pass it on so that you can add it to your resume/application materials if desired.) I will also ask them to respond to a satisfaction survey.
Summary