Archive for the ‘Health Psychology’ Category
MODEL OF THE STATE OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT AND INDIVIDUAL WELL-BEING
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
As already noted, one of the limitations of much of the research on the psychological contract is that it is relatively limited in its analysis of the antecedents and consequences. One reason for this has been the emphasis on identifying and measuring the dimensions and content of the contract. Where there has been some emphasis on consequences, the focus has been directed towards breach or violation and therefore almost entirely on negative outcomes. There is a prior empirical question about whether this is an appropriate focus. An alternative framework builds on what we describe as the state of the psychological contract. This is less concerned with the content of the contract and more concerned with its delivery. Therefore while the psychological contract may contain promises about a career, workload and job content, the state of the psychological contract is Read the rest of this entry »
Psychological Contract – Health and Well-Being
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
This post examines the concept of the psychological contract and considers its relation to stress, health and well-being. Since there has been very little published work addressing this issue, the post differs somewhat from many others in this book. It starts by describing the nature of the psychological contract and explains why it has become a focus of research interest. It then outlines some of the core research on the psychological contract. Particular attention is paid to the notion of violation of the contract which begins to address the consequences for employee well-being of a breakdown of the psychological contract. The remainder of the paper presents a framework for studying the state of the psychological contract and presents data within Read the rest of this entry »
JOB SPECIFIC APPROACHES
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
Control in Advanced Manufacturing Technology
The introduction of new technology has had great impact on the design of work, an impact that is likely to increase in the future. The form that this will take has been much debated. A central element of concern is the implication of such changes for job control. While some have argued that job simplification, deskilling and reduction in control is inevitable, Wall et al. (1987) suggest that AMT technology may (at least in some circumstances) offer opportunities for improving the characteristics of workers’ jobs, including the element of autonomy.Wall et al. speculate that the more advanced the technology, the greater the choice over the design of the operators’ jobs. Read the rest of this entry »
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB CONTROL AND STRAINS
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
Research remains divided over the issue of whether job control acts as a buffer or not.Terry& Jimmieson (1999) extensively reviewed this literature and concluded that the majority of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies found little support for the interaction in predicting employee adjustment (as measured by job satisfaction, for example). They conclude, perhaps surprisingly, that the strongest support for the interaction is based on studies using objective indicators of job features and/or strains (e.g. Dwyer & Ganster, 1991; Fox et al., 1993). Some support has also been found in studies using experimental methods (Perrewe & Ganster, 1989), suggesting that control may buffer the effects of the demands of specific work tasks. Research looking at cardiovascular outcomes has seldom directly tested the interaction effect, but where it does, Terry & Jimmieson conclude that the findings have generally not been significant. Read the rest of this entry »
EFFECTS OF JOB CONTROL ON HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
In recent years, the concept of job control or decision latitude has increasingly been incorporated into many studies in the medical literature looking at a wide range of aspects of physical health. This is largely due to the success of Karasek’s model in offering a simple framework enabling key work variables central to his theory of job strain to be measured using brief scales. Thus, it has been suggested that high demands and low control (i.e. job strain) are related to musculoskeletal disorders (e.g. neck pain) in sales people (Skov et al., 1996) and adverse outcome of pregnancy in clerical and commercial workers (Brandt & Nielsen, 1992). Job strain has also been shown to be associated with non-medical drug use (Storr et al., 1999). There is less evidence for associations in the fewstudies that have looked at cancer risk (Achat et al., 2000; Courtney et al., 1996; Van Loon et al., 2000). However, the bulk of the literature focuses on cardiovascular disease and the associated risk factors. Read the rest of this entry »
Physical Health and Psychological Well-Being
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
Job Control
The amount of control or autonomy an employee has over his or her ownwork is perhaps one of the most crucial aspect of working life and one which has been extensively researched. It is a key feature of major theoretical approaches to stress (e.g. Karasek, 1979; Payne, 1979; Warr, 1987), and, together with the related concepts of discretion and autonomy, is a central feature of job design theories (Hackman & Oldham, 1980;Wall et al., 1990a). Furthermore, the importance of job control and related concepts is recognised in the management literature, where it is generally seen as important for releasing employee potential and increasing performance. For example, Peters & Waterman’s (1982) analysis of innovative companies intimately links autonomy with entrepreneurship. The related concept of “empowerment” is a central motivation for many organisational changes and total quality approaches. While control has been linked to a wide range of outcomes, including improving performance and motivation, this post focuses on the implications of the construct for health and well-being. Read the rest of this entry »
VULNERABLE VERSUS RESILIENT PERSONS
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
Beliefs about the World and One’s Relationship to it
Hardly anyone doubts that characteristics of the person strongly influence whether events and circumstances are perceived as stressful, howpeople cope with them, howthey deal with failures in coping, etc. (e.g. Cohen & Edwards, 1989; Cooper & Payne, 1991; Costa et al., 1996). The aspects to be discussed in this section are not specific coping styles but rather more general characteristics which often are thought to co-determine the more proximal coping behaviours. As the heading indicates, these characteristics typically involve beliefs about the world and one’s relationship with it, especially one’s possibilities to deal with it. Candidates for this kind of variables range from very broad ones such as hardiness (e.g. Kobasa, 1988) or sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1991, 1993) to more specific ones such as explanatory style (Peterson & Seligman, 1984), locus of control (Rotter, 1966), selfefficacy (Bandura, 1989, 1992), optimism (Scheier & Carver, 1992, 1999), and self-esteem (Brockner, 1988; Mossholder et al., 1981; see also Hobfoll, 2001, Jerusalem & Schwarzer, 1992; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Finally, although it involves more than beliefs, hostility is a central concept here (cf. Siegman, 1994a). Read the rest of this entry »
Reducing Goals (or Goal Commitment) as a Way of Reducing Stress
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
It follows from this that an efficient way of dealing with stress might be to alter one’s goals. And, indeed, one of the recommendations given by Jackson (1984) for preventing burnout is to foster realistic expectations of what can and cannot be achieved. Sch¨onpflug and colleagues (Sch¨onpflug, 1985; Krenauer & Sch¨onflug, 1980) have shown experimentally that the reduction of goals can alleviate stress. Avoiding unrealistically high goals and expectations also lies at the heart of Ellis’ “rational-emotive therapy” with its emphasis on correcting “irrational beliefs” such as being liked by everybody (Ellis & Bernard, 1985), as well as of Wanous’ concept of “realistic job preview” (Wanous, 1992). Perrez & Reicherts (1992a) propose a coping category which they call “evaluation-oriented” and which contains the change of intention or goals, and Siegrist, who emphasizes an exaggerated need for control as a risk factor, incorporates its reduction in stress management courses (Aust et al., 1997). Read the rest of this entry »
links between work stress and health
Posted by admin in Health Psychology on June 23rd, 2009
Despite many problems of individual studies, links between work stress and health— physical as well as psychological—are now quite well established (Adler & Matthews, 1994; Cooper, 1998; Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Keita & Sauter, 1992; Marmot et al., 1999; Sonnentag & Frese, in press; Theorell & Karasek, 1996). And a growing number of longitudinal studies now support the contention that work stress is, indeed, a causal factor in this process (Theorell & Karasek, 1996; Marmot et al., 1999; Siegrist, 1996; Sonnentag & Frese, in press). The relationships found are typically not very strong, with correlations between 0.20 and 0.30, and seldom higher. However, given the complex aetiology of physical morbidity and psychological symptoms, it would be strange if measures of stress at work could really explain more than about 10% of the variance (Semmer et al., 1996). In addition, the interpretation in terms of explained variance may be quite misleading and seriously underestimate the real impact of these factors, especially given the distributions of many of the variables involved, which limit the maximum correlation. As soon as one translates correlations into relative risks (Rosenthal, 1984) these turn out to be substantially higher Read the rest of this entry »