Stress
is defined as a psychological response to demands that possess certain stakes
and that tax or exceed a person’s capacity or resources (Colquitt, Lepine, and
Wesson 144). One question I had when researching stress was what are these
demands that define stress? These demands that cause people to experience
stress are called stressors (Colquitt, Lepine, and Wesson 144). . There are two
types of stressors, hindrance and challenge. Hindrance stressors are stressful
demands that are perceived as hindering progress toward personal
accomplishments or goal attainment (Colquitt, Lepine, and Wesson 145).
Challenge stressors are defined as stressful demands that are perceived as
opportunites for learning, growth, and achievement (Colquitt, Lepine, and
Wesson 145). Being able to distinguish the different types of stressors that
are influencing ones stress level is a great start when deciding on a coping
mechanism.
Hindrance
stressors are broken down into two different categories, work and nonwork. Work
hindrance stressors are sorted into role conflict, role ambiguity, role
overload, and daily hassles. Role conflict takes place when a co-worker does
not have the same expectations for yourself as you do. One of the most common forms of hindrance stressor
employees’ face is role ambiguity (Cavanaugh et al., 2000 and LePine
et al., 2004). Role ambiguity stems from uncertainty or lack of clarity
concerning one’s duties, functions and responsibilities (e.g., Ilgen and
Hollenbeck, 1991 and Peterson et al., 1995). Role overload occurs
when a task that is too large for an individual is assigned, and in order to
meet the dead line the quality of the work suffers. The last work hindrance
stressor is daily hassles. These are simple tasks that must be done, but
interfere with productivity because there are a countless number of them. Nonwork
hindrance stressors are stressful demands that take place outside of a work
environment. These stressors include work-family conflict, negative life
events, and financial uncertainty. Work-family conflict is when either work or
family consumes more time than anticipated and is dramatically affecting the
opposing setting. For example, the spouse of a married person is unhappy or
feels neglected because of the absence home life due to work related tasks.
Negative life events are tragic incidents that affect the achievement of life
goals such as death, divorce, or criminal actions. The last nonwork hindrance
stressor is financial uncertainty. This causes much unwanted stress to many
people, especially in tough economic times.
Challenge-related stressor stems from demands or circumstances
that have associated potential gains for individual, challenge stressors are
stimuli such as high workload, time pressure, and high levels of responsibility
(Liu 2). These stressors are also broken down into work and nonwork categories.
High workload is a burden that was placed on an employee that was too much for
them to handle, and working on a large assignment under large amounts of stress
takes a toll on the quality of the final product. Time pressure is defined as the perception that there is
not enough time to complete a given amount of work (Cooper, Dewe, & O’Driscoll,
2001). The last stressor that Liu mentioned was high level of responsibility.
This refers to the obligations that one person has toward a certain amount of
people. Many managers have very high stress levels because they have to oversea
all of the work completed by their inferiors and make sure everything is done
correctly and in a timely manner. Lastly, in our discussion, are the nonwork
challenge stressors. These stressors include family time demands, personal
development, and positive life events. Family time demands is the time
allocated to the to participate in family functions such as reunions,
vacations, or home improvements.
Personal development is the activities that one devotes time to better
themselves such as education programs, physical training, or some sort of
lesson. Finally, positive life events are the last nonwork challenge stressor.
These events include graduation, marriage, or the birth of a child.
Both
challenge and hindrance stressors pose great challenges in many peoples lives. It
is important to determine what type of stress is affecting you so the proper
coping strategy can be implemented. Reviews
of research on popular work stressors suggest that stressors are negatively
related to job attitudes that are associated with retention and positively
related to propensity to leave and turnover (Fisher & Gitelson, 1983;
Griffeth et al., 2000; Jackson & Schuler, 1985). Other recent research has
found that although all stressors appear to cause strain, different types of
stressors are associated with different affective and behavioral responses (Clarke)
There has been numerous research studies to see how these stressors positively
and negatively affect people in the workplace and in nonwork environments. It
has been proven that these stressors greatly affect the overall well being on
an individual, which is why it is extremely important to resort to multiple
coping strategies.
- Kyle Lachowicz
Sources
Clarke, S. (2012). The effect of challenge and hindrance stressors on
safety behavior
and safety outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational Health
Psychology, 17(4), 387-397. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029817
Dege Liu; Kan Shi, "Challenge and hindrance
stressors: Relationships with employees' work engagement," Web Society
(SWS), 2010 IEEE 2nd Symposium on , vol., no., pp.490,493, 16-17 Aug. 2010
Pearsall, Matthew J. "Coping with
Challenge and Hindrance Stressors in Teams: Behavioral, Cognitive, and
Affective Outcomes." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes (2009): 1-18.
Colquitt, Jason, Jeffery A. LePine, and
Michael J. Wesson. "Chapter 5 Stress." Organizational Behavior:
Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace. New York:
McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2011. N. pag. Print.
