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Stress Management
Stress Management
LESSON
16
STRESS
CONTENTS
16.0 Aims and Objectives
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Meaning & Definition of Stress
16.3 The General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
16.3.1 Alarm Stage
16.3.2 Resistance
16.3.3 Exhaustion
16.4 Approaches to Stress
16.4.1 The Homeostatic / Medical Approach
16.4.2 The Cognitive Appraisal Approach
16.4.3 The Person-Environment Fit Approach
16.4.4 The Psychoanalytic Approach
16.5 The Causes of Stress
16.5.1 Internal Stimuli for Stress
16.5.2 Environmental Stressors
16.6 Individual Response to Stress (Influence of Personality)
16.7 Consequences of Stress
16.8 Managing Stress
16.9 Framework for Preventive Stress Management
16.10 Managerial Implications of Stress
16.11 Let us Sum up
16.12 Lesson-end Activities
16.13 Keywords
16.14 Questions for Discussion
16.15 Suggested Readings
16.1 INTRODUCTION
Stress is an exceedingly complex concept that does not lend itself to a simple definition.
It can best be understood in terms of the internal and external conditions necessary for
its arousal and the symptoms by which it is identified. Its identifiable symptoms are both
psychological and physiological. Stress carries a negative connotation for some people,
as though it were something to be avoided. This is unfortunate, because stress is a great
asset in managing legitimate emergencies and achieving peak performance.
Level of Normal
Resistance
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cope and feels anxiety, even panic. The person breathes faster, blood pressure rises, Stress
pupils dilate and muscles tense. At this stage, the person is coping ineffectively.
16.3.2 Resistance
Assuming the person can summon the resources to cope with the stressor, he or she
begin to feel more confident and to think of how to respond. During the second stage of
the general adaptation syndrome, "resistance", the person channels his or her energy and
uses it to resist the stressor's negative effects. The person tackles the problem, delegates
the challenge, or adjusts to the change. Resistance to the stressor is high, but the person's
resistance to other stressors may be low because the body's resources are being used
up. Evidence shows that a person's immune system function tends to decline during
periods of stress.
16.3.3 Exhaustion
Many stressors are short term - the person can solve the problem, or the situation ends
on its own. In such cases, the general adaptation syndrome ends during resistance stage.
But occasionally a stressor persists. In situations where stressors persist, the person
may enter the third stage: exhaustion. In this stage, the symptoms of the alarm stage
return and the person eventually uses up his or her adaptive energy.
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Principles of Management and
Organisational Behaviour
EVENT
EVALUATION OF
EVENT
STRESS; NO STRESS
ACTIVATION
OF
SYMPATHETIC
SYSTEM
Note: Lazarus believes that evaluation of some kind, conscious or unconscious, always precedes emotion. Thus
a given event may be highly stressful for one person, only slightly stressful or not at all for a second person.
Source: R.S Lazarus, "Psychological Stress and the Coping Process" McGraw-Hill, New York (1966).
Figure 16.2: Lazarus's Approach to Stress
Lazarus saw stress as a result of a person-environment interaction, and he emphasized
the person's cognitive appraisal in classifying persons or events as stressful or not.
Individual differ in their appraisal of events and people. What is stressful for one person
may not be stressful for another. Perception and cognitive appraisal are important
processes in determining what is stressful, and a person's organizational position can
shape such perception.
To the extent that stress is related to our interpretation of an event, not simply to the
event itself, people can learn to cope with potentially stressful events. They can learn to
deal with events actively instead of feeling threatened by them. Therefore, stress would
have to include not only the unpleasant events (hassles) that we have to deal with but
also the pleasant events (uplifts) that brighten our day and help to cancel out the unpleasant
events. The figure below lists ten most frequent hassles and uplifts
TEN M OST FREQUENT HASSLES AND UPLIFTS
HASSLES UPLIFTS
1. Concerns about weight 1. Relating well with your spouse or
2. Health of a family member lover.
3. Raising prices of common goods. 2. Relating well with friends.
4. Home maintenance. 3. Completing a task.
5. Too many things to do. 4. Feeling healthy.
6. Misplacing or losing things. 5. Getting enough sleep.
7. Yard work or outside home 6. Eating out.
maintenance. 7. Meeting your responsibilities.
8. Property, investment, or taxes. 8. Visiting, phoning or writing someone.
9. Crime. 9. Spending time with family.
10. Physical appearance. 10. Hone (inside) pleasing to you.
Source: Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer, and Lazarus (1981).
1. Define stress.
2. What do you mean by General Adaptation syndrome?
3. Explain the approaches to stress.
4. Explain in detail the homeostatic approach to stress.
Impatience
Aggressiveness
Irritability; hostility
Restlessness; excess energy
Devotion to work
Feeling of intense time pressure
Attempts to accomplish several things at once.
Competitiveness, emphasis on measurable accomplishments
Source: Patrick M Wright, Raymond A Noe “Management of Organizations” Irwin McGraw Hill, Boston (1996) page 706.
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Principles of Management and may receive much of their socio-emotional support form personal relationships
Organisational Behaviour
outside the workplace, some socio-emotional support within the workplace is
also necessary for psychological well-being. Social support system can be
enhanced through the work environment in a number of ways. These relations
provide emotional caring, information, evaluative feedback, modelling and
instrumental support.
(G) Organizational Culture: The organization's culture can help employees manage
stress by limiting stress, strengthening coping skills and providing shared values
and beliefs. Such a culture recognizes that employees are human beings in
need of rest, social support, and a good laugh once in a while.
Employee Stress Isn't a Management Problem
The recent attention given to employee stress by behavioral scientists has blown totally
out of proportion. Undoubtedly, a small proportion of the working population suffers from
stress. These people have ongoing headaches, ulcers, high blood pressure and the like.
They may even turn to alcohol and drugs as an outlet to deal with their stress. But if there
is a problem, it's a medical one. It's not a management problem. In support of this position,
I argue that: (1) stress is not that important because human beings are highly adaptive; (2)
most stress that employees experience is of the positive type; and (3) even if the first two
points were't relevant, a good portion of what causes excessive work stress tends to be
uncontrollable by management anyway.
Those who seem to be so concerned about employee stress forget that people are more
adaptable than we traditionally give them credit for. Individuals are amazingly resilient.
Most successfully adjust to illnesses, misfortune, and other changes in their lives. All
through their school years, they adapted to the demands that dozens of teachers put on
them. They survived the trials of puberty, dating, beginning and ending relationships, and
leaving home - to name a few of the more potentially stressful times we have all gone
thrrough. By the time individuals enter the work force, they have experienced many difficult
situations and, for the most part, they have adjusted to each. There is no reason to believe
this ability to adapt to changing or uncomfortable conditions breaks down once people
begin their working careers.
Stress, like conflict, has a positive as well as a negative side. But that positive side tends to
be overshadowed by concern with the negative. A life without stress is a life without
challenge, stimulation, or change. Many positive and exciting life events - marriage, the
birth of a child, inheriting a large sum of money, buying a new home, a job promotion,
vacations - have been found to create stress. Does that mean these positive events should
be avoided? The answer is obviously "No". Unfortunately, when most people talk about
stress and the need to reduce it, they tend to overlook its positive side.
Finally, there is the reality that many sources of employee stress are outside the control of
management. Management can't control environmental factors. If stress is due to an inherent
personality characteristic, here again, the source lies outside management's control. Most
other individual factors, too, are outside management's influence. Even if stresses created
by such individual factors as family and economic problems can be influenced by managerial
actions, there remains the ethical question: Does management have the right to interfere in
an employee's personal life? Undoubtedly, a good portion of any employee's total stress
level is created by factors that are uncontrollable by management - martial problems, divorce,
children who get into trouble, poor personal financial management, uncertainty over the
economy, societal norms to achieve and acquire material symbols of success, pressures of
living in a fast-paced, urban world, and the like. The actions of management didn't create
these stressors. Most are just part of modern living. More importantly, employers can do
little to lessen these stressors without extending their influence beyond the organization
and into the employee's personal life. That's something most of us would agree is outside
the province of the employer-employee relationship.
Source: Stephen P Robbins "Organizational Behaviour - concepts, controversies and applications" (seventh edition) Prentice
.Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ507632 (1996).
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Stress
16.9 FRAMEWORK FOR PREVENTIVE STRESS
MANAGEMENT
Stress is an inevitable feature of work and personal life. Individual and organizational
distress are not inevitable. A framework for understanding preventive stress management
is presented in the Figure 16.8
Organizational Stressors
§ Task Demands Primary Prevention
§ Role Demands Stressor Directed HEALTH RISK
§ Physical
Demands FACTORS
§ Interpersonal
Demands
Distress
Individual
§ Behavioural
Problems
§ Psychological Tertiary Prevention
Problems
SYMPTOMATIC
§ Medical Symptom Directed DISEASE
Problems
Organizational
§ Direct Costs
§ Indirect Costs
Source: J. D. Quick, R.S Horn and J. S Quick, "Health Consequences of Stress" Journal of Organizational
Behaviour Management 8, No 2, figure 1 (fall 1986), 21.
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Principles of Management and
Organisational Behaviour 16.10 MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF STRESS
Stress is an inevitable result of work and personal life. Managers must learn how to
create healthy stress for employees to facilitate performance and well being without
distress. They should be sensitive to early signs of distress at work, such as employee
fatigue or changes in work habits, in order to avoid serious forms of distress. Distress is
important to the organization because of the costs associated with turnover and
absenteeism, as well as poor-quality production. Managers can use the principles and
methods of preventive stress management to create healthier work environments. They
can practice several forms of individual stress prevention to create healthier lifestyles
for themselves, and they can encourage employees to do the same.
16.13 KEYWORDS
Stress
GAS
Homeostatic Approach
Psycho Analytic Approach
Stressors
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Stress
16.14 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Define stress.
2. Describe the four approaches to understanding stress.
3. Explain the benefits of Eustress and the costs Distress.
4. Why should organizations help individuals to manage stress?
5. Why should organizations be concerned about stress at work? What are the costs
of distress to organizations?
6. What physiological changes occur in the alarm phase of the General Adaptation
Syndrome? How is each change adaptive to organizations?
7. Describe the relationship between stress and performance.
8. What personality characterises or traits are likely to contribute to a high threshold
of resistance to stress?
9. What can organizations do to reduce stress?
10. How do the type A behaviour pattern, personality hardiness and self-reliance
moderate the relationship between stress and strain?
11. Describe the individual preventive stress management methods.
12. Describe the major organizational stress prevention methods.
13. What is primary prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention of stress.
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