Definition and conceptualization of stress in organizations

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIORAND HUMAN PERFORMANCE25, 184-215 (1980)

Definition and Conceptualization of Stress in Organizations RANDALL S. SCHULER

The Ohio State University Stress in organizations is an extremely important phenomenon. It is generally associated with several vital individual physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms. Yet not a great deal is known about stress, either academically or organizationally. There exists no common definition or conceptualization of stress; therefore, an integrative research effort and a cumulative body of stress knowledge do not exist. The purpose of this paper is to offer such a definition and conceptualization of stress in organizations in order to facilitate a greater understanding of this important phenomenon. Several propositions and methodological considerations are suggested after the definition and conceptualization are presented. The perspective of this paper is of an understanding an individual's stress in an organization.

Stress in organizations is becoming an increasingly important concern in both academic research and organizational practices. Yet there is still a great deal not known about stress in organizations (Zaleznik, Kets de Vries, & Howard, 1977; Beehr & Newman, 1978; House, 1974; Cooper & Marshall, 1976). What is known about stress, however, suggests that the importance being given is warranted, perhaps overdue. The preponderance of stress knowledge has been derived from the research done in the medical and health sciences; thus application of that knowledge and generation of new research knowledge on stress in organizational behavior research are needed. The evidence in the medical and health sciences suggests that the influence of stress in organizations may be reaching epidemic proportions. Among the diseases or symptoms most frequently related to stress in organizations are peptic ulcers, cardiovascular disorders, and high blood pressure. It is estimated that the economic cost of peptic ulcers and cardiovascular disease alone in the United States is about 45 billion dollars annually (Moser, 1977; Putt, 1970). Cardiovascular disease is the major contributing factor to disability and hospital care in the United States. For every employee killed in an industrial accident, 50 suffer from cardiovasThe author wishes to acknowledge the constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper provided by Robert J. House, Beryl J. Packer, Thomas W. Milburn, Ken Watman, and an anonymous reviewer and a small grant from the College of Administrative Science, The Ohio State University. Requests for reprints should be sent to Randall S. Schuler, The Ohio State University, College of Administrative Science, 1775 College Road, Columbus, OH 43210. 184 0030- 5073/80/020184-32502.00/0 Copyright © 1980 by Academic Press, Inc.

All rightsof reproductionin any formreserved.

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cular disease (Moser, 1977). Because of the importance of cardiovascular disease, a majority of the medical and health sciences research has focused on hypertension or high blood pressure, in order to understand and attenuate this known primary cause of cardiovascular disease. In addition, a major portion of the remaining medical and health sciences research is closely tied to cardiovascular disease and hypertension since it is f o c u s e d on a n a l y s e s of c a t e c h o l a m i n e p r o d u c t i o n in h u m a n s . Catecholamines examined most extensively are adrenaline and noradrenaline (Frankenhaeuser & Gardell, 1976). Although a major portion of the medical and health sciences research examines hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and catecholamine production, these are not the only symptoms of stress examined, particularly in the limited stress research done in organizational behavior and industrial psychology. In addition, a large number of other symptoms have been hypothesized to be stress related. The additional symptoms, along with those already mentioned, can be classified into three main categories (Beehr & Newman, 1978). The categories, shown in Table 1, are physiological, psychological (cognitive/affective), and behavioral. A perusal of Table 1 reveals that the typical or common organizational behavior and industrial psychology variables examined, e.g., satisfaction and performance, may be only two of several important foci of attention in stress research. In fact, based upon the definition and conceptualization of stress in organizations presented below, it will be argued that these two variables s h o u l d n o t be the only two or the only common variables of interest to organizational behavior and industrial psychology researchers. Because of the hypothesized complex, multisymptomatic nature of stress in organizations, satisfaction and/or performance may be important but only selective indicators of stress in organizations. And by focusing research attention primarily on satisfaction and performance in organizations, we m a y be overlooking other data and organizational and individual qualities which may be even more directly related to the costs of operations of organizations and employee health. It is important to note, however, that such a suggestion for research is based upon a limited amount of previous stress-related research, research which has generally been fraught with severe methodological limitations (Beehr & Newman, 1978). Nevertheless, stress appears to be related to a large number of important physiological, psychological, and behavioral conditions, and this is the basis for making stress an important focus of organizational behavior and industrial psychology research. The fact that stress seems to be related to such a large number of conditions has in part prevented systematic focus on stress in organizations (House, 1974; Selye, 1973; Beehr & Newman, 1978). That is, it has been stated that essentially stress is too all encompassing a phenomenon,

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1. Physiological Short term: Long term: Nonspecific:

Heart rate, GSR, respiration, headache Ulcer, blood pressure, heart attack A d r e n a l i n e , n o r a d r e n a l i n e , t h y m u s d e d u c t i o n , lymph deduction, gastric acid production, ACTH production

2. Psychological responses (affective and cognitive) Fight or withdrawal Apathy, resignation, boredom Regression Fixation Projection Negativism Fantasy Expression of boredom with much of everything Forgetfulness Tendency to misjudge people Uncertainty about whom to trust Inability to organize self Inner confusion about duties or roles Dissatisfaction High intolerance for ambiguity, do not deal well with new or strange situations Tunnel vision Tendency to begin vacillating in decision making Tendency to become distraught with trifles Inattentiveness: Loss of power to concentrate Irritability Procrastination Feelings or persecution Gut-level feelings or unexplainable dissatisfaction 3. Behavior A. Individual consequences Loss of appetite Sudden, noticeable loss or gain of weight Sudden change or appearance: decline/improvement in dress Sudden change of complexion (sallow, reddened, acne) Sudden change or hair style and length Difficult breathing Sudden change of smoking habits Sudden change in use of alcohol B. Organizational consequences Low performance--quality/quantity Low job involvement Loss of responsibility Lack of concern for organization Lack of concern for colleagues Loss of creativity Absenteeism Voluntary turnover Accident proneness

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too large to investigate. Compounding and perpetuating this view of stress is the fact that stress remains a term without conceptualization and without definitional and operational agreement (Selye, 1975; Mason, 1975; Beehr & Newman, 1978). Indeed several authors suggest that the stress concept should be relegated to a secondary position behind a more general framework of "stress research" (House, 1974; McGrath, 1970; Levine & Scotch, 1970; Jenkins, 1971). An attempt will be made here, however, to develop a conceptualization of stress in order to facilitate the investigation of stress in organizations. This conceptualization will encompass not only the symptoms of stress but also several organizational and individual qualities associated with stress as well as a definition of stress. Then based upon the conceptualization and definition of stress, several propositions for future research will be offered. Perhaps it is most appropriate to begin by providing the definition of stress, then investigate selected organizational and individual qualities associated with stress, reexamine the several symptoms associated with stress and their potential interrelationships, and then conclude with the propositions for future research. WHAT IS STRESS IN ORGANIZATIONS? " S t r e s s is the nonspecific response to any d e m a n d " (Selye, 1956). " S t r e s s is an external f o r c e operating on a system, be it an organization or a person. Strain is the change in the state of the internal system which results from this external stress--stress and strain, they are not synonymous" (Hall & Mansfield, 1971). Stress has also been defined in terms of a misfit between a person's skills and abilities and d e m a n d s o f the j o b and a misfit in terms o f a person's needs supplied by the j o b environment (French, Rogers, & Cobb, 1974). Caplan, Cobb, French, Van Harrison, and Pinneau (1975) define it as " a n y characteristic o f the j o b environment which p o s e s a threat to the individual." Margolis, Kroes, and Quinn (1974) utilize Cannon's (1929) concept of physiological homeostasis by defining stress as " a condition at work interacting with worker characteristics to disrupt psychological or physiological homeostasis." Beehr and Newman (1978) after an extensive review of selected research on stress define "job stress as a condition wherein j o b related factors interact with the worker to change (disrupt or enhance) his~her psychological or physiological condition such that the person (mind and~or body) is f o r c e d to deviate f r o m normal f u n c t i o n i n g . " Beehr and Newman suggest that stress arises from conditions which may be regarded as either positive (enhancement) or negative (disruption). McGrath (1976) prefers to define stress in terms o f a set o f conditions as having stress in it. " S t r e s s involves an interaction o f person and environment. Something happens " o u t there" which presents a person with a

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McGrath suggests situations have potential for stress when they have demands which are perceived to threaten to exceed a person's capabilities to meet them and where there are substantial differences in rewards and costs from meeting versus not meeting the demands. He adds, however, that the uncertainty of the rewards and costs also influences a person's arousal (an indicator of stress). Cooper and Marshall (1976) indicate " b y occupational stress is m e a n t negative environmental f a c t o r s or stressors (e.g., work overload, role conflict/ambiguity, poor working conditions) associated with a particular job." It is apparent from these common definitions of stress that in most of the stress research in organizational behavior and industrial psychology, organizational qualities and individual qualities have been used to define stress (French, 1974; Cooper & Marshall, 1976; McGrath, 1976; Beehr & Newman, 1978). That is, stress is a Person-Environment (Lofquist & Davis, 1969) or role fit or the interaction of the characteristics of the individual and the potential sources of stress in the work environment. Frequently, the importance to an individual's stress of the environmental aspects outside the organization is also discussed. Indeed the nonwork environment aspects are important but they will be only briefly touched on later. These definitions of stress as generally being a type of Person-Environment ( P - E ) fit, however, tend to suggest that individuals are "under stress" particularly when the demands of the environment exceed (or threaten to exceed) a person's capabilities and resources to meet them or the needs of the person are not being supplied by the job environment. Both of these variations of the general definition of stress as a P ' E fit cloak stress in rather unauspicious clothing. On the one hand, stress occurs when an individual is either overwhelmed by "negative environmental factors or stressors" (Cooper & Marshall, 1976) or on the other hand when the environment fails to supply the needs of the individual (an excess or deficit P - E model of stress). Even McGrath (1976), who appeared to initially define stress vis-a-vis demands, constraints, and opportunities, placed stress in a framework of behavior in organizations which generally reflected "negative environmental factors or stressors" more highly related to demands or constraints than opportunities. Thus many of the definitions of stress "give it a bad name" (although passing mention is usually given tO the inverted U relationship between stress and performance or the fact that stress has its positive aspects) and in the process obfuscate the definition of what stress really is. In addition, these definitions frequently fail to express or suggest the reasons why environmental factors are "negative" other than the statement that they d e m a n d , or a constraint or an opportunity f o r b e h a v i o r . "

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are generally a threat or exceed a person's capabilities or abilities. The part of French's (1974) definition of stress which addresses the needs of individuals, however, does begin to specifically offer reasons why environmental factors may be stressors, i.e., they help determine the fit between the extent to which some needs are met and the desired level of those needs. But the implication is that if an individual is in a situation of " f i t " (s)he is without stress (a state of death according to Selye) although at maximum satisfaction. But according to the inverted U shape relationship between performance and stress, no stress is just related to low performance. A final aspect of these definitions of stress in terms of their P - E fit is that they are tautalogical. A person is "under stress" when (s)he is in a misfit situation and being in a misfit situation is stressful. Because of these difficulties, the conceptualization of stress in organizations offered here defines stress apart from the organizational environment. In addition, this conceptualization of stress indicates that selected qualities of the organizational environment can influence stress by being perceived by the individual as opportunities, constraints, and/or demands on being, having, or doing what the individual desires. Thus the condition of stress may be viewed as being positive (by an opportunity), or negative (by a constraint or by a demand). This conceptualization of stress, therefore, incorporates the potential influence of many qualities of the organizational environment and also suggests the effectiveness of anticipation and confrontation strategies for stress resolution. The definition of stress offered here is that: Stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is:

a confronted with an opportunity for being/having/doing what (s)he desires and~or b. confronted with a constraint on being/having/doing what (s)he desires and~or c. confronted with a demand on being/having/doing what (s)he desires and for which the resolution of is perceived to have uncertainty but which will lead (upon resolution) to important outcomes.

This definition of stress incorporates several important aspects of previous stress definitions and stress research from both the medical and health sciences area and the organizational behavior and industrial psychology area. It is useful to examine each part of this definition and relate it to the previous work. What may be one person's poison is another's meat is the essence of the term desires. Desires that an individual has reflect his/her needs and values (physiological, psychological, or behavioral). "The concept of need arises from the fact that the existence of living organisms is conditional; life depends upon a specific course of goal-directed action. The concept of need refers to those conditions which are required to sustain the life and well-being of a living organism" (Locke, 1976). Locke distinguishes two categories of needs for survival: the physical (physiological)

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need requirements of the body, e.g., food and water, and the psychological need requirements of a healthy consciousness, e.g., sensory stimulation, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Needs are objective requirements of the organism while values are subjective. Needs exist whether the individual is aware of them or not. Values only exist to the extent an individual is consciously or subconsciously desiring, wanting, or seeking to attain something. Values are learned while needs are innate. Not all writers, however, distinguish between needs and values but rather use them synonymously or define needs as if they were values. For example, Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) define need as an outcome produced by a person rather than a property inherent in him/her. For the definition of stress here both the concepts of needs and values will be maintained and will be distinguished as Locke suggested. And while needs more closely refer to physiological and psychological requirements, values more closely reflect behavioral requirements. Together needs and values may represent what an individual desires being and having (more closely associated with needs) and doing (more closely associated with values). This aspect of the definition of stress allows us to incorporate both the physiological approach to stress (traditionally more represented by the medical and health sciences area) and the psychological and behavioral approaches to stress (traditionally more represented by the organizational behavior and industrial psychology area). This is important because what is currently suggested is that we must begin to approach stress research from a multidisciplinary perspective (Beehr & Newman, 1978; Cooper & Marshall, 1976). It is anticipated that a conceptualization of stress which incorporates concepts from the medical and health sciences area and the organizational behavior and industrial psychology area will help facilitate that perspective. Using needs and values to partially define stress not only provides the opportunity for a multidisciplinary approach to stress research but it also facilitates defining stress in terms of an opportunity, constraint, and~or demand. An opportunity is a dynamic condition in which an individual may be able to be, have, or do what (s)he desires, i.e., a situation of potential gain. A constraint on the other hand, is a dynamic condition in which an individual may be prevented from being, having, or doing what (s)he desires, in essence a potential status quo situation. A demand is a dynamic condition in which what an individual desires to be, have, or do may be diminished or removed, a potential situation of loss. Stress is associated with any one of these situations. Frequently individuals experience stress of all three types from one condition. For example, an individual may be in a condition in which (s)he along with two other individuals is being considered for promotion. The individual perceives that getting the promotion will lead to several valued opportunities for planning,

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controlling, and delegating. But (s)he also perceives that the promotion will lead to constraints on his/her privacy and the autonomy to work on special projects and even lead to several demands resulting in a general deterioration of the body as a possible consequence of less sleep, more hours at work, and less exercise. And as Selye (1956) suggested, stress is an additive concept, so the more dynamic conditions of opportunity, constraint, and/or demand an individual confronts, the more stress (s)he will potentially have. The potential stress only becomes actual or real stress with two other conditions: resolution uncertainty and important outcomes. McGrath (1976) suggested and demonstrated the importance of uncertainty in stress, although as noted above his definition of stress differs from that presented here. The essence of the relationship between uncertainty and stress is that although an individual may be in dynamic conditions or opportunity, constraint, and/or demand vis-a-vis his/her desires, it is only when there is doubt or uncertainty regarding whether the opportunity will be seized, the constraint removed, or the demand conquered (the loss avoided) that there is stress. McGrath (1976) reported that stress was highest for those individuals who perceived that they were uncertain as to whether they would win or lose and lowest for those individuals who thought that winning or losing was a certainty. Implicit in McGrath's (1976) example of winning and losing is the aspect of important outcomes, for even if the winning or losing was uncertain it is assumed here that if winning or losing was an unimportant outcome there would be no stress (Sells, 1970). Reference to important outcomes accommodates the situation in which an individual may potentially gain something important, be prevented from something important, or potentially have something important removed. What is an important outcome is determined by an individual's needs and values, their relative importance, and the correspondence between the outcome and the needs and values. What's an important outcome for one individual may, therefore, not be important for another. Because an individual may have several needs and values of varying importance and because situations of opportunity, constraint, and/or demand may be associated with one or several of them, the resolution of the potential opportunity, constraint, and/or demand will vary and, therefore, produce outcomes of varying importance. And the more the uncertainty there is attached to more outcomes related to the resolution of a single condition, the more stress an individual experiences from that condition. In the example of the individual being considered for a promotion, there were all three types of stress associated with the possible promotion, i.e., opportunity, constraint, and demand. This condition of promotion will be associated with more stress as the number of outcomes and their importance related to each type of stress

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increase and as the uncertainty of resolution of each type of stress and its associated outcomes increase. Of course, the relative importance of an individual's needs and values may change; therefore, what is an important outcome today may not have the same potential importance it will tomorrow, thus making stress a dynamic condition. This definition of stress is an important part of the conceptualization of stress in organizations. In addition, there are several organizational and individual qualities which will be postulated to be a s s o c i a t e d with stress. Although much of the research in stress has tended to discuss organizational and individual qualities as causes of stress, as Cooper and Marshall (1976) and Beehr and Newman (1978) indicate, it has been primarily correlational in nature. There are several individual symptoms (psychological, physiological, and behavioral) which will be postulated to be associated with stress. Again the research done thus far on stress has only a s s u m e d that stress c a u s e s these symptoms. Finally it will also be proposed that individuals will engage in strategies to deal with stress and the effectiveness of those strategies will depend upon the organizational and individual qualities which are associated with the stress.

INDIVIDUAL QUALITIES AND STRESS There are three major ways in which individual qualities fit into this conceptualization of stress. First, individual needs and values define the desires of the individual and therefore help determine the perception of opportunity, constraints, and demands and the relative importance of outcomes. Second, individual abilities and experiences partially determine the perceived uncertainties of resolution of the dynamic conditions of opportunity, constraint, and/or demand and help influence the choice and appropriateness of strategies to deal with the stress. Third, individual personality characteristics influence an individual's perception of what constitutes opportunity, constraint, or demand and choice of the strategies to deal with the stress. All of these three individual qualities are associated with stress. Each has its own unique relationship with stress but they all share a common relationship with stress via their impact on an individual's perception and appraisal processes (McGrath, 1976). Although an individual's subjective perception of organizational qualities is crucial to his/her interpretation of a condition as an opportunity, constraint, or demand, the objective aspects of the organizational qualities also play an important part in that interpretation, particularly concerning a condition of demand (especially as related to pathogenic qualities of an organization as opposed to sociopsychological qualities). So both the subjective perception of and the objective aspects of organizational qualities are important in this definition of stress, although at times they may be almost identical (Sales, 1969).

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Needs and values. The values and needs used here have been derived from a large number of authors in the stress-related research in the medical and health sciences area and the organizational behavior and industrial psychology area. Frequently, however, the identification of these needs and values is not an explicit part of the research but an implicit premise for the identification of organizational qualities related to stress. There are several researchers, however, who have made these values and needs an explicit part of their investigations (Janis, 1958; Cleland, 1965; Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, S n o e k , & Rosenthal 1964; Zeleznik et al., 1977; Frankenhaeuser & Gardell, 1976; Hall & Mansfield, 1971; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). The values and needs which have been identified or suggested are: achievement (Seashore, 1972; McClelland, 1965; Herzberg, 1978); feedback (Corson, 1971); self-control and certainty and predictability (Zaleznik et al., 1977; Kahn et al., 1964; Gutman & Benson, 1971; French, 1974); fairness and justice (Adams, 1965); interpersonal recognition and acceptance (Volicer, 1974); ethical conduct (Kahn et al., 1964); responsibility and meaningfulness or purpose (Hackman & Oldham, 1975; French, 1974); personal space and ownership (Sundstrom, 1977); and stimulation (Scott, 1966; Levi, 1967). Knowing an individual's needs and values such as those listed above, whether innate or learned via social information processing (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), will facilitate understanding and the prediction of whether the individual will experience stress from a perception of an opportunity, constraint, or demand and the importance of the resolution of that stress. Abilities and experience. McGrath (1976) suggests the importance of experience in his paradigm for stress research. He postulates that "past experience in the form of familiarity with the situation, past exposure to the stressor condition, and/or practice or training in responses to deal with the situation, can operate to effect the level of subjectively experienced stress from a given situation, or to modify reactions to that stress" (McGrath, 1976). In the conceptualization of stress presented here, an individual's experience and ability should relate to stress by reducing the individual's perception of the uncertainty of resolution. Therefore, in comparing two individuals, identical except for ability and experience, the individual with more ability and experience should have less stress than the individual with less ability and experience because (s)he should perceive less uncertainties in dealing with the same conditions of opportunities, constraints, and/or demands. The individual with more ability and experience should also choose a more appropriate strategy of resolution than the individual with less ability and experience. Stress studies investigating individual ability and experience are scarce but their results are consistent with the above interpretation of the role of ability and experience in stress (McGrath, 1976; Kahn, et al., 1964; French & Caplan, 1973).

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Personality. An individual's personality should also be partially associated with his/her perception of a situation as an opportunity, constraint, or demand. For example, a Type A individual being excessively aggressive and competitive (Jenkins, 1971; Jenkins, Rosenman, & Zysanski, 1974) may perceive a rather passive, low pressured environment as a constraint while a Type B individual may see it as an opportunity. Thus a given measure of personality and its relationship to stress must be clearly explicated or else an hypothesis such as Type A individuals have more stress than Type B individuals will probably receive only mixed support (see Caplan & Jones, 1975 vs Caplan, Cobb, & French, 1975). Using the Type A/B personality dimension (see Beehr & Newman, 1978, for the discussion of Type A/B being a personality or a behavior) canalso illustrate how personality can influence an individual's selection of a strategy of resolution. The Type A may be much more likely to choose a highly active strategy while Type B may be more likely to choose a highly passive strategy. This, of course, also suggests that the effectiveness of strategies should consider individual qualities (Gal & Lazarus, 1975). Individual strategies are discussed more completely later. It is apparent that an individual's perception is an important aspect of stress. It is suggested here that the individual qualities discussed are associated with stress only in part because they influence an individual's perception of the situation. Thus perception is incorporated into this conceptualization of stress via the individual qualities whereas McGrath (1976) treats it more explicitly by discussing the cognitive appraisal process of an individual. His treatment of perception, however, is generally consistent with that given here. Summary. The use of individual qualities in the conceptualization of stress offered here differs from that used in most stress research, uses which, by the way, tend to vary considerably across studies as well as uses which vary with the way it is described by the author within the same study. Most studies use selected individual qualities as moderators of the relationships between stressors and stress symptoms or outcomes (Cooper & Marshall, 1976; Beehr & Newman, 1978). As indicated above, when stress is defined in most studies it is usually a P - E fit paradigm. So individual qualities are used to define stress and also moderate a stressor (aspect of E, the environment)- stress symptom relationship. It thus appears that, as the concept of stress itself is, individual qualities are used in association with stress (as " a n t e c e d e n t s " and " o u t c o m e s " ) and as a part of stress. This makes the understanding of stress difficult and, therefore, the investigation of stress difficult, if not impossible, to provide any expectation of consistency in results across studies or development of a systematic pool of stress data. The use of individual qualities here, however, explains the level o f stress an individual will experience. Selected individual qualities are pos-

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tulated to explain an individual's level of stress by: (a) defining the desires an individual has and thus whether a condition is perceived as an opportunity, constraint, or demand and the relative importance of the resolution; (b) defining an individual's perception of the level of uncertainty of resolution; and (c) determining in part the selection of the appropriate strategy of resolution and, therefore, whether the stress existing at a point in time will continue to exist and whether the individual will gain experience and thereby influence levels of perceived uncertainty in the future.

ORGANIZATIONAL QUALITIES (STRESSORS) AND STRESS There are several ways in which organizational qualities fit into the conceptualization of stress offered here. Organizational qualities are those conditions, characteristics, and processes which are the organizational environment that, from the stress literature and research, include role characteristics, task characteristics, leader processes, interpersonal conditions, structural characteristics, and physical conditions. Each of these organizational qualities in turn is related to and capable of serving individuals' needs and values (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Locke, 1976; Argyris, 1964; French, 1974; House, 1971; Sundstrom, 1977)and thus is related to the resolution and importance of stress conditions. Role characteristics. Role characteristics have been one of the most widely investigated organizational qualities in the stress research. Selected role characteristics of most frequent attention include role ambiguity, role conflict (person-role, inter-sender, and intra-sender), role overload (quantitative and qualitative), role underload (quantitative and qualitative), and r o l e - s t a t u s congruency. Each of these role characteristics has been shown to be associated with stress (French & Caplan, 1973; Kahn et al., 1964; French, 1974). As suggested by Kahn et al. (1964) and French (1974) among others, some of these role characteristics, particularly conflict and ambiguity, tend to prevent an individual from attaining or completing a task. This prevention probably represents a constraint on an individual's need to achieve and be productive (Seashore, 1972). In addition to its relationship with an individual's need for achievement, role ambiguity also appears to be directly associated with an individual's need for certainty and predictability. It is perhaps because of this dual need relationship that role ambiguity often tends to be more highly related to stress than role conflict (e.g., see Van Sell, Brief, & Schuler (1979) for a review of the role conflict and ambiguity literature). Role overload and underload appear to be directly associated with an individual's need for stimulation (Levi, 1972). As shown in Fig. 1, situations of overload are associated with too much stimulation and situations of underload are associated with too little stimulation (Levi, 1972). Either situation is associated with high stress (French, 1974; Frankenhaeuser & Gardell, 1976) although qualitative overload (such as being responsible for

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low (UnderStimulation)

Stimulation Continuum

High (OverStimulation)

FIG. 1. Relationshipbetween levels of stimulationand stress. Reproduced, with permission, from Levi (1972). people rather than things) may be the more stressful (Wardwell, Hyman, & Bahnson, 1964; Pincherle, 1972; French & Caplan, 1973; French, 1974). In terms of the conceptualization of stress, these results are suggestive of the interpretation that role underload represents a contraint while role overload represents a demand (Terryberry, 1968) and that qualitative role overload is more stressful than quantitative overload because it involves people, thus increasing the importance of resolution. Two important areas related to role characteristics in organizations are midcareer crisis and the w o r k - n o n w o r k relationship. Although midcareer crisis is just one aspect of the area of career development, the entire area of which could be investigated here, the midcareer aspect seems especially critical for individuals in organizations. The midcareer crisis here represents any one of several conditions in which an individual may find himself/herself and which occurs midway through the individual's career. The conditions include overpromotion (the Peter Principle), underpromotion, status incongruence, lack of job security (obsolescence), and thwarted ambition (Cooper & Marshall, 1976). These conditions, in varying degrees, appear to be most directly related to an individual's needs for achievement, interpersonal recognition, certainty, and security. The results of the research certainly suggest the importance of those midcareer conditions associated with an individual's stress (Erikson, Pugh, & Gunderson, 1972; Brook, 1973; Kleiner & Parker, 1963). Occasionally related to midcareer crisis is the w o r k - n o n w o r k relationship. The w o r k - n o n w o r k relationship may include conflict between roles such as that faced by some career-oriented females (Hall, 1972; Hall &

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Gordon, 1973) and conflict within the extraorganizational, nonwork role such as life and family crisis, the effect of which may influence the work role (Pahl & Pahl, 1971; Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1974; Gowler & Legge, 1975). The individual needs which are most likely to be influenced by these w o r k - n o n w o r k conditions are certainty, achievement, security, and interpersonal recognition and acceptance. This w o r k - n o n w o r k relationship relates to the remark of Selye (1975, 1976) stated above: that stress is an additive concept. This implies for this conceptualization of stress in organizations that the amount of stress which an individual brings with him/her to the organization must be considered, perhaps as a base upon which stress resulting from being in the organization is added. Task characteristics. Task characteristics, particularly task skill variety, autonomy, significance, identity, and feedback, have been associated with three individual needs: sense of responsibility, knowledge of results, and meaningfulness (Hackman & Lawler, 1971; Hackman & Oldham, 1975). H a c k m a n and Oldham suggest that the task characteristics-individual needs are relationships moderated by the individual's growth need strength. It is suggested here, however, that individual growth need strength will influence an individual's desires and that the task characteristics will then be perceived as constraints, demands, or opportunities depending upon the individual's desires. Task characteristics such as difficulty and pace (specifically control of pace) have also been related to stress (Kornhauser, 1965; Frankenhaeuser & Gardell, 1976). Pace appears to be highly associated with an individual's need for self-control while difficulty appears to be related to achievement and competency. In addition, both task difficulty and pace would appear to be associated with the uncertainty of resolution. An individual may perceive that the level of difficulty or not having control of the pace of the task makes resolution almost certainly impossible. Leader processes. The leader processes which should be related to this conceptualization of stress involve those leader behaviors which most closely relate to an individual's needs. Such behaviors include those suggested by House and Mitchell (1974). They include directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented behaviors. The relationships between these behaviors and individual needs as postulated by House and Mitchell are directive behavior-achievement, certainty, and autonomy needs (note the possible contradictory ways in which organizational qualities may operate thus making prediction of stress even more complex); supportive behavior-interpersonal recognition and acceptance need; participative behavior-autonomy, achievement, and certainty needs; and achievement behavior-achievement need. The studies in this area, although limited, appear to offer support for the supportive-inter-

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personal recognition and acceptance-stress relationship (Buck, 1972; Cooper & Marshall, 1976). Organizational structure. There are few qualities of organizational structure which have been examined in the stress research. The two more frequent of the few are participation (centralization-decentralization) and occupational type or level in the organization. An individual's participation in the decision-making process, especially when they are decisions related to his/her work and perceived as legitimate, should be related to his/her needs for meaningfulness, a sense of responsibility autonomy, certainty, and predictability and also a sense of ownership (French & Caplan, 1973; Schuler, 1979a). Similar relationships would apply whether the individual's participation is one on one with the manager or is with other group members as is found in the autonomous work groups (Susman, 1976). Because of the large number of needs related to participation, it is not surprising to find many studies suggesting and finding the benefits of participation in reducing stress (Buck, 1972; Kasl, 1973; Schuler, 1979a). Occupational type and level in the organization have been investigated rather extensively (Marks, 1967; Cooper & Marshall, 1976). Because the studies often equate occupational type with an individual's level in the organization, they are presented together here. The general findings suggest that most stress, holding other organizational qualities constant, occurs for individuals in managerial positions and those in the health care professions (Wardwell et al., 1964; Colligan, Smith, & Hurrell, 1977; Pincherle, 1972). These relationships appear to be consistent with the interpretation that these organizational and occupational positions are highly related to an individual's needs for a sense of responsibility and autonomy. Yet the individuals in these positions are dependent upon others for their achievement. That is, although machines do not pace their work, other people do to some extent (it might be argued, perhaps contrary to expectation, that managers and medical doctors are actually more dependent upon their employees or clients than vice versa and, therefore, experience more stress than others). Thus the needs associated with these positions may be inversely related. Furthermore the necessity for dependence on others may produce uncertainty in resolution of the conditions of opportunity, constraint, or demand. Interpersonal conditions. Interpersonal conditions in the organization constitute the nature of the relationships an individual has with his/her colleagues and subordinates. The relationship between the individual and his/her manager could represent a subset of the interpersonal conditions, but was discussed separately to reflect the separate treatment generally given to leadership and interpersonal relations in the organizational behavior and industrial psychology literature and research.

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Argyris (1964) and Cooper (1973) among others have suggested the importance of the interpersonal conditions-stress association in organizations. Interpersonal conditions are assumed to be associated with an individual's need for interpersonal recognition and acceptance (the quality of which is left unspecified so as to be applied uniquely for each individual) and equity. When these interpersonal relationships are not satisfactory to an individual, stress is often the result (Kahn et al., 1964; French & Caplan, 1973). The importance of the quality of interpersonal conditions appears to derive not only from its association with the need for interpersonal recognition and acceptance, but because of its ripple effect. The other organizational qualities also produce ripple effects but perhaps not as consistently or pervasively as interpersonal conditions. For example, if an individual perceives an unsatisfactory relationship with another (e.g., there is low trust between the two) the individual may withdraw from the relationship and, if there is some task dependency between the two, may find task achievement difficult. This withdrawal and lack of achievement can lead to an intensification of the unsatisfactory condition between the individuals, and continued low task achievement. Thus a vicious cycle is created in the interpersonal relationship influencing the interpersonal need which can affect other organizational qualities and needs (Kahn et al., 1964; Schuler, 1979b). In addition to the ripple effect of one organizational quality on the others, there may be an interaction of several organizational qualities which in essence produce a ripple effect for some other organizational qualities. For example, there may be combinations of organizational structure and task characteristics which are associated with different levels of role conflict and ambiguity (Schuler, 1977). Physical qualities. Physical qualities of organizations refer to the physical conditions which surround the individual such as the existence of pathogenic agents, e.g., poisons and chemicals, noise, space, privacy, and visibility. Each of these is associated with an individual's needs, particularly those for minimum biological functioning such as physical safety and those for autonomy, ownership, and interpersonal needs (Manning, 1965; Selye, 1976; Sundstrom, 1977; Rosseau, 1978; Oldham & Brass, 1979). The results from the privacy and crowding research generally suggest that individuals prefer (value) some privacy in their work place such as found in the traditional office layouts as opposed to that in the open-floor office floor layout (Sundstrom, 1977; Oldham & Brass, 1979). Not only does the privacy appear to satisfy a need for privacy, but also one for personal ownership and control over one's environment. Summary. As noted in the summary on the individual qualities and stress, most of the stress literature defines stress as a P - E fit. Most of the stress research, however, investigates the organizational (E) qualities as

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the stressors which " c a u s e " stress. When individual qualities are used, they are often used as moderators of the organizational qualities-stress symptoms relationships. Again this leads to ambiguity as to what stress is or how stress is created. Intensifying this ambiguity is the frequent paradigm of stress research in which organizational qualities are measured, e.g., role conflict, and related to measures of satisfaction, CHD, absenteeism, or psychosomantic illness. If a relationship is found, it is generally concluded that role conflict is stress, i.e., that role conflict is stress because it is related to a " s t r e s s " symptom. Thus what is conceptualized here as a stressor occasionally becomes a stress in some stress research (e.g., see Cooper & Marshall, 1976, and Beehr & Newman, 1978 for their review and comments on the research and the methodology on stress). Much of the research on organizational qualities referred to above generally falls into this P - E type of paradigm. The references to the research which investigated the relationship between an organizational quality/md stress, therefore, used organizational qualities in several ways. This interpretation and analysis of the past research begins to suggest areas for future stress research and the need for a definition of stress which essentially stands alone. Such a definition of stress has been offered here within a conceptualization of stress in organizations which includes organizational qualities postulated to be associated with stress and individual qualities which define the type and the intensity of an individual's stress. The next step in the conceptualization is a discussion of the symptoms or outcomes associated with stress. SYMPTOMS OR OUTCOMES OF STRESS IN ORGANIZATIONS As shown in Table 1, there are three major classes of symptoms of stress in organizations. A great deal of research exists on several of these symptoms and almost none on others. Little stress research, however, exists on most of these symptoms. In addition, for some of the stress research, what are regarded here as symptoms of stress were treated as stress or even as a stressor (e.g., House (1974) uses job dissatisfaction as an antecedent of stress). As a result, the research mentioned below is offered only in general support of the conceptualization of stress and to demonstrate how numerous, diverse stress research can be incorporated by the conceptualization. Although the classification of the symptoms in Table 1 into behavioral, physiological, and psychological suggests a discreteness in their occurrence, they may be highly interrelated. The exact nature of their interrelationships, however, is relatively unresearched. Thus they will be presented separately here. P h y s i o l o g i c a l s y m p t o m s . Most of the early stress research was con-

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ducted in the health and medical sciences. Stress at that time was regarded primarily from a physiological (or biological or physical) perspective, a perspective which almost regarded stress as desirable because it prepared an individual to help deal with the " e n e m y " (the stressor). Cannon coined the phrase "fight or flight" response to indicate a choice of behaviors in which an individual must engage when encountering stressful situations (Cannon, 1929). The response is a reflexive integrated physiological response that prepares an individual for running or fighting. The response includes coordinated increases in metabolism, blood pressure, heart rate, rate of breathing, amount of blood pumped by the heart, and the amount pumped from the heart to the skeletal muscles. It is thought that the identification and appraisal of a situation as requiring a flight or fight response is made in the hypothalamus (lower portion of the brain) which triggers the pituitary gland releasing ACTH hormones to the sympathetic nervous system to release adrenalin and noradrenaline hormones from the adrenal gland as shown in Fig. 2. These hormones, in turn, produce the flight or fight responses described above. An important aspect of the flight or fight response was that it usually triggered an appropriate behavioral (flight or fight) action which eliminated the cause or source of the stressful condition. It is becoming less feasible for individuals in organizations, however, to engage in either a flight or fight behavior, resulting in dysfunctional physiological reactions (Gal & Lazarus, 1975). In Selye's description of the general adaptation syndrome (GAS), an individual encounters a stressful condition and the body is alarmed; there is a discrepancy situation, a destruction of homeostasis. Then, as Cannon suggested, the body and/or mind seeks to return to homeostasis; it demands readjustment. In this readjustment phase (adaptation or stage of resistance) the imbalances created by the alarm reaction (really the flight or fight responses) are gradually restored even if a fight or flight or strategic behavior is not forthcoming. However, there are two important side effects of this restoration: (1) a depletion of the body's "adaptation energy" (Selye, 1956, 1976), and (2) "diseases of adaptation" including emotional disturbances, headaches, insomnia, upset stomach, sinus attacks, crippling high blood pressure (hypertension), gastric and duodenal ulcers, certain types of rheumatic or allergic afflictions, as well as cardiovascular and kidney diseases (that is, many of those physiological symptoms shown in Table 1). These "diseases of adaptation," however, appear not to accompany each stressful situation. Since stressors and stress are additive, physiological symptoms may not occur until several stressors occur simultaneously or several continue to occur over a long time. Thus what may appear to be a single stressor causing a severe stress symptom is rather "the straw that broke the camel's b a c k . " What makes it difficult to do in stress research,

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STRESS HYPOTHALAMUS

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GASTRIC ACID ) ULCER BLOOD SUGAR: FATTY ACIDS HIGH PULSE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE PLAQUES: HIGH SERUM CHOLESTEROL ARTERIAL BLOOD CLOTTING DECAY THYMUS AND LYMPH NODE SHRINKAGE REDUCTION WHITE BLOOD CELLS

FIG. 2. Biochemical and nervous responses associated with stress. therefore, is to state with even moderate certainty that a given stressor caused a physiological symptom such as CHD (Cooper & Marshall, 1976). Selye (1976) suggested also that individuals may have certain constitutional differences which make it difficult to predict the identical symptoms occurring in two individuals in identical situations. There appears, however, to be no evidence on what these constitutional differences are and if they only apply to physiological symptoms. In addition, it appears as if individuals may engage in methods (strategies) which either enhance the ability of the body to restore homeostasis, diminish the number of diseases of adaptation, and/or help restore some of the body's adaptation energy loss because of previous adaptation. Continued adaptation and loss of adaptation energy, however, will eventually lead to exhaustion and d e a t h - - S e l y e ' s last phase of his GAS syndrome. Again Selye provides little evidence of strategies which individuals may use and their relationship with physiological symptoms.

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Because of the complexity of the nature of physiological symptoms of stress and the difficulty of obtaining objective measures of these symptoms, there is little unequivocal research indicating or even suggesting consistent relationships between stress and particular physiological symptoms ,(Beehr & Newman, 1978). It might appear reasonable to suggest that the more severe physiological symptoms such as CHD would occur with more stress and that less severe symptoms such as high blood pressure would occur with less stress. However, with the knowledge of the etiology of CHD, blood pressure, and most physiological symptoms, it would in fact appear untenable to make the above suggestions (Caplan, 1971; House, 1974). The need for a multidisciplinary approach to the study of stress, especially regarding physiological symptoms, is thus necessary. Based upon the definition of stress offered here and the conceptualization of its relationship with organizational and individual qualities, the multidisciplinary approach should investigate stress related to specific needs and related to opportunities, constraints, or demands. Although Selye (1956) suggested that the physiological symptoms should be the same regardless of the stress (opportunity, constraint, or demand), this has not been supported in stress studies using small animals (Corson, 1978, personal communication). Holmes and Rahe (1967), however, using humans, have found that exceedingly positive events (perhaps opportunities) and exceedingly negative events (perhaps demands or constraints) are similarly related to the probability of occurrence of illness in individuals. Psychological symptoms. Much of the research on stress in the areas of organizational behavior and industrial psychology has investigated the association of psychological symptoms and stress (as suggested above most of this research is actually between stressors and psychological symptoms, with stress essentially unspecified). The most frequently used variables to represent psychological symptoms are satisfaction, job involvement, self-esteem, tension, anxiety, depression, boredom, and psychological fatigue (House, 1974; Cooper & Marshall, 1976). The stressors with which these symptoms are usually related include the organizational qualities discussed above, particularly role and task characteristics. The results of the "effects" of these stressors are usually of negative tone. This appears to be the result of the role and task characteristics chosen and perhaps reflects the generally negative tone the term stress carries (McGrath, 1976). For example, the predominant role characteristics used are conflict, ambiguity, and overload. The results of the research using these characteristics are generally that role conflict and ambiguity and overload are positively related to individual tension, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and dissatisfaction. It should be noted that where role underload was measured, patterns of symptoms analogous

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to those reported for role overload were found (Frankenhaeuser & Garden, 1976). Furthermore, in a limited number of studies of role characteristics, those psychological symptoms were also related to physiological symptoms (Russek & Zohman, 1958; French & Caplan, 1973). The Russek and Zohman (1958) data even suggested that psychological symptoms precede physiological symptoms. This is also consistent with the depiction of the stress-stress symptom relationship provided by Margolis et al. (1974). They suggested that stress leads to five types of strain (symptoms): short-term subjective conditions such as anxiety; long-term and more chronic psychological responses such as depression and alienation; transient physiological changes such as catecholamine levels and blood pressure; physical health such as heart attacks and ulcers; and work performance changes. The patterns in the task characteristics research are very similar to those found in the role characteristics-stress research (Kornhauser, 1965). The less control the individual has over the pace of his/her work the worse the individual's physical and mental health. Although not reported in the "stress research," it is usually found that individuals experience increasing satisfaction and job involvement with more of the task characteristics Hackman and Oldham (1975) referred to as variety, significance, autonomy, feedback, and identity. In a stress paradigm of research these results would suggest that the more these characteristics exist, the less stress there is and the more satisfaction and involvement there are. However, using Levi's (1972) model of the stimulation-stress relationship (Fig. 1), stress should be high under highly stimulating task conditions, as well as under less stimulating task conditions. This suggests, along with the work of Holmes and Rahe (1967), that certain stressors may have different patterns of associations with the different symptoms of stress and that a given stressor may also have varying relationships with a given symptom. The research and literature using behavioral symptoms also suggest complexities in the stressor-symptom associations although the patterns are less clear. Behavioral symptoms. The stress research using behavioral symptoms, such as absenteeism and turnover, indicates that the higher the stress (as measured for example by role conflict and ambiguity) the more the absenteeism and turnover (Van Sell et al., 1979). The results using performance appear to be more complex. Sales (1969) found that individuals increased their performance with increased load (stress); however, that was only when quantity was the performance measure. With quality (error rate) as the performance measure, performance declined with increased load. McGrath (1976) reported that " i f one takes account of task difficulty, then performance increases monotonically with increasing demand and with increasing arousal." Whereas Sales accounted for differ-

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ences in performance measures but not task characteristics, McGrath accounted for differences in task characteristics but not performance measures. These results suggest that an individual's performance increases as stress increases but only on simple tasks and where quantity is the measure of performance. This, however, is inconsistent with activation theory (Scott, 1966) which suggests that performance will eventually decline due to the increased stimulation. If the task is difficult, with increased stress, performance (quality or quantity) increases up to a point and then declines. Other behavioral measures which have been used include smoking, quitting smoking, and escapist drinking. These symptoms are associated with stressors such that quitting smoking is negatively related to some stressors (Caplan et al., 1975) and escapist drinking and smoking are positively related to some stressors (Margolis et al., 1974; Shirom, Eden, Silberwasser, & Kellerman, 1973). Summary. The relationships between stressors and behavioral symptoms offer no more consistency than those between the stressors and the physiological symptoms or the psychological symptoms. The research using behavioral symptoms, however, is much more limited. It is apparent nevertheless that specification of stress-stress symptom relationships must consider the types of stress and the category of stress symptom. But even with a given stress symptom, for example behavioral, there are varying stress-stress symptom relationships. Even less consistent and perhaps even more speculative are the relationships among these symptoms. As Gal and Lazarus (1975) suggest, "first that psychological and physiological indexes do not necessarily parallel one another in reflecting any given emotional state; second, that in the presence of active behavior, physiological reactions probably reflect basically body arousal rather than the psychological state; and third that many specific autonomic and hormonal reactions are differentially related to specific cognitive-emotional states." It is evident that much more research is needed investigating not only the stress-stress symptom relationships but also the interrelationships among the symptoms. Investigation of these relationships, however, may best be done with an understanding of the individual qualities associated with these relationships. STRESSOR- STRESS AND STRESS- STRESS SYM PTOM RELATIONSHIPS In the conceptualization of stress in organizations offered here it is important to consider the role of the individual in both the stressor-stress and stress-stress symptom relationships. In the conceptualization, stress was defined as a dynamic condition. Subsequent to that condition (a given

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stress or several stresses), an individual experiences stress symptoms. The stress research, however, suggests that the stressor-stress and stress-stress symptom relationships may be associated with two important individual qualities: (1) individual personality and constitutional differences, and (2) individual strategies of coping or responding. The potential operation of these two qualities may partially explain the apparent inconsistencies of the stressor-stress and stress-stress symptom results presented earlier. There is some real dispute in the organizational behavior research, however, regarding the existence of and operation of individual personality and constitutional differences in these relationships. For example, Cooper and Marshall (1976) in their analysis of the research on coping concluded (similar to what Selye suggested in the medical and health sciences research) that: "Sources of pressure at work evoke different reactions from different people. Some people are better able to cope with these stressors than others, they adapt their behavior in a way that meets the environmental challenge. On the other hand some people are more characterologically predisposed to stress, that is, they are unable to cope or adapt to the stress-provoking situation." Although this may imply that there are some individual differences in the stress-stress symptom relationships, McGrath (1976) says he "does not know of any solid, replicated findings which would support the idea that there are "stress resistant" persons, who are identifiable on the basis of some pattern of p e r s o n - s y s t e m properties, who show less experienced stress in the same objective situations (for a range of situations), and who simultaneously show better performance in those situations than some comparison (e.g., "stress prone") group." McGrath does not deny the fact that individuals may appraise an objectively equal situation differently, but does question whether there is any personality characteristic independent of an indiv i d u a l ' s appraisal m e c h a n i s m s which would result in d i f f e r e n t stress-stress symptom relationships for individuals who differ only on that personality characteristic (that is, whether there are individuals more characterologically predisposed to stress symptoms). Although there may not be individual personality and constitutional differences operating on these relationships independently, it appears as if they still do operate but in conjunction with individual strategies for coping and responding. For example, evidence has been reported that internal locus of control individuals feel better engaging in an active strategy of trying to control a stressor, while external locus of control individuals feel better engaging in a less active strategy of not trying to control a stressor (Joe, 1971; Gal & Lazarus, 1975). The research in this area of the joint association of individual personality differences and individual strategies and the stressor-stress and the stress-stress symptom relationships is

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extremely limited. The majority of the research has focused on the individual strategies and the stressor-stress and stress-stress symptom relationships (Newman & Beehr, 1979; Gal & Lazarus, 1975). Although individual strategies may be classified on several dimensions (Newman & Beehr, 1979) a classification of active and passive strategies similar to Gal and Lazarus (1975) is useful here. They indicate that " b y activity we mean overt, motoric action taken by the individual while (s)he is anticipating or confronting a threatening event. Passivity, on the other hand, is the absence (or unavailability) of such motoric activity during anticipation or confrontation" (Gal & Lazarus, 1975). Further distinction is then made between active strategies into those related to the threatening event (the stressor) and those not related. Gal and Lazarus' distinction of strategy as being applicable in either anticipation or confrontation is important. For the conceptualization of stress here, a strategy related to anticipation refers to what an individual may do before the stress occurs such as changing the organizational quality related to the stress, reducing the importance of an outcome, or reducing the uncertainty of resolution. The anticipation strategy should, therefore, be associated with the level of a stress experienced. A strategy related to confrontation refers to what an individual may do after the stress occurs. This strategy should be associated, not with the level of a stress, but the symptoms exhibited. After the stress occurs certain activities such as those related to the organizational quality are conceptually nonapplicable. This conceptually, however, more readily applies to generally nonrecurring events, such as a promotion or a major interpersonal confrontation. For those recurring events such as working relationships with the same manager or the same job, activities may only become nonapplicable to the extent the stress is removed. Notice that the use of "stress" here is treating it as a unique stressor-stress relationship and that most individuals have several of these unique relationships simultaneously. Some activities, such as changing jobs, may be unique to a stressor while others may be more generic and related to either anticipation or confrontation strategies. Other activities may be generic but more applicable to only anticipation or confrontation (e.g., meditation is a generic, confrontation strategy as conceptualized here). The conceptualization of the relationship of individual strategies with stress must, therefore, include the specification of the type of stress and stressor in addition to the active-passive classification and the anticipation-confrontation dimension. The research in this area supports the necessity and usefulness for inclusion of these aspects of strategy. The research results reviewed by Gal and Lazarus (1975) suggest the efficacy of individual strategies but indicate the complexity of their effects and provide possible explanation for the diversity of results in the

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s t r e s s - s t r e s s s y m p t o m relationship research. In essence, active strategies may be useful in reducing the effects of a stressor, but only the physiological effects. Psychological symptoms appear to be less related to class of strategy and some behavioral symptoms of stress can actually be used as strategies to reduce the physiological and psychological symptoms (Gal & Lazarus, 1975). As McGrath (1976) indicates the effectiveness of these strategies may also be influenced by the relationship between what the individual wants to do and his/her actual performance. That is, just because (s)he behaves to reduce role conflict, does not mean the role conflict will be reduced. Summary. Individual strategies associated with stress reflect a subset of individual qualities identified in an earlier section. The individual strategies can be effective in their association with stress through the stressor-stress relationship and through the stress-stress symptom relationship. The effectiveness of these strategies, therefore, depends upon their appropriateness in the stressor-stress relationship, e.g., is the stress-related stressor the target of the strategy and their appropriateness for the stress symptoms desired to be influenced. Complexities may arise, however, in an individual's ability to have an effective strategy if (s)he fails to discern a specific stressor-stress relationship, fails to successfully implement what (s)he plans, and/or fails to use a perhaps necessary combination of strategies, each appropriate for different stress symptoms.

STRESS PROPOSITIONS From the preceding conceptualization about stress in organizations and based upon the varied but limited stress research (McGrath, 1976; Beehr & Newman, 1978; Newman & Beehr, 1979; Lazarus, 1978) the following propositions are suggested: 1. Three types of stress can be identified as being constraint stress, opportunity stress, and demand stress. These three types suggest that stress can be associated with what may be regarded as both positive and negative conditions (Holmes & Rahe, 1967), thus helping to put in perspective the generally negative tone applied to stress research (McGrath, 1976). This also explicates the common definitions of stress which use the general term demand. The term demand, however, has been used in several ways, and includes the notions of demand, constraint, and opportunity as used here (Selye, 1956; McGrath, 1976). To incorporate the multidisciplinary approach to stress research, the term demand stress is generally thought to be related more closely with the pathogenic agents (the organizational qualities such as chemicals and poisons) while constraint and opportunity stresses are generally thought to be related more closely with the sociopsychological agents (which include most of the organizational qualities mentioned earlier).

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An individual's total stress represents the sum of the individual's constraint stresses, opportunity stresses, and demand stresses. Following Selye (1956), stress is an additive condition. An individual may experience total stress from the sum of the stress from one or several constraint, demand, and/or opportunity conditions simultaneously. 3. The intensity of a stress condition, whether demand, constraint, or opportunity, is determined by the value of the outcome(s) and their respective uncertainty attached to the resolution of the stress condition. This proposition is consistent with most of the stress literature which even suggests that without important outcomes at stake there is no stress (Sells, 1970). Furthermore, as the number of outcomes and their associated uncertainty and importance attached to each type of stress associated with a dynamic condition increase, the more stress an individual will experience from that condition. 4. Organizational qualities may be associated with constraint, demand, and opportunity stress. The same organizational quality may be related to an opportunity for one individual but to a constraint for another. An individual's total stress may, therefore, reflect not only a unique combination of types of stresses but a unique set of organizational qualities associated with the types of stresses. Organizational qualities used in the investigation of an individual's stress should include those qualities which may be viewed as positive (e.g., a promotion) as well as negative (e.g., a demotion) and of course related to an individual's needs and values. 5. Stress is associated with three groups of symptoms: physiological, psychological, and behavioral. The stress-stress symptom relationships need to be examined by type of stress and by symptom. Below are some tentative associations between types and symptoms. 5a. Opportunity, constraint, and demand stresses are all positively related to the probability of the incidence of physiological symptoms. Although the limited nonorganizational stress research suggests that even certain physiological symptoms may not always occur with stress, it is felt that evidence does not warrant propositions between types of stresses and specific physiological symptoms. Furthermore, the data do not even allow specification of relationships among the physiological symptoms, e.g., that increased blood pressure precedes CHD. 5b. Opportunity stress is positively related to affective psychological outcomes such as satisfaction and job involvement. The opportunity to gain valued outcomes, to fulfill one's needs and values, should be associated with satisfaction and job involvement almost by definition (Locke, 1976).

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5c. Demand stress, constraint stress, and opportunity stress are positively related to cognitive psychological outcomes. It appears that cognitive psychological outcomes such as perceptual distortion, tunnel vision, and tendency to misjudge others increase with any type of stress. 5d. Opportunity stress is negatively related to some behavioral symptoms such as absenteeism and turnover. Under opportunity stress the individual has the potential to gain more of what (s)he desires. The potential, however, can be experienced and realized only when the individual engages in the behavior, i.e., stays with the organization in which the opportunity stress is experienced. 5e. Opportunity stress and constraint stress have an inverted U relationship with some behavioral symptoms such as performance. The relationships are influenced by the nature of the task and performance criterion such that: 1. The apex of the inverted U is higher under an easy task and/or with a quantity measure of performance. In addition, under these conditions, the right half of the inverted U declines very little. 2. The apex of the inverted U is lower under a difficult task and/or with a quality measure of performance. 5f. Demand stress is negatively related to some behavioral symptoms such as performance. Propositions 5e and f, although not explicated as such in the previous literature and research, are generally consistent with Sales (1969), McGrath (1976), Gal and Lazarus (1975), and Anderson (1976). In proposition 5e, it is suggested that an individual wants to and will perform to take advantage of the stress-related opportunity or to try to overcome the stress-related constraint. Increased performance is facilitated by an easy task and/or a quantity measure of performance. This increase, however, can occur only to a point because of the increased arousal level (Scott, 1966). If the task is difficult, problem-solving behavior is required to perform well and, as Anderson (1976) reported, problem solving declines with increased stress; therefore, performance will decline. With demand stress, an individual's physical ability to perform is impaired and thus, regardless of task type or performance measure, s(he) will perform less well with increasing demand stress. 6. Individual strategies can be developed to reduce stress and to reduce the stress symptoms associated with stress. As suggested by Gal and Lazarus (1975), individuals can engage in strategies which relate to the anticipation of stress or to the confrontation of stress (i.e., by the definition of stress presented in this paper, things to do after the stress is experienced). The strategies related to the anticipa-

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tion of stress should be effective to the extent they are associated with: (a) the potential stressors, one or several of the organizational qualities; (b) the importance of the outcomes of the resolution of the anticipated stress conditions; and (c) the uncertainty of the resolution of the stress condition, e.g., by increasing an individual's ability vis-~t-vis the condition so resolution is very easy or by decreasing an individual's ability vis-a-vis the condition so resolution is very difficult or impossible (McGrath, 1976). In these strategies related to the anticipation of stress, effectiveness is defined in terms of the stress and stress-stress symptom,relationship. Because particular stress conditions may be associated with positive symptoms for an individual, an effective strategy is one which is associated with more of those particular stress conditions. For the particular stress conditions associated with negative symptoms for an individual, an effective strategy is one which is associated with more of those particular stress conditions. The potential conflict in determining the effectiveness of anticipation strategies results from the relationships between stress and the set of stress symptoms. Even though some stress types are associated with "positive" symptoms and others are associated with "negative" symptoms, this is only true for behavioral and psychological symptoms. For physiological symptoms, all stress types are "negative" (at least within organizations). But some strategies related to the confrontation of stress are associated with "positive" physiological symptoms, e.g., meditation (Benson, 1974) while unrelated to specific behavioral and psychological symptoms (at least with the present knowledge about the interrelationships of these three sets of symptoms). This suggests that effectiveness of strategies should be determined by the joint effectiveness of anticipation and confrontation strategies. Summary. These are the major propositions from the conceptualization of stress in organizations. Several additional, important propositions such as those related to the varying degrees of uncertainty which may be associated with varying levels of intensity of stress or the types of stress and unique stress-stress symptom relationships remain to be expounded. Even with only the major propositions, however, adequate investigation will be extremely complex and challenging. Adequate investigation will also require the multidisciplinary approach suggested and even urged by so many of those in the stress field (Lazarus, 1978; Beehr & Newman, 1978; Newman & Beehr, 1979; McGrath, 1976). Furthermore, the multidisciplinary approach should incorporate both static and longitudinal analyses. Using both analyses will capture the structural and process characteristics of stress and the entire conceptualization of stress in organizations (Lazarus, 1978). Not only must the static (structural) relationships among the components of the conceptualization of stress be investigated but also the ongoing processes, such as how individuals actually

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appraise situations and develop and implement particular strategies and then respond and revise after success or failure, must be investigated. CONCLUSION Stress in organizations is becoming an increasingly important concern, both academically and organizationally. Although a great deal of research on " s t r e s s " has been done, much of it remains unrelated. The lack of an integration of the stress research results perhaps from the diversity of academic disciplines independently engaged in the research and from the lack of a common definition and conceptualization of stress in organizations. It was suggested here that the development of a common definition and conceptualization of stress would facilitate the integration of stress research. Indeed, it was implied that the usefulness of stress research may only be realized if it is conducted within a multidisciplinary framework. In this paper a definition and conceptualization of stress in organizations were presented. The definition and conceptualization attempted to reflect consideration of the existing multiple uses, paradigms, and research results of stress inside as well as outside organizations. The major components of the definition of stress were uncertainty, opportunity, constraint, and demand. Three types of stress were developed based on the definition of stress. Stress was then related to organizational qualities and stress symptoms. Individual strategies associated with stress, organizational qualities, and stress symptoms were introduced and examined. Finally a set of propositions based on the definition and conceptualization was presented along with a few brief comments related to the methodology for the examination of these propositions. REFERENCES Adams, J. S. Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology. New York: Academic Press, 1965. Vol. 2. A n d e r s o n , C . R . Coping b e h a v i o r s as intervening mechanisms in the i n v e r t e d - U stress-performance relationship. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1976, 61, 30-34. Argyris, C. Integrating the individual and the organization. New York: Wiley, 1964. Beehr, T. A., & Newman, J. E. Job stress, employee health, and organizational effectiveness: A facet analysis, model, and literature review. Personnel Psychology, 1978, 31, 665-699. Benson, H. Your innate asset for combating stress. Harvard Business Review, 1974, July-August, 49-60. Brook, A. Mental stress at work. The Practitioner, 1973, 210, 500-506. Buck, V. Working under pressure. London: Staples, 1972. Cannon, W. B. Organization for physiological homeostasis. Physiological Review, 1929, 9, 339-430. Caplan, R. Organizational stress and individual strain: A socio-psychological study of risk factors in coronary heart disease among administrators, engineers and scientists. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1971. Caplan, R. D., Cobb, S., & French, J. R. P. Relationships of cessation of smoking with job stress, personality, and social support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1975, 60, 211-219.

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