Occupational stress, occupational structure and occupational morbidity

Occupational stress, occupational structure and occupational morbidity

International Congress Series 1241 (2002) 151 – 154 Occupational stress, occupational structure and occupational morbidity D.G. Byrne * School of Psy...

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International Congress Series 1241 (2002) 151 – 154

Occupational stress, occupational structure and occupational morbidity D.G. Byrne * School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia

Abstract Occupational stress poses a substantial problem in many countries. Its rates of occurrence and its origins are therefore the subject of substantial research. Competitiveness is an increasingly prominent characteristic of many occupational environments and is considered by some to be essential for occupational advancement and achievement. This paper proposes that the frustration of competitiveness by structural aspects of the occupational environment contributes to the generation of occupational stress. Data are presented which provide some support for the view and while further and more detailed investigation is required, the hypothesis seems to justify this additional work. D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Occupational stress; Competitiveness; Type A behaviour; Frustration

1. Introduction Occupational stress is of major importance to the health and efficiency of most communities. While rate estimates have been made for specific samples of workers, rates of discrete occupational stress in unselected samples of general populations are rare. Symptoms of occupational stress are not, however, left in the workplace at the end of the day but remain with the individual to impact on to the broader psychosocial domain [1]. Perhaps then, real estimates lie with the economic costs of occupational stress to communities and are evident, inter alia, in the substantial level of litigation and claims for compensation made to insurers for illness and

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0531-5131/02 D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 5 3 1 - 5 1 3 1 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 6 2 9 - 5

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disability directly arising from the occupational environment. Many reasons are proposed for current levels of occupational stress [2] but central to this is an apparently increasing need for individual competitiveness in the occupational environment to maintain employment or facilitate occupational advancement. This is consistent with many of the core attributes of the occupational environment suggested by Holt [3] to underlie occupational stress. It is consistent with the Australian experience of the past decade where the notion of competition is enshrined in recent legislation governing industrial relations and both professional and trade practices in this country [4]. Possession of the Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) is modestly but consistently associated with occupational stress [2,5] and competitiveness has recently emerged as central to the notion of the TABP [6,7]. In an environment presenting opportunity cues for competition, those with the TABP have been shown to be more likely than others to respond with conspicuously competitive behaviours [8]. The contemporary occupational environment then, both provides and demands a matrix of opportunities both for the expression of competitive behaviours and the achievement of competitive goals. These are now effectively built in to both occupational structures themselves and the kinds of people who are most likely to achieve within those occupational structures. Ironically, however, it may be those very occupational structures and the cultures underlying them which act both to encourage occupational competitiveness and to frustrate it. While for some occupational environments, competitiveness is both the cultural norm and the facilitated goal, for others, the structures imposed within occupational environments may well be at odds either with the expression of competitive behaviours or the achievement of competitive goals. Two potential structural inhibitors come immediately to mind. The first, occupational level, is clearly related in the literature to individual competitiveness [9]. Despite that, it has as much to do with the structure of a given occupation as it has to do with individual aspirations. Thus, while it may seem a crude variable to include in a model of occupational stress, it is clear that those employed at the lower in the occupational strata, regardless of inherent competitiveness, have far less control over their capacity to act competitively and achieve competitive goals than do those in the upper occupational strata, and may therefore be subjected to greater levels of frustration. The second, external accountability, is also a function of the occupational environment over which the individual has little control. Evidence suggests that the need to be constantly answerable to those external to the organisation (customers, stakeholders, clients) will be more likely to impede the expression of competitive behaviours and the achievement of competitive goals than where an individual is selfdirected or answerable only to a single supervisor. If this is so, then it may be hypothesised that structural impediments to the expression of competitive behaviours and the achievement of competitive goals in occupational environments which value competitiveness as an occupational expectation will result, inter alia, in the generation of occupational stress. Furthermore, this observation, if it can be demonstrated, may be accentuated by the possession of an individual attribute, the TABP, which engenders competitiveness as a defining characteristic. Data from the study to be reported bear on these hypotheses.

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2. Method Data to be reported have been taken from an accumulating sample of bureaucrats employed by Federal and Territory governments in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Invitations were sent to all employees in two government departments to voluntarily participate in an anonymous questionnaire study of occupational health and the work environment. Departments were chosen because they reflected a broad range of occupational levels. They also provided a significant contrast in levels of external accountability, from self-directed professionals and those working in small autonomous teams to those with direct and day-to-day accountability either to government ministers (at a senior level), to clients (at a professional level) or to members of the public (at a minor service level). Data were collected using a self-completed questionnaire covering: (a) socio-demographic attributes; (b) occupational level derived from the Australian Bureau of Statistics occupational profile; (c) level and nature of external accountability; (d) job satisfaction [5]; (e) occupational stress using the Job Stress Survey [10]; and (f) the Type A behaviour pattern using the Jenkins Activity Survey [11].

3. Results Measures of occupational stress were: (a) positively and consistently related to measures of the TABP; (b) positively and consistently related both to total working hours in a standard week and to the number of hours worked overtime (discretionary working hours); and (c) negatively related to measures of job satisfaction. Measures of the TABP were: (a) positively and consistently related both to total working hours in a standard week and to the number of hours worked overtime (discretionary working hours); but (b) unrelated to measures of job satisfaction. Measures of occupational stress: (a) increased significantly with level of external accountability (contact with clients, stakeholders, political masters); and (b) decreased significantly but far less strongly and consistently with occupational level; but (c) there was little interaction between this pattern and levels of the TABP. Measures of job satisfaction: (a) decreased significantly with level of external accountability; but (b) there was no interaction between this pattern and levels of the TABP.

4. Discussion Response rates to this study have so far been disappointingly low; while there is no obvious reason for this, it may reflect a concern in those employed in a competitive occupational environment that even implicit criticism of that environment by admitting to occupational stress or dissatisfaction may impact onto occupational advancement. For this reason, the three-way interactions upon which the principal hypothesis rests (occupational level by external accountability by the TABP, with occupational stress as the dependent variable) have not yet been tested. They await a larger sample size and statistical power. Nonetheless, the associations already evident point encouragingly to the broad veracity of

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the hypothesis. Univariate associations were essentially as they were expected to be based on existing research evidence [6,7], and indicate that occupational stress increased with both occupational level and external accountability. Individuals whose occupational environments subjected them to relentless external scrutiny, frequently irrational and related more to the personal requirements of the scrutinizers than to an appreciation of the realities and limitations of service delivery, responded with high occupational stress and low job satisfaction [4]. External accountability, then, is one structural variable of the occupational environment which seems to promote frustration and therefore to underlie occupational stress. Occupational stress was far more modestly and less consistently related to occupational level than expected; however, it is likely the univariate crudity of this hypothesised relationship masked more complex patterns of influence [9]. The utility of occupational level, or some complex metric of it as an effective manipulation of frustration in the occupational environment will therefore rest on the use of more sensitive and sophisticated categorisations of that structural variable. The work reported here continues to evolve. The sample size must be increased to support three-way interactions outlined above. Measures and constructs of occupational level require re-examination so that the utility of this structural variable can be fully exploited. And explicit and objective manipulation checks on both competitiveness and frustration in the occupational environment need to be undertaken to establish the validity of the hypothesised mediators in determining levels of occupational stress. The social, health and economic significance of the dependent variable, however, clearly warrants these efforts.

References [1] N.S. Schwartberg, R.S. Dytell, Dual-earner families: the importance of work stress and family stress for psychological well-being, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 1 (2) (1996) 211 – 223. [2] D.G. Byrne, A.E. Byrne, Occupational stress, Type A behaviour and risk of coronary disease, in: C.D. Spielberger, I. Sarason, J. Brebner, J. Strelau (Eds.), Stress and Anxiety, vol. 13, Hemisphere Press, Washington, 1990, pp. 233 – 246. [3] R. Holt, Occupational stress, in: L. Goldberger, R. Breznitz (Eds.), Handbook of Stress: Theoretical and Clinical Aspects, Free Press, New York, 1993, pp. 342 – 367. [4] R.G. Stewart, Public Policy: Strategy and Accountability, MacMillan, Sydney, 1999. [5] D.G. Byrne, M.I. Reinhart, Self reported distress, job dissatisfaction and the Type A behaviour pattern in a sample of full-time employed Australians, Work and Stress 4 (2) (1990) 155 – 166. [6] D.G. Byrne, Type A behaviour, anxiety and neuroticism: reconceptualising the patho-physiological paths and boundaries of coronary-prone behaviour, Stress Medicine 12 (1996) 227 – 238. [7] D.G. Byrne, The frustration of success, in: D.T. Kenny, J.G. Carlson, F. McGuigan, J.L. Shepherd (Eds.), Stress and Health, Harwood Publishers, The Netherlands, 2000, pp. 411 – 436. [8] B.K. Houston, Cardiovascular and neuroendocrine activity, global Type A and components of Type A behaviour, in: B.K. Houston, C.R. Snyder (Eds.), Type A Behaviour Pattern, Wiley, New York, 1988, pp. 212 – 253. [9] S.P. Robbins, B. Millett, R. Cacioppe, T. Waters-Marsh, Organisational Behaviour, Prentice Hall, Sydney, 1998. [10] C.D. Spielberger, P.R. Vagg, Professional Manual for the Job Stress Survey, Research Edition, Psychological Assessment Resources, Florida, 1999. [11] C.D. Jenkins, S. Zyzanski, R.H. Rosenman, Manual of the Jenkins Activity Survey, Psychological Corporation, Sydney, 1979.