Psychosocial Job Dimensions And Distress Well Being Issues And Challenges In Occupational Health Psychology

Over the last three decades a large body of research has showed that psychosocial job dimensions such as time pressure, decision authority and social support, could have significant implications for psychological distress and well-being. Theoretical models, such as the job demand-control-social support model (JDCS model), the effort-reward imbalance model (ERI model), the job demands-resources model (JDR model) and the vitamin model suggest that distress and positive dimensions at work (well being and motivation) can be considered as two sides of the same coin. If the job is designed to provide the right mix of psychosocial job dimensions (e.g., optimal time pressure, decision authority and social support), work can boost job engagement and well-being as well as productive behaviors at work. When the job is not designed in an optimal way (e.g., too much time pressure and too little decision authority) work can trigger stress reactions and burnout. Although some insight has been gained on how job dimensions could predict distress and well-being, and also into the dimensions that might moderate and mediate these associations; research still faces several challenges. Firstly, most of this research has been cross-sectional in nature, thus making it difficult to conclude on the long-term effects of psychosocial job dimensions. Another challenge concerns how the contextual dimensions can be incorporated into micro-levels models on employee stress and well-being. Nowadays, work is carried out in the context of a wider environment that includes organizational variables. So far the role of the organizational variables in the theoretical frameworks for explaining the relationships between psychosocial job dimensions, employee distress and well-being, has often been underplayed. The main aim of this research topic is to bring together international research from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to advance knowledge and practice in the field of work stress.

Over the last three decades a large body of research has showed that psychosocial job dimensions such as time pressure, decision authority and social support, could have significant implications for psychological distress and well-being. Theoretical models, such as the job demand-control-social support model (JDCS model), the effort-reward imbalance model (ERI model), the job demands-resources model (JDR model) and the vitamin model suggest that distress and positive dimensions at work (well being and motivation) can be considered as two sides of the same coin. If the job is designed to provide the right mix of psychosocial job dimensions (e.g., optimal time pressure, decision authority and social support), work can boost job engagement and well-being as well as productive behaviors at work. When the job is not designed in an optimal way (e.g., too much time pressure and too little decision authority) work can trigger stress reactions and burnout. Although some insight has been gained on how job dimensions could predict distress and well-being, and also into the dimensions that might moderate and mediate these associations; research still faces several challenges. Firstly, most of this research has been cross-sectional in nature, thus making it difficult to conclude on the long-term effects of psychosocial job dimensions. Another challenge concerns how the contextual dimensions can be incorporated into micro-levels models on employee stress and well-being. Nowadays, work is carried out in the context of a wider environment that includes organizational variables. So far the role of the organizational variables in the theoretical frameworks for explaining the relationships between psychosocial job dimensions, employee distress and well-being, has often been underplayed. The main aim of this research topic is to bring together international research from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to advance knowledge and practice in the field of work stress.

This book is a valuable, comprehensive and unique reference text on Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), a new work stress theory. It proposes a new PSC theory concerning the corporate climate for workers’ psychological health, its origins and implications for work stress, and provides a critique of current research and theories. It provides a comprehensive review of all PSC studies to date. The chapters discuss state-of-the-art empirical evidence testing PSC theory in relation to management roles, organisational resilience, corruption, organisational status, cultural perspectives, illegitimate tasks, high PSC work groups, PSC variability in work groups, etc. They investigate outcomes such as psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, depression, worry, engagement, health, cognitive decline, personal initiative, boredom, cynicism, sickness absence, and productivity loss, in various workplace settings across many countries. This unique book allows practitioners to rapidly update practical measures, benchmarks and processes, and provides students and trainees with an introduction to PSC and important concepts and methods, quantitative and qualitative, in occupational health with leads to further sources. Students as well as experts on occupational health and safety, human resource management, occupational health psychology, organisational psychology and practitioners, unions and policy makers will find this book highly informative. It covers relevant materials for undergraduate and postgraduate education, drawing upon the concepts, topics and methods (diary, multilevel, longitudinal, qualitative, data linkage) within the multidisciplinary occupational health area.

Since the 1960s, a major mental health crisis has emerged among Western working populations. By analysing the development of various occupational cultures, this book captures the history of mental vulnerability in working life. Through a study spanning several decades, the book develops a new understanding of how mental vulnerability has evolved through changes to our working lives and socio-cultural being.

Underemployment – when people are employed in some way that is insufficient, such as being overqualified or working part-time when one desires full-time employment – is a challenge faced by all industrialized nations and their organizations and individuals. Just like unemployment, some level of underemployment exists even in the best of times, but it becomes more pervasive when the job market is weak. Given the current economic climate in North America and abroad, researchers and scholars in various disciplines (psychology, business, sociology, economics) are becoming more interested in investigating the effects of underemployment and identifying possible practical solutions. Underemployment synthesizes the current understanding of the phenomenon by bringing together scholars with diverse perspectives and expertise with the aim of informing and guiding the next generation of underemployment research.

Until recently, studies of women's health received scant research attention in the context of the overall magnitude of research conducted on health. Even for health issues that affect both men and women, most research has been limited to male subjects, leaving a large gap in our knowledge base concerning women's health. Finally, the decade of the 1990s is ushering in a shift in this inequity. In 1990 the U.S. National Institutes of Health issued a compelling report citing the lack of sufficient research on women's health as a major gap in our knowledge, and a mandate has been issued to add women as study subjects in research or to document why they have not been included. Such directives will undoubtedly lead to a much-needed burgeoning of research activities in the area of women's health as we approach the twenty-first century. Despite limited research resources, however, there have been steady, scientifically rigorous voices in the wilderness for the last several years, and many of the best investigators are represented in this volume. These workers have led the vanguard in exploring psychosocial factors that are likely to differentially affect women's and men's health. For example, women and men engage in social roles that often differ, if not in quantity, then certainly in quality. Sex differences in role expectations, environmen tal qualities, role burdens related to the domains of work and family, and abilities to adapt to and cope with stressful situations may have a distinctive impact on health.