Emotions at Work

The Stress Process

Our lower brains control basic human functions, such as breathing, blinking, heartbeat, digestion, and other unconscious actions. Outside this portion of the brain lies the semiconscious limbic system, which plays a significant role in human emotions. Within this system is an area known as the amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for stimulating fear responses, among other things. Unfortunately, the amygdala cannot distinguish between meeting a 10:00 a.m. marketing deadline and escaping a burning building. Human brains respond to outside threats to our safety with a message to our bodies to engage in a “fight-or-flight” response (Cannon, 1915). Our bodies prepare for these scenarios with an increased heart rate, shallow breathing, and wide-eyed focus. Even digestion and other functions are stopped in preparation for the fight-or-flight response. While these traits allowed our ancestors to flee the scene of their impending doom or engage in a physical battle for survival, most crises at work are not as dramatic as this.

Hans Selye, one of the founders of the American Institute of Stress, spent his life examining the human body’s response to stress. As an endocrinologist who studied the effects of adrenaline and other hormones on the body, Selye believed that unmanaged stress could create physical diseases such as ulcers and high blood pressure, and psychological illnesses such as depression. He hypothesized that stress played a general role in disease by exhausting the body’s immune system and termed this the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) (Selye, 1956; Selye, 1976).

In the alarm phase of stress, an external stressor jolts the individual, prompting them to take action. It may help to think of this as the fight-or-flight moment in the individual’s experience. If the response is sufficient, the body will return to its resting state after successfully dealing with the source of stress. During the resistance phase, the body begins to release cortisol and draws on its reserves of fats and sugars to adjust to the stress demands. This reaction works well for short periods, but it is only a temporary fix. Individuals forced to endure the stress of cold and hunger may find a way to adjust to lower temperatures and less food. While it is possible for the body to “adapt” to such stresses, the situation cannot continue. The body is drawing on its reserves, like a hospital using backup generators after a power failure. It can continue functioning by shutting down unnecessary items, such as large overhead lights, elevators, televisions, and most computers, but it cannot remain in that state forever.

In the exhaustion phase, the body has depleted its stores of sugars and fats, and the prolonged release of cortisol has caused the stressor to significantly weaken the individual. Disease results from the body’s weakened state, leading to death in the most extreme cases. This eventual depletion is why we’re more likely to reach for foods rich in fat or sugar, caffeine, or other quick fixes that provide us with energy when we’re stressed. Selye referred to stress that led to disease as distress and anxiety that was enjoyable or healing as eustress.

Workplace Stressors

Stressors are events or contexts that cause stress by elevating adrenaline levels and forcing a physical or mental response. The key to remembering stressors is that they aren’t necessarily bad. The saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back” applies to stressors. Having a few stressors in our lives may not be a problem, but because stress is cumulative, having multiple stressors day after day can cause a buildup that becomes a significant issue. The American Psychological Association surveys American adults about their stresses annually. Money, work, and housing are among the top stressors (American Psychological Association, 2007). However, in essence, we could say that all three problems ultimately stem from the workplace. The amount we earn determines the kind of housing we can afford, and when job security is questionable, our home life is also generally affected. Understanding what can potentially cause stress can help avoid negative consequences. We will now examine the major stressors in the workplace. Role demands are a significant category of workplace stressors. In other words, some jobs and work contexts are more potentially stressful than others.

Role Demands

Role ambiguity refers to vagueness about what our responsibilities are. If you have started a new job and felt unclear about what you were expected to do, you have experienced role ambiguity. High role ambiguity is related to higher emotional exhaustion, more thoughts of leaving an organization, and lowered job attitudes and performance (Fisher & Gittelson, 1983; Jackson & Shuler, 1985; Örtqvist & Wincent, 2006). Role conflict refers to facing contradictory demands at work. For example, your manager may want you to increase customer satisfaction and cut costs, while you feel that satisfying customers inevitably increases costs. In this case, you are experiencing role conflict because satisfying one demand is unlikely to meet the other. Role overload is insufficient time and resources to complete a job. When an organization downsizes, the remaining employees must take on the tasks previously performed by the laid-off workers, which often leads to role overload. Like role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload have been shown to impact performance and lower job attitudes negatively; however, research indicates that role ambiguity is the strongest predictor of poor performance (Gilboa et al., 2008; Tubre & Collins, 2000). Research on new employees also indicates that role ambiguity is a significant factor in their adjustment, and that when role ambiguity is high, new employees struggle to integrate into the new organization (Bauer et al., 2007).

Information Overload

Messages reach us in countless ways every day. Some are societal advertisements that we may encounter throughout our day. Others include professional emails, memos, voicemails, and conversations with our colleagues. Others are personal messages and conversations from our loved ones and friends. Add these together, and it’s easy to see how we may receive more information than we can. This state of imbalance is known as information overload, which can be defined as “occurring when the information processing demands on an individual’s time to perform interactions and internal calculations exceed the supply or capacity of time available for such processing” (Schick, Gordon, & Haka, 1990). Role overload has become much more salient due to the ease with which we can access abundant information from Web search engines and the numerous emails and text messages we receive daily (Dawley & Anthony, 2003).^[1] Research indicates that working in a fragmented manner significantly impacts efficiency, creativity, and mental acuity (Overholt, 2001).

Work–Family Conflict

Work–family conflict occurs when the demands from work and family negatively affect one another (Netemeyer, Boles, & McMurrian, 1996). Specifically, work and family demands may be incompatible, such that work interferes with family life and family demands interfere with work life. This stressor has steadily increased in prevalence as work has become more demanding and technology has enabled employees to work from home, remaining connected to their jobs around the clock. A recent census revealed that 28% of the American workforce works more than 40 hours per week, resulting in an unavoidable spillover from work to family life (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). Moreover, the fact that more households have dual-earning families, in which both adults work, means that household and childcare duties are no longer the sole responsibility of a stay-at-home parent. This trend only compounds stress from the workplace by leading to the spillover of family responsibilities (such as a sick child or elderly parent) to work life. Research shows that individuals who have stress in one area of their life tend to have greater stress in other parts of their lives, which can create a situation of escalating stressors (Allen et al., 2000; Ford, Heinen, & Langkamer, 2007; Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992; Hammer, Bauer, & Grandey, 2003).

Work–family conflict is related to lower job and life satisfaction. Interestingly, it seems that work–family conflict is slightly more problematic for women than men (Kossek & Ozeki, 1998). Organizations that help their employees achieve a greater work–life balance are perceived as more attractive than those that do not (Barnett & Hall, 2001; Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). Organizations can help employees maintain a work–life balance by implementing organizational practices such as flexibility in scheduling and individual practices, including having supervisors who are supportive and considerate of employees’ family life (Thomas & Ganster, 1995).

Life Changes

Stress can result from positive and negative life changes. The Holmes-Rahe scale ascribes different stress values to life events ranging from the death of one’s spouse to receiving a ticket for a minor traffic violation. The values are based on incidences of illness and death 12 months after each event. On the Holmes-Rahe scale, the death of a spouse receives a stress rating of 100, getting married is seen as a midway stressful event, with a rating of 50, and losing one’s job is rated as 47. These numbers are relative values that enable us to understand the impact of various life events on our stress levels and their effect on our health and well-being (Fontana, 1989). Again, because stressors are cumulative, higher scores on the stress inventory mean you are more prone to suffering negative consequences of stress than someone with a lower score.

A study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor, examining over 3,600 companies from 1980 to 1994, found that manufacturing firms accounted for the most significant incidence of major downsizings. The average percentage of firms by industry that downsized more than 5% of their workforce across the 15-year study period was manufacturing (25%), retail (17%), and service (15%). 59% of the companies studied fired at least 5% of their employees at least once during the 15 years, and 33% downsized more than 15% of their workforce at least once. Furthermore, during the recessions of 1985-1986 and 1990-1991, more than 25% of all firms, regardless of size, reduced their workforce by more than 5% (Slocum et al., 1999). In the United States, major layoffs in many sectors in 2008 and 2009 were stressful even for those who retained their jobs.

The loss of a job can be a particularly stressful event, as evidenced by its high score on the life stressors scale. It can also lead to other stressful events, such as financial difficulties, which can contribute to a person’s overall stress level. Research shows that downsizing and job insecurity (worrying about downsizing) are related to greater stress, alcohol use, and lower performance and creativity (Moore, Grunberg, & Greenberg, 2004; Probst et al., 2007; Sikora et al., 2008). For example, a study of over 1,200 Finnish workers found that past downsizing or expectations of future downsizing were associated with greater psychological strain and absenteeism (Kalimo, Taris, & Schaufeli, 2003). In another study on creativity and downsizing, researchers found that creativity and most aspects of the perceived work environment that support creativity declined significantly during the downsizing process (Amabile & Conti, 1999). Those who experience layoffs but have self-integrity affirmed through other means are less susceptible to adverse outcomes (Wisenfeld et al., 2001).

Outcomes of Stress

The outcomes of stress are categorized into physiological, psychological, and work outcomes.

Physiological

Stress manifests internally as nervousness, tension, headaches, anger, irritability, and fatigue. Stress can also have outward manifestations. Dr. Dean Ornish, author of Stress, Diet, and Your Heart, states that stress is related to aging (Ornish, 1984). Chronic stress causes the body to secrete hormones, such as cortisol, which can blemish our complexion and contribute to the development of wrinkles. Harvard psychologist Ted Grossbart, author of Skin Deep, says, “Tens of millions of Americans suffer from skin diseases that flare up only when they’re upset” (Grossbart, 1992). These skin problems include itching, profuse sweating, warts, hives, acne, and psoriasis. For example, Roger Smith, the former CEO of General Motors Corporation, was featured in a Fortune article that began, “His normally ruddy face is covered with a red rash, a painless but disfiguring problem which Smith says his doctor attributes 99% to stress” (Taylor, 1987).

The human body responds to external stimuli by pumping more blood through its system, breathing more deeply, and gazing wide-eyed at the world. To accomplish this feat, our bodies shut down our immune systems. From a biological point of view, it’s a smart strategic move—but only in the short term. The idea can be seen as your body’s way of trying to escape an imminent threat, so there is still some kind of body around to get sick later. However, in the long term, a body under constant stress can excessively suppress its immune system, leading to health problems such as high blood pressure, ulcers, and increased susceptibility to illnesses like the common cold. The link between heart attacks and stress, while easy to assume, has been harder to prove. The American Heart Association notes that research has yet to establish a definitive link between the two. Regardless, it is clear that individuals under stress engage in behaviors that can lead to heart disease, such as eating fatty foods, smoking, or failing to exercise.

Psychological

Depression and anxiety are two psychological outcomes of unchecked stress, which are as dangerous to our mental health and welfare as heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes. The Harris poll found that 11% of respondents said a sense of depression accompanied their stress. “Persistent or chronic stress has the potential to put vulnerable individuals at a substantially increased risk of depression, anxiety, and many other emotional difficulties,” notes Mayo Clinic psychiatrist Daniel Hall-Flavin. Scientists have pointed out that changes in brain function—particularly in the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland—may play a significant role in stress-induced emotional problems (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2008).

Work Outcomes

Stress is associated with worse job attitudes, higher turnover, and decreased job performance, encompassing both in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2008; Gilboa et al., 2008; Podsakoff et al., 2007). Research also indicates that individuals experiencing stress tend to have lower organizational commitment compared to those who are less stressed (Cropanzano, Rupp, & Byrne, 2003). Interestingly, job challenges are related to higher performance, with some individuals rising to the challenge (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & MacKenzie, 2007). The key is to keep challenges in the optimal zone for stress—the activation stage—and avoid exhaustion (Quick et al., 1997).

Individual Differences in Experienced Stress

How we handle stress varies by individual, and part of that issue concerns our personality type. Type A personalities, as defined by the Jenkins Activity Survey (Jenkins, Zyzanski, & Rosenman, 1979), display high levels of speed/impatience, job involvement, and hard-driving competitiveness. Suppose you think back to Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome, in which unchecked stress can lead to illness over time. In that case, it’s easy to see how a Type A person’s fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping lifestyle can lead to increased stress, and research supports this view (Spector & O’Connell, 1994). Studies show that the hostility and hyper-reactive portion of the Type A personality is a significant concern in terms of stress and adverse organizational outcomes (Ganster, 1986).

Type B personalities, by contrast, are calmer by nature. They think through situations rather than reacting emotionally, which reduces their fight-or-flight response and stress levels. Our personalities are the outcome of our life experiences and, to some degree, our genetics. Some researchers believe that mothers who experience a great deal of stress during pregnancy introduce their unborn babies to high levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol in utero, predisposing their babies to a stressful life from birth (BBC News, 2007). Men and women also handle stress differently. Researchers at Yale University discovered that estrogen may heighten women’s response to stress and their tendency to depression as a result (Weaver, 2004). Still, others believe women’s stronger social networks allow them to process stress more effectively than men. So while women may become depressed more often than men, women may also have better tools for countering emotion-related stress than their male counterparts.

As we all know, stress can build up. Advice often given is to “let it all out” with something like a cathartic “good cry.” However, research suggests that crying may not be as beneficial as the adage implies. In reviewing scientific studies on crying and health, Ad Vingerhoets and Jan Scheirs found that the studies “yielded little evidence supporting the hypothesis that shedding tears improves mood or health directly, be it in the short or the long run.” Another study found that venting increased the adverse effects of negative emotion (Brown, Westbrook, & Challagalla, 2005). Instead, laughter may be the better remedy. Crying may intensify negative feelings because it serves as a social signal to others and yourself. “You might think, ‘I didn’t think it was bothering me that much, but look at how I’m crying—I must be upset,’” says Susan Labott of the University of Toledo. The crying may intensify the feelings. Labott and Randall Martin of Northern Illinois University at DeKalb surveyed 715 men and women. They found that at comparable stress levels, criers were more depressed, anxious, hostile, and tired than those who wept less. Those who used humor were the most successful at combating stress. So, if you’re looking for a cathartic release, opt for humor instead: Try to find something funny in your stressful predicament.