CHAPTER FOUR: SENSE OF COHERENCE (SOC)
4.3 The meaning of stress (or)
Selye (1974) cited in Henle and Blanchard (2008) reports that stress is a common mental and physical reaction to challenging situations in a given environment. While Hogh and Mikkelsen (2005) report that threatening events become stressful where the individual involved lacks requisite coping capabilities to respond to the threat (Lazarus & Folkman, 1991). This implies that an event that is threatening may also not be seen as stressful by an individual who possess the needed coping abilities to respond positively. Lazarus (1993) suggests that no matter how stress is defined or explained, there are four theories associated to stress. They are:
(a) External source or internal cause, described by Hooke (1974) as ‘load’, and in the literature as stress or stressor.
(b) An assessment (through a mental or physical structure) that separates threat or danger from what is non-threatening. This includes individual resources and dispositional abilities that assist individuals in processing stressful situations.
(c) The mind’s (or body’s) processes against stressors.
(d) Complicated mental and physiological configuration about the impacts of stress known as stress response.
Stress denotes a departure from normal behaviour or a state of expectation. Scholars agree that although an imperative interface exists between the psychological and the physical stress (ors), each require different degrees of examination (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984a).
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Lazarus (1993) concurs that the agent of physiological stress (dangers or threats to skin) could not be said to be the same as what is threatening or stressful to the mind (mental state). This simply means that the effect of stressors on the mind and the body respectively need to be studied thoroughly to determine the degree of strain on a person’s psychological and physiological well-being and functioning. That is why the present study examines the impact that stressors have on a person’s SOC and ability to achieve WLB.
Lazarus (1966) clearly highlights three types of stress, namely: harm, threat, and challenge (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984a; Lazarus & Launier, 1978). The scholar defined harm as a mental injury caused that cannot be reversed. Threat was described as an expectation of injury that is susceptible to occurrence. Challenge was seen as the outcome of challenging needs that an individual believes he/she can overcome through the mobilisation and use of the individual’s resources for coping. All three kinds of mental stressors are reported to be purportedly highlighted by various precursor situations prevalent in the environment as well as in an individual, capable of producing differing outcomes (Lazarus, 1993). The stressors examined in this study are those relating to threat and challenge. For example, job stress which could cause illness may be the result of a poor job design that causes role conflict/ambiguity among employees. The poor job design is a threat expected to cause conflict and ultimately stress.
Similarly, time-related challenges can be addressed through well-crafted and implemented WLBS. This study assumes that stressors from the work and family environment could create imbalance in a person’s work-life or be mitigated by the presence of strong SOC and appropriate WLBS in the organisation.
There are two categories of stress namely acute (sharp) and chronic (lingering) stress.
According to Latendresse (2009), acute (critical) stress is very transient in nature and often ends in the immediate and successful resolution of a threatening or demanding problem. On the other hand, chronic stress takes a longer time and results in the absence of resolution to the problem or threatening issue. For instance, a heated argument between a couple that resulted in the effective addressing of a threatening problem or a threat is a good illustration of an acute stress while constant and repeated relational conflicts that defy resolution illustrates chronic stress (Latendresse, 2009). There are measures used in measuring stressors. According to Beehr et al. (2000), due to the fact that chronic stressors are often theorised as a result of their being the same in every job, common measures are used for them. Also, different measures are used
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for acute stressors because of their specificity to jobs in concept and operations (Motowidlow, Packard & Manning, 1986).
Due to the dissimilarity among lingering (chronic) and sharp (acute) stressors, Beehr and Franz (1987) report there could be a difference in the manner in which they affect an individual’s stress and outcome. Latendresse (2009) reports that individuals comprehend stress from the resources they have adapted to, for example, coping abilities. The scholar further posits that an individual with sufficient personal coping ability may view stressors from a positive perspective, otherwise, he/she could utilise other coping methods, bearing in mind that he/she could rely on prompt help from his/her social network (support system). On the other hand, individuals who isolate themselves or operate from an unfriendly or violent environment could feel overwhelmed and pessimistic, leading to incorrect assessment of stressors (Latendresse, 2009). It could therefore be correctly presumed that, since the impact of stressors on individuals are subjective, dispositional factors like SOC could ameliorate the dire effect that stressors could have on those who possess strong SOC when compared to the impact that the same stressors could have on those with low SOC.
To Beehr et al. (2000), stressors which are connected to a specific job (whether it is chronic or acute) could as a result of their prominence among workers in that specific employment affect a person’s level of strains and outcome (Beehr et al., 2000). This is imperative in the sense that a person can remove him/herself from a job that is notable for specific strain, thereby freeing him/herself from the strain. Also, the reality that a particular stressor is known to be an integral part of a particular job could inform the formulation of WLBS that could assist employees in coping with the stressor.
Lazarus (1993) reports that an empirical search into how people appraise and cope with stressors revealed that these (appraisal and coping) inform the way that individuals reacted to stress. In addition, the scholar affirms that these variables were impacted by factors present in the environment and those inside the individual. This opinion is in sync with the assumption of the present study that the environment of an individual’s upbringing and the resources present therein inform their SOC and the level thereof (Antonovsky, 1987). This could influence the way the individual manages stress and/or achieves WLB. Therefore, a person’s SOC coupled with strategies (resources) available in the workplace (WLBS) should assist the individual to manage stressors and achieve meaningful WLB.
54 4.4 Stressors and coping
The coping process became prominent along with the research into thoughts as a mediational variable (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus, Averill, & Opton, 1974). Lazarus (1993) views coping as the modification of a person’s situation, or the way they are seen, in order to cause them to look better and more desirable. He sees coping as a ‘process’ - an individual’s continuous efforts both in thinking and deeds targeted at handling certain needs seen as challenging or overpowering. Folkman and Lazarus (1985) postulate that though it is important for ways of coping to be realistic, the construct (coping) is very relative due to the fact that its efficacy is dependent on its ability to change overtime through various stressors (Lazarus, 1993).
Coping is used in expressing the perceived, behavioural and the mental processes that individuals use in managing, avoiding or controlling difficult circumstances (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984b; Zeidner & Endler, 1996). From Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) report, they primarily observed that ‘problem-focused’ (effective coping) and ‘emotion-focused’ (inactive coping) are two different tactics for coping. Effective coping (problem-focused) tactics comprise those strategies that are used in appraising an issue, creating and assessing options for solving the problem as well as deciding and implementing a plan about what to do. On the other hand, emotion-focused tactics comprise methods like evasion, refusal to believe, affirmative definition of the problem, and pursuit of emotional support (Van der Colff &
Rothmann, 2009).
Additionally, Latendresse (2009) primarily reports that the way a person responds to a stressor is affected by their coping process. Literature shows that coping impacts ensuing response to stress in a dual manner; firstly, in the event that an individual modifies his/her association with the environment through the way he/she copes with the stressors, his/her mental stress could change in a better direction. Lazarus and his cohorts referred to this as ‘problem-focused coping’. For example, success achieved in persuading a spouse who is always very busy at work to help pick up (fetch) the children from school on a day that the other spouse who normally picks them up is indisposed will remove the initial threat or challenge faced by the spouse if there was no one to pick up the children.
Secondly, another coping procedure called ‘emotion-focused coping’ is mainly concerned with the manner in which people give attention to and attach meaning to events around them (Lazarus & Folkman, 1985). Lazarus and Folkman (1985) further suggest that a successfully avoided dangerous thought has no power to bother an individual. In the same manner,
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evaluating a threat in a way that makes it void of threat eliminates the perceptive angle of response to the stress (Lazarus, 1993). For instance, the reasoning by a spouse of a belittling remark by his/her spouse as something that came out wrongly or was unintended to cause hurt, or was a result of work-related stress or ailment, could lead to the dissipation of reactive clamour or wrath. Lazarus (1993) affirms that in whatever way it is viewed, coping associates positively with mental stress (Lazarus, 1993).
The present study examines chronic common stressors like job stress, role conflict/function ambiguity, and absence of autonomy for their predictions on SOC and WLB as well as their association with WLBS. The question is, do work stressors associate significantly with SOC?
Also, do stressors associate negatively to WLBS? The study suggests that work and family stressors associate negatively to SOC. For instance, continued effects of stressors on an employee with weak SOC could erode the little coherence and lead to imbalance between his/her work-life domain. As a result of these stressors, it could be assumed that employees may not be satisfied with their work situation if stressors are high.
In this study, WLB is indicated by the achievement of satisfaction with work and family situations. SOC indicator is stability in the achievement of WLB demonstrated by constancy in satisfaction and effectiveness in the work and family domains of the individual professional level employee. Likewise, the researcher assumes that the use of WLBS by employees will associate positively to SOC, in the sense that it is expected that more individuals with low SOC will use WLBS while individuals with strong SOC may not use WLBS as sources of coping with stressors.
To Beehr et al. (2000), stressors associate more strongly to behavioural manifestations. This is in consonance with the suppositions of the present study that stressors could impair individuals’
SOC and this could result in work-life imbalance emanating from the individual’s dysfunctional behaviour. For example, an employee under stress will likely perform his/her role at home or at work but may not be efficient at such role performance nor be satisfied with the outcome of the role performed. The effect of role conflict and function vagueness (stressors), for instance on behaviours relating to work is universal, as reported in the meta- analysis of Jackson and Schuler (1985), and Fisher and Gitelson (1983). They confirm that these factors (role conflict and function vagueness) have relationship with reduced job fulfilment levels, involvement with work, and dedication as well as increased degrees of strain and susceptibility to resigning from the workplace (Dierdorff, Rubin, & Morgeson, 2009;
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Hang-Yue, Foley, & Loi, 2005; Jackson & Schuler, 1985; Netemeyer, Johnston, & Burton, 1990; Schulz & Auld, 2006).
Moreover, Netemeyer et al. (1990) report that though studies on role conflict and function vagueness abound, just a few of them have actually explained and examined the theories of the results of these constructs (Bedeian & Armenakis, 1981; Gilboa, Shirom, & Fried, 2005;
Jackson, 1983; Karatepe & Sokmen, 2006; Kemery, Bedeian, Mossholder, & Touliatos, 1985).
This study investigates the impact of work and family stressors on an individual’s SOC. The study duly adds value to the literature by examining the effect of stressors on SOC with the aim of analysing the association between SOC and WLB.