SBenegaL

Category: Performance

  • Stress – Strain Relationship 6

    In the last byte, we looked at self-reliance and the interdependence pattern of behavior that leads to a positive response when handling stress. We continue the discussion and see counterdependence and overdependence lead to not to positive responses to handling stress.

    Counterdependent people are generally seen to be rigid, dismissing and denial of the need of other people when in difficult and stressful times. Is an unhealthy, insecure pattern of behavior that leads to separation in relationship with others? They exhibit a fearless, aggressive and actively powerful response to challenges.

    Overdependence is also unhealthy and insecure pattern of behavior. In this case, the people respond to stressful and threatening situations by clinging to others. These people are found to display characteristics like being desperate, preoccupied with attempt to achieve a sense of security through relationships. The people who are overdependent could be seen as being active but disorganized and anxious when addressing a challenge. It is in fact this very overdependence that prevents the person from being able to organize and maintain healthy relationships and thus create much distress.

    It would be a good action at this point to reflect on where we stand at this point – is our behavior interdependence, counterdependent or overdependent!

  • Stress – Strain Relationship 5

    In the last byte, we looked at Personality Hardiness. In today’s byte, we look at come concepts of self-reliance attempt to understand the role it plays in managing stress.

    Self-Reliance is a personality attribute related to how people form and maintain supportive attachments with others. It is a healthy, secure, interdependence pattern of behavior related to the above attachment with others. Originally when the concept of self-reliance was formed building on the attachment theory.

    The attachment theory identifies 3 distinct patterns of attachment; these patterns extend into behavioral strategies during adulthood, in professional as well as personal relationships; this has been researched well.

    Self-reliance is a secure pattern of attachment and interdependence but, there are two insecure patterns of attachments – these are: counterdependence and overdependence. We shall discuss about these in the next byte.

    Self-reliant people respond to stressful, threatening situations by reaching out to others appropriately – this is flexible, responsive. Such an individual maintains multiple, diverse relationships and will always appear confident, enthusiastic and persistent when facing a challenge.

  • Stress – Strain Relationship 4

    In the last byte, we looked at how being a Type A personalities influences the stress-strain that an individual faces. In today’s byte, we look at Personality Hardiness aspects that influence the stress levels.

    Personality Hardiness is a word used to define a personality resistant to distress and characterized by commitment, control and challenge. These people resist strain reactions when subjected to stressful events more effectively than do people who are not so hardy. Let us define the 3 terms used to characterize Personality Hardiness:

    • Commitment is a curiosity and engagement with one’s environment that leads to the experience of activities as interesting and enjoyable
    • Control is an ability to influence the process and outcomes of an event that leads to the experience of activities as personal choices.
    • Challenge is the viewing of change as a stimulus to personal development, which leads to the experience of activities with openness.

    The people with hardy personalities use these components to engage in what is called – “transformational coping” when they face stressful events. Transformational coping is the way of managing stressful events by changing themselves into less subjectively stressful events. These people work towards altering the course and outcome of the event through action, and/or by achieving greater understanding of the process.

    The alternative to transformational coping is called regressional coping, but this may lead to short-term stress reduction at the cost of long-terms healthy adjustments.

  • Stress – Strain Relationship 3

    In the last byte, we looked at how gender influences the stress-strain relationship. In today’s byte, we look at how stress-strain are influenced by Type A Personality.

    Type A Behavior also known as Coronary-Prone Behavior is a complex of personality and behavioral characteristics, including competitiveness, time urgency, social status insecurity, aggression, hostility and a quest for achievements. Some of the primary components could be summarized as below:



    The above table is adopted from the reference book. Of these, time urgency, aggression and hostility are thought of as lethal ones.

    The alternative to the Type A behavior pattern in the Type B behavior pattern. The Type B personalities are relatively free of the time A behavior identified in the table above. Organizations too could be Type A or Type B. Stress increases when the Type A person joins a Type B organization or vice versa. The most risky heath disorders would be found in the people of Type A working in a Type A organization!

    Type A behavior could be modified, but this begins with identification of the personality type, the next step would be to get them to spend more time with the type B individuals… There are many similar ways that the challenge at hand could be addressed…. look out for cues.

  • Stress – Strain Relationship 2

    In the last byte, we looked at the factors that influence stress-strain in an individual. In today’s byte, we look at the influence of gender on the stress-strain of an individual in greater detail.

    It is a common perception that women are the weaker sex; in fact this is a stereotype. The life expectancy of women in America is longer than American men. It would be interesting then to ask – are women stronger than men.

    Another research challenged this perception through a study on public accountants – this found that female public accountants have an equal turnover rates than their male counterparts, but they report more stress. In fact it is the response to stress that varies between women and men. The stressors to which these two sexes are subjected are also an important criterion to be understood in this context.

    An important difference amongst the sexes has been in terms of the vulnerability – it has been found that males are more vulnerable at an earlier age to fatal health problems like cardiovascular disorders; but their women counterparts report more non-fatal, but long-term disabling, health problems.

    In the next byte, we shall look at the influence of Type A behavior pattern on the stress levels of an individual.

  • Stress – Strain Relationship

    In the last byte, we looked at organizational distress issues. In today’s byte, we attempt understanding how stress-strain would differ from individual to individual.

    It is not extremely rare that we find that an event which may lead to distress and strain to one individual could provide excitement to another. These individual differences play a central role in the stress-strain relationship. There are multiple sources of these differences; some of them are as listed below:

    1. Gender
    2. Type A behavior
    3. Personality Hardiness
    4. Self-reliance
    While the first 2 are found to enhance vulnerability to strain under stressful conditions, the other two reduce vulnerability to strain under stressful conditions. We shall explore these in the next few bytes.

  • Stress: Distress in an Organizational Context

    In the last byte, we looked at the affects of individual distress. In today’s byte, we look at the context and affects of organizational distress.

    It could be identified that if stress is mismanaged there are a lot of indirect costs that come up like – low morale, dissatisfaction, breakdown in communication, disruption in working relationships etc. We could broadly classify the costs into 3 heads:

    1. Participation Problems
    2. Performance Decrement
    3. Compensation Award
    Participation Problems are cost associated with absenteeism, tardiness, strikes and work stoppages, and turnover. Personnel Costs, Replacement Costs, are some of the overheads that an organization would require to take on in this case.

    Performance Decrement is costs resulting from poor quality or low quality of production, grievance and unscheduled machine down time and repair.

    Compensation Award is an organization cost resulting from court awards for job stress. This is an increasing trend in the US

    Thus we see that there is an increasing cost on the organization due to the various distress issues that are encountered in work place.

  • Stress: Distress Classification

    In the last byte, we understood why stress behaves the way it is indicated by the Yerkes-Dodson Law. In today’s byte, we look at some of the implications of distress on the individual front.

    As indicated in the table (in this blog), we can classify the individual distress into the following

    1. Psychological Disorder
    2. Medical Illness
    3. Behavioral Problems
    The most common types of psychological distress are depression, burnout, and psychosomatic disorders. Depression and Burnout could lead to emotional exhaustion which internal may also be caused by the requirement for emotional expression on the job. Psychosomatic disorders are physical disorders with a psychological origin.

    Numerous medical illnesses have their origin in a stress-related component. While there is no clear evidence that stress is a direct causal agent in the onset of diseases like cancer, it definitely would play an indirect role in the progression of the disease.

    Behavioral problems are the third form of individual distress. These include workplace aggression, substance abuse, accidents etc. Since we see examples of this all over the news, this need not be explained explicitly here.

    These three forms of individual distress cause a burden of personal suffering, and could also lead to a collective burden reflecting in organizational distress.

  • Stress & Performance: Yerkes-Dodson’s law 2

    In the last byte, we looked at the diagrammatic presentation of Yerkes-Dodson Law. In today’s byte, we attempt to understand why this behaves the way it behaves.

    If we look at the structure of the curve (as indicated in the last byte), we realize that the performance dips after the optimum point. Could there be a reason for this? One approach o understanding this has been suggested by Joseph McGrath. He says the performance dips beyond the midpoint in the curve because of the increasing difficulty of the task to be performed. This is also attributes the peak performance of athletes in competition or other events.

    It has also been researched that specific stressful activities, including aerobic exercises, weight training, and flexibility raining help improve health and enhance the individual’s ability to manage stressful demands and situations.

    It should be noted that stress response is not inherently bad or destructive. It is the confusion of the world distress with stress that creates the confusion. It is time we understand distress a bit better, over the next few bytes we shall attempt it.

  • Stress & Performance: Yerkes-Dodson’s law


    In the last byte, we looked at benefits of eustress and costs of distress summarized. In today’s byte we look at Yerkes-Dodson’s law.

    The Yerkes-Dodson’s law indicates the relationship between stress and performance. The following diagram in many ways summarizes what happens.

    The above diagram indicates that there exists an optimal point for performance. As stress increases, we find initially that there is a raise in the performance too, this is so till an optimal point (the zone of eustress) beyond which any increase in stress would begin being detrimental for the performance.

    We shall analyze this further in the next byte.