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Category: Stress

  • Stress: Cognitive

    In the last byte, we looked at Homeostatic approach towards understanding how stress evolves. In today’s byte, we look a cognitive appraisal approach towards understanding stress.

    In our daily lives we observe that some situations which are stressful for some isnt stressful for others! For example, an employee would be more stressed facing an upset supervisor, compared to when the supervisor is not upset; of for that matter another supervisor itself. It is really the perception that makes this impact.

    This aspect was studies by Richard Lazarus who focused more on the psychology of stress. It is similar to Cannon’s approach in that it talks about the discussion between the person and environment, but the emphasis is on the cognitive appraisal of the situation at hand. Individuals differ in their appraisal of events and people!

    In addition to these, there could be 2 other forms of such stress:

    • Problem Focused
    • Emotion Focused
    While the problem focused coping emphasizes on managing the stressor; the emotion focused approach focuses on the response management.

  • Stress: Homeostatic & Medical Approach

    In the last byte, we looked at the various approaches towards understanding stress. In today’s byte, we look at the homeostatic/medical approach towards understanding stress.

    Walter B Cannon discovered stress but had called it “the emergency response” or “the militaristic response”; this indicates the reason why the definition of stress uses – “the fighting emotion” as a root.

    As humans, we love to be in a steady state – where everything is predictable, expected, sure; however this is far from reality. This “state of steadiness” that we are most comfortable with, is disturbed by external or environmental demands. The steady state balance or equilibrium is called “homeostasis”. [Defn: A steady state of bodily functioning and equilibrium.] Cannon believed that, the body was designed with natural defense mechanisms to keep it in equilibrium/homeostasis.

    Cannon’s research going further explored the role of sympathetic nervous systems and how this would affect an individual’s stressful condition.

  • Stress 2

    In the last byte, we looked at some definitions associated with the concept of stress. In today’s byte, we look at the nature of stress and initiate the discussion on the various theories that attempt to explain stress.

    Stress is an important concept in the study of organizational behavior – this is partly due to the increased competitive pressure that exists in the current business world and this intern takes a toll on the workers and managers alike. Poor Leadership, Work-Family conflicts are some of the leading causes of stress in the present working scenario.

    Stress is definitely one of the most creatively ambiguous words in the vocabulary – it has many interpretations and has a variety of meanings. It carries a negative connotation for few, and is generally thought of as something that is best avoided. Having defined the terms related to stress, it is now time to initiate the discussion on the different approaches that have been taken up to explain stress and related behavior. These are:

    1. The Homeostatic/Medical Approach
    2. The cognitive Appraisal Approach
    3. The person-environment fit Approach
    4. The psychoanalytic Approach
    We shall discuss about these in detail in the next byte.

  • Stress

    In the last byte, we completed the discussion on performance management with a summary of the discussion. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of stress and begin discussion on the same with a few basic definitions.

    Stress: Is the unconscious preparation to fight or flee that a person experiences when faced with any demand.

    Stressor: Is the person or event that triggers the stress response

    Distress: The adverse psychological, physical, behavioral, and organizational consequences that may arise as a result of stressful events

    Strain: Is another name for Distress.

    With this basic understanding, we begin the journey to understand stress better.

  • Goal Setting: Stress and Effectiveness

    In the last byte, we looked at how we could improve the effectiveness of goal setting in an organizational context. In today’s byte, we discuss regarding role stress.

    It is not uncommon that once an employee joins an organization, he/she would be expected to do a lot of things in the work place. The individual is trying to exert pressure on self to perform to the expectations of all around, in many cases it also happens that there are conflicts that the individual would have to handle.
    When an employee joins the organization, it is really the supervisors, coworkers and other employees that form important sources of task-related information.  Ensuring that these are communicated well is important to ensure that role-stress is not hard-hitting on the employee, which in adverse cases could lead to the employee leaving the organization.

    Effective goal setting definitely reduces role stress associated with the conflicting and confusing expectations. Managers and supervisors play a major role in clarifying the task-role expectations that are communicated to the employees.

    Improved communication related to the role-clarity leads to reduction in role-stress. It is the right communication that forms the source of success of any goal-setting process. Employee participation is a must to ensure that the goal is attainable.

    It is just prudent for the manager to ensure employees are constantly in communication and there is a constant touch to really be successful!