STRESS AT WORK

STRESS AT WORK
Although it is difficult to estimate the cost of work-related stress, many studies report that it has enormous impact in terms of both economic costs and human suffering. For example, recent survey research estimated that about half a million people in the UK believe they are suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety ( Jones et al., 2003) and that, in 2001, 13.4 million working days were lost in the UK due to stress, depression and anxiety. Another survey estimated that five million people in the UK feel ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressed by their work (Smith et al., 2000).
Based on 1995/96 prices, the Health and Safety Executive estimated that the financial cost of work-related stress to employers was about £353 to £381 million and to society about £3.7 to £3.8 billion per year. Since these calculations were made, the estimated number of working days lost due to stress has more than doubled ( Jones et al., 2003).
The costs of stress stem not only from absenteeism and lost productivity, but also from compensation claims, health insurance and medical expenses. In the USA, annual mental stressinsurance claims in the California workers’ compensation system have been estimated to be approximately $383 million (Beehr, 1995). Figure 20.5 presents a framework for thinking about work-place stress.

Kinds of stress
The word ‘stress’ is used in a number of ways (see also chapter 19). For example, ‘I’ve got such a headache. It must be the stress over this big project’; ‘I feel stressed when my boss is around’; ‘I feel tense and my concentration goes when I am under stress’. There are numerous stressors in the work environment that can result in distinctive physiological, psychological and behavioural responses.
Physical stressors can lead to both physical and mental health problems. They might include the noise in a heavy construction manufacturing site or at an aluminium smelting
plant, or the dirty and hot physical environment of a coal mine or steel plant. Dangers in the work environment also cause stress – think of the jobs of police officers or nurses in accident and emergency departments of hospitals; both of these sets of workers are often subject to violent attacks. n Work load can be quantitative (too much work to do) and qualitative, where work is too difficult for the individual (French & Caplan, 1972). Work underload can also act as a stressor (Cox, 1980) – again this can be quantitative (not enough work to do) and/or qualitative (repetitive, routine, under-stimulating).
The person’s role in the organization can also lead to pressures in the form of role conflict and ambiguity (Kahn et al., 1964). Role conflict occurs when we have to deal with conflicting job demands. It is not unusual for an individual to be caught between two
groups of people expecting different behaviours. This might occur when a non-management employee is promoted to a supervisory role and then has to balance the expectations of previous colleagues with the new demands of management. Role ambiguity occurs when we are unsure about our work requirements, responsibilities and coworkers’ expectations.
Stress can also arise from career development issues, such as fear of redundancy, failure to achieve promotion, or promotion into a role we are not prepared for.
Social stressors include poor relationships with supervisors, peers and subordinates (characterized by, for example, low trust and supportiveness).
Finally, many studies have shown that the timing of work (such as long hours or shift work) affects stress levels.Reactions to stress Although you and I may be subject to similar work stressors, our responses and the amount of strain each of us feels can be very different, depending on how we appraise the situation and what coping strategies we use (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Lazarus & Launier, 1978; see also chapters 6, 14 and 19). So the outcome of stress is a function of the interaction of the individual and the environment.
The resources that we bring to a work situation can also affect the way each of us responds to stress. Job knowledge and experience, social support, control over our work, and personality characteristics are the kinds of resources that determine whether someone finds a situation stressful. Some of the most relevant factors are:
Knowledge – People who have considerable job knowledge and experience are more likely to be able to cope with stressful situations. This is because they are less likely to experience quantitative or qualitative work overload, and they are likely to have more control over a situation than someone with little experience or knowledge (see below).
Social support – Whilst poor relationships at work can be a major source of stress, social support from colleagues and supervisors can buffer the impact of stress, mitigating the negative effects (e.g. Cummins, 1990; Manning, Jackson & Fusilier, 1996). Social support may also come from outside the job, from family and from friends.
Control – There is a widely held misperception that managers have more stressful jobs than others. While they do tend to have heavy workloads, deadlines, responsibility for complex decisions, and many relationships to manage, stressrelated diseases are much less common in managers than in blue-collar workers (Fletcher, 1988; Karasek & Theorell, 1990). One important reason for this appears to be that managers have greater control (autonomy) over theirwork. Karasek (1979) showed that the most damaging jobs have a combination of high demands (volume and pace of work) with low control.
Personality characteristics – Neurotic people are more likely to see stimuli as threatening than are hardy characters. Hardiness encompasses three personality traits: (i) commitment, (ii) an internal locus of control ( believing that you have control over your own life) and (iii) a sense of welcoming challenge (Maddi & Kobasa, 1984; see also chapters 14 and 19). Those who are high in hardiness tend to view events as less stressful than do others, and they are less likely to be overwhelmed by challenging situations.

Prevention of stress
Stress management programmes have multiplied since the 1970s (Payne, 1995). Many of these programmes help participants to perceive a situation as challenging rather than stressful. They each coping strategies and advise on diet, exercise, alcohol and substance abuse. Some programmes use techniques such as selfhelp groups, relaxation and meditation. Unfortunately, systematic evaluations of stress management programmes have shown them to be of limited effectiveness (Briner & Reynolds, 1999). Employers will sometimes try to reduce stress through changes in the workplace, such as job redesign, or to increase individuals’ resources through social support or increased control ( by increasing job responsibilities and/or participation in decision making). And, of course, stressors can also be tackled directly, for example by reducing noise or working hours.

JOB SATISFACTION

JOB SATISFACTION
Selection, socialization and training are all ways in which the organization acts upon the individual at work. But how might individuals react to these processes and to the experience of work in general?
Job satisfaction is a judgement we make about how favourable our work environment is (Motowildo, 1996) and can be reflected in our thoughts and feelings (Brief, 1998). It is the most researched construct in organizational psychology and the subject of literally thousands of studies. There are two approaches to assessing job satisfaction. The first sees it as a single, global affective experience. So people are asked to give an overall assessment: ‘In general, how satisfied are you with your job?’ The second, and more widely adopted, approach is to view job satisfaction as a cluster of attitudes towards different aspects of the job, such as pay, supervisory support, autonomy, variety, working conditions and promotion prospects. A mean score is calculated to represent a composite measure of job satisfaction. Table 20.1 is a typical example of this composite approach.

What makes a job satisfying?
Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) influential job characteristics theory identifies five characteristics as contributors to job satisfaction:
task identity – the extent to which the job represents a whole piece of work (e.g. running a restaurant compared with just washing the dishes);
task significance – how important the task is for society in general, and for the goals of the organization;
autonomy – the amount of freedom the person has to decide on how best to do their job;
feedback – receiving information about job performance (imagine writing essays and never receiving feedback on how well they were written); and
variety – varied tasks are important (compare the work of an organizational psychologist with that of a supermarket check-out worker), but too much variety can create conflicting
and therefore stressful demands.Many studies (e.g. Fried & Ferris, 1987) have found significant relationships between job characteristics and job satisfaction.
There is strong evidence that simple and monotonous jobs (e.g. repeatedly undertaking a simple task on a factory production line) are associated with job dissatisfaction (Melamed et al., 1995). On the other hand, some people do not respond favourably to more challenging and complex jobs (Spector, 1997), so personality factors may well also be relevant here. Other environmental factors that show significant relationships with job satisfaction include supportive supervisors and coworkers (Arvey, Carter & Buerkley, 1991) and equitable rewards (Sweeney & McFarlin, 1997). In the case of rewards, it is the extent to which employees view these as distributed fairly that affects satisfaction, rather than actual pay levels.

Job satisfaction has also been found to be related to IQ, mental health and personality variables (e.g. O’Brien, 1983; Staw, Bell & Clausen, 1986). It has even been argued that there is a geneticcomponent to job satisfaction. For example, in a survey of groups of identical twins who were reared separately, Arvey, Bouchard, Segal and Abraham (1989) found a significant association between their levels of job satisfaction. It appears from this research that our genes influence our affective reactions to life, which can in turn affect our job experiences.

J. Richard Hackman (1940– ) pioneered the Job Characteristics Model in order to help specify the content and methods of jobs. This model has influenced generations of researchers since the 1970s (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). The job characteristics model effectively linked the design of jobs with motivation theory, in what has proved to be a powerful theoretical framework. His work on groups, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, has also had a major influence (Hackman, 1990), particularly because of his championing of qualitative methods for the study of workgroups. Hackman is Cahners-Rabb Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University in the USA.

Consequences of job satisfaction
Does high job satisfaction lead to better job performance, or does high performance result in high job satisfaction (due, perhaps, to pride or rewards associated with high performance)? Whatever the causal direction, past research in this area indicates that if a relationship does exist, it is a weak one (Iaffaldano & Muchinsky, 1992). But more recent research provides renewed support for the view that ‘a happy worker is a productive worker’. Two studies have related the average level of job satisfaction in an organization to measures of company performance, such as profitability. They found that organizations with more satisfied employees tend to perform better than those whose employees are less satisfied (Ostroff, 1992; Patterson & West, 1998). These organizational relationships are stronger than the association between individual job satisfaction and individual job performance, because individual measures of productivity do not take into account coordination and cooperation between employees.
So when people are generally satisfied and well treated at work, they seem more likely to be good organizational ‘citizens’, cooperating with people from other departments, taking on tasks outside their formal job descriptions and encouraging others to perform effectively. At the individual level, perhaps not surprisingly, low job satisfaction significantly increases the likelihood that the employee will leave the organization (e.g. Crampton & Wagner, 1994).

Transformational and transactional leadership

Transformational and transactional leadership
The research issue
Bass’s (1985) theory of transformational leadership distinguishes between transactional leaders and transformational leaders. Transactional leaders base their relationships with their followers on a series of exchanges or bargains. They reward followers for accomplishing agreed objectives by giving recognition, bonuses, merit wards or particularly stimulating projects. They also ‘transact’ with followers by focusing on their mistakes, and delaying decisions or avoiding intervening until something has gone wrong. Transformational leadership, in contrast, is characterized by behaviour that helps followers to develop their knowledge and skills, stimulating them intellectually and inspiring them to go beyond self-interests to achieve or pursue a higher vision, mission or purpose. Transactional leadership focuses on short-term corrective or reward-based transactions, whereas transformational leaders employ charisma and give more consideration to each individual’s needs. Transformational leaders focus on longer-term goals and place emphasis on developing a vision that inspires their followers. Of course, all leaders are likely to display elements of both styles of leadership, but, according to this framework, it is proposed that there will be considerable variation between leaders in the extent to which they employ predominantly one or other style. Howell and Avolio (1993) decided to investigate the extent to which transactional and transformational leadership behaviours predicted business performance.
Design and procedure: The researchers worked with 78 managers in a large Canadian financial institution, which was one of the oldest and most successful in the country. They measured leadership behaviour by administering the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) to (on average) four of the followers of each of the 78 managers. The MLQ measures transformational leader behaviour by items such as ‘uses symbols and images to get his or her ideas across’, ‘provides reasons to change my way of thinking about problems’ and ‘spends time coaching me’. Transactional leadership is measured by items such as ‘points out what I will receive if I do what needs to be done’, ‘is alert for failure to meet standards’ and ‘things have to go wrong for him or her to take action’. One year later, the researchers gathered data on the performance of the business units for which each of the managers was responsible. These data included productivity improvement, size of operating expense budget, conformity of salaries to budget and total project costs.
Results and implications: The managers who displayed less transactional leadership behaviours and more consideration for individuals, intellectual stimulation of followers and charisma had better business unit performance one year later. Transactional leadership behaviours were also negatively related to unit performance.
The results suggest that managers need to develop a transformational leadership style in order to be more effective and to contribute to the performance of their business units or organizations. But the authors point out that their results are not entirely consistent with previous studies. Although previous studies reveal positive relationships between transformational leadership styles and performance, they also showed positive relationships between transactional behaviours and performance.
Transactional leadership behaviours may lead to poorer performance in an environment, such as the financial services industry, where there is much change and turbulence. Employees may need to develop a longer-term vision of their work to cope with long-term change, which transactional styles (focused as they are on meeting short-term goals) do not encourage. Interviews with senior managers in the organization revealed a concern that some managers had become too transactional and spent too much time on meeting immediate goals and achieving short-term results rather than motivating, empowering and inspiring employees. The researchers suspected that the negative relationships between transactional styles and performance might have been a consequence of employees feeling that rewards were being used to control their behaviour rather than reward performance. The positive impact of transformational leadership on performance could be due to followers internalizing the charismatic leader’s vision or values and consequently working hard to achieve that vision, regardless of the short-term consequences for them. Such effects are more likely to be powerful (according to theory) in organizations that are coping with considerable change, where a focus on the long-term future helps to distract employees from the short-term stresses of additional workloads or major change in their work. The researchers speculate that transformational leadership may have a direct effect on the commitment levels of followers and their preparedness to be good organizational ‘citizens’ who contribute beyond what they are required to, and that this, in turn, affects business unit performance. The investigators call for more research to help us understand not just whether, but how, transformational leadership behaviours influence job performance.
Howell, J.M., & Avolio, B.J., 1993, ‘Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, locus of control, and support for innovation: Key predictors of consolidated-business-unit performance’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 891–902.

LEADERSHIP STYLES

LEADERSHIP STYLES
Organizational psychologists have struggled with the concept of leadership since the mid twentieth century, changing their focus from personality (‘leaders are born, not made’) to environmental factors (‘circumstances determine who emerges as the leader’) and back to personality again (Bass, 1990; Fiedler, 1967; House, 1977).
Today, there is a lot of interest in charismatic or transformational leadership. This represents a leadership style that enables the leader to exercise diffuse and intense influence over the beliefs, values, behaviour and performance of others (House, Spangler & Woycke, 1991). Such leaders tend to be dominant and self-confident with a need to influence others while believing strongly in their own values. They communicate their goals and visions clearly, and have high expectations of their followers’ performance. The fascination with this kind of leadership is evidenced by the number of books by or about charismatic leaders. Some studies suggest that these leaders inspire effort and satisfaction amongst their employees, resulting in higher productivity. But Howell and House (1995) caution against this type of leadership style because, they argue, it can also have negative consequences. Think of charismatic historical figures who have initiated destruction in their societies (e.g. Adolf Hitler); or particular characters such as the People’s Temple cult leader, Reverend Jim Jones, who persuaded his followers to feed a poison-laced drink to their children and then drink it themselves. Nearly 1000 people died in this incident (Osherow, 1981).
Howell and House distinguish between socialized and personalized charismatic leadership. ‘Socialized leaders’ emphasize egalitarianism, serving collective interests rather than self-interest, and developing and empowering others. They are altruistic, selfcontrolled, follower-oriented (rather than narcissistic), and workthrough legitimate authority and established systems. ‘Personalized leaders’ are more self-interested and manipulative and can engender pathological relationships with their followers, leading to unhappy work outcomes such as poor performance, conflictridden relationships and poor individual wellbeing.

Organizational Psychology

OrganizationalPsychology
We discover what psychologists know about the experience of working in an organization, from starting to leaving. This journey through the levels of work organizations and over the lifespan of an individual’s experience can cover only a relatively few topics, but in the process it should provide an insight into a rich and increasingly important sub-discipline. Almost all studies in this area are conducted in the organizations themselves, from three perspectives:
1. individual – selection, socialization, training, leadership, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and the causes and consequences of stress;
2. group – work group effectiveness and decision making; and
3. organizational – design and culture of the organization, the exercise of power and the experience of women at work. We end by analysing the powerful effects of redundancy and unemployment. But the first step is recruitment. How do organizations achieve a fit between an individual, the job and the organization?

INDIVIDUALS AT WORK
When we consider some of the major factors affecting individuals at work, how they are selected, socialized, developed through training and affected by the behaviour of their bosses and peers, we begin to see how pervasive the effects of our work experience can be in our lives. The jobs we do shape us by offering us a sense of growth, commitment and satisfaction, or they can alienate us, creating chronic feelings of anxiety and directly affecting our health and wellbeing. The influence of work in colouring every aspect of our lives is profound.

MATCHING THE PERSON TO THE JOB
Selection is based on the premise that there are stable individual differences between people, which can be identified, and that these differences have an impact on how effective people are in a particular job (Robertson, 1995). Not surprisingly, psychologists have been at the forefront of developing and using personnel selection methods. One of the aims of selection is to ensure a fit, i.e. a good match, between the person and the organization. Failure to achieve this can not only result in poor job performance, but the well being of the employee also suffers, and ultimately the employment relationship is likely to end.

Common selection procedures
The typical process for designing a selection system begins with a job analysis to identify the essential requirements.
This information is used to create a job description, which forms the basis of a person specification. This specification translates the demands of the job into human terms and lists criteria that an applicant must satisfy if they are to perform the job successfully (Arnold, Robertson & Cooper, 1991). Selection methods determine whether the applicant’s skills, knowledge and abilities meet these criteria. For example, if the person specification states that good verbal reasoning skills are required, a psychological test of verbal reasoning may well be used in the selection procedure. Common selection procedures (from Arnold, Robertson & Cooper 1991) are:
Interviews – often involving more than one interviewer. At a panel interview, the applicant will be questioned by several interviewers. The most important features of a job interview are the extent to which a pre-planned structure is followed, and the proportion of questions that are directly related to the job.
Psychometric tests – including tests of cognitive ability (e.g. general intelligence, verbal ability, numerical ability) and selfreport measures which are designed to evaluate personality. References – usually obtained from current or previous employers, often in the final stages of the selection process. The information requested may be specific or general and open-minded.
Biodata – biographical information about the candidate’s life history. Some biodata inventories contain several questions, including objective questions (such as professional qualifications held) and more subjective ones (such as preferences for different job features). Work-sample tests – using samples of the job (e.g. the contents of an intray for an executive position, or specific kinds of typing for a secretarial post). The applicant is given instructions and a specific amount of time to complete the tasks.
Handwriting analysis – making inferences about the candidate’s characteristics by examining specific features of his/her handwriting, such as slant and letter shapes. Assessment centres – a combination of some of the above techniques. Candidates are usually processed in groups, and some of the techniques require them to interact (e.g. simulated group decision-making exercises).
Although the usefulness of psychometric tests in selection has been hotly debated by psychologists, their validity has been found to be relatively good (Robertson & Kinder, 1993). The drawback from the perspective of employers is that training is required for those who wish to administer and interpret these tests. Even though the financial costs of ineffective selection are potentially large, organizations still rely on techniques such as personal references, graphology (handwriting analysis) and even astrology. These techniques are demonstrably and largely invalid as selection devices (Rafaeli & Klimoski, 1983).
Selection methods need to have good criterion validity. This is the relationship between scores on the selection method and scores on the ultimate performance measures, such as number of sales made, commission earned or other types of outcomes required by the organization (Landy & Farr, 1980). Psychological tests show good criterion validity. For example, one of the best predictors of job performance (for all but very simple jobs) is general intelligence (Hunter & Hunter, 1984). And yet the most frequently used selection method for many jobs is the unstructured interview, which has poor criterion validity. Here, interviewers ask a wide variety of questions, but without planning what questions will elicit the information that best predicts job performance. Structured interviews, involving two or more interviewers asking standard job-related questions of all candidates, are much better selection methods, but they are rarely used (Huffcutt & Arthur, 1994; Wiesner & Cronshaw, 1988). These interviewers are likely to ask targeted questions, such as: ‘Have you ever been in a situation at work where a customer was very angry about a service you had provided? Describe the situation and how you handled it.’ This kind of question will usually elicit clearer information about the likely future performance of the candidate, because one thing we know for sure is that one of the best predictors of future behaviour is past behaviour .
Personality tests (used for assessing traits such as conscientiousness, confidence and sociability) are increasingly popular tools in employee selection. Tests that assess specific personality traits relevant to a particular job are reasonably valid predictors of job performance (Hogan & Roberts, 1996), whereas general-purpose personality tests have lower validity (Salgado, 1997).

FITTING INTO THE ORGANIZATION
Once you have started work for an organization, it will seek to shape you to fit in and to contribute to achieving its goals. This is done through socialization and training. The stages of socialization Socialization is the process by which members of a society (be it a country, organization or even a family) are taught how to behave and feel by influential members of that society. In the past, theory and research has concentrated on the development of children and adolescents. But more recently it has become clear that we are socialized and resocialized throughout our lives (Wanous, Reichers & Malik, 1984).
When employees start work, they learn about their new jobs, the work environment and how they are required to behave – attending meetings on time, dressing according to certain standards, using particular styles of speech. They learn to align their work values with those of the organization. For example, army recruits are socialized, or indoctrinated, into the ‘army way’, learning not only the rules and regulations but also the values and behaviours that match the army’s distinctive culture. Many commercial organizations emphasize customer service as vital, and require employees to adopt the values, attitudes and behaviours that support such a service strategy.
Socialization has all or some of the following stages (Wanous, 1992):
1 confronting and accepting organizational reality – Wanous (1978) suggested that organizations can make this ‘reality shock’ stage smoother by providing applicants with a realistic job preview describing negative as well as positive aspects of the job;
2 achieving role clarity by discovering what is expected in terms of job requirements and performance;

3 becoming situated within the organizational context – settling in and getting used to how things are done; and n detecting signposts of successful socialization – e.g. feeling accepted by colleagues, confidence in completing the job successfully, understanding the formal and informal aspects of the job, and knowing the criteria used to assess job performance.
This process of ‘learning the ropes’ has at least three elements (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979, pp. 226–7):

4 acquiring the knowledge required for both job performance and general functioning in the organization (e.g. how to make a grievance, what quality standards need to be met); n acquiring a strategic base, i.e. a set of decision rules for solving problems and making decisions (e.g. building good relationships with colleagues in your and other departments, knowing whether it is acceptable to question a senior manager’s decision); and
5 learning the organization’s purpose, which may be different from what is publicly stated (e.g. employee welfare may, in practice, be rated much lower than maximizing profits). How your job can change you There is evidence that, over the longer term, an individual’s personality, values and cognitive functioning are changed by their job. Kohn and Schooler (1983) found that jobs high in complexity can enhance intellectual functioning.

Rosenstiel (1989) showed that people who started without a strong career orientation and who were supportive of environmental protection become less ‘green’ and more career-orientated when they took a company job. Mortimer, Lorence and Kumka (1986) found that people tend to value more, over time, things like money or challenge that are characteristic of their particular type of work, and to devalue things that are not, such as unconventional dress or antipathy to rules (although they may start their career valuing these latter characteristics more).
Not surprisingly, a problem with strong socialization tactics is that they tend to create conformists with little inclination to innovate. Van Maanen and Schein (1979) proposed six dimensions to socialization tactics:
1. collective vs. individual – the degree to which the organization processes recruits in batches (where everyone has the same learning experiences) or individually;
2. formal vs. informal – the degree to which the process is formalized (as in set training programmes), or is handled informally (such as via individual supervision by the immediate supervisor, and through learning on the job);
3. divestiture vs. investiture – the degree to which the process destroys aspects of the self and replaces them (as in an army training camp), or enhances aspects of the self (as in some forms of professional development);

4. serial vs. disjunctive – the degree to which role models are provided (as in apprenticeship or mentoring programmes), or are deliberately withheld (as in sink-or-swim initiations, in which the recruit is expected to figure out her own solutions and is not told what to do);
5. sequential vs. random – the degree to which the process consists of guiding the recruit through a series of discrete steps and roles, as opposed to being open-ended (where training is based on the needs of the individual, and there is no set sequence in his/her progression); and 6. fixed vs. variable – the degree to which stages of the training process have fixed timetables or are open-ended (such as in some promotional systems, where the employee is not advanced to the next stage until she is deemed ready).
Van Maanen and Schein argued that the more a newcomer’s experiences are like the first half of each pair given in the listing above (e.g. collective, formal, sequential, etc.), the more likely the recruit is to conform; individual perspectives and attitudes will be stripped away and replaced by standardized behaviours. Socialization into the army relies on strong socialization tactics. New recruits are trained together, segregated from experienced soldiers, and socialization tends to suppress individual aspects of the self (which are then replaced by conformity to army norms).

Edgar H. Schein (1928– ) is the Sloans Fellows Professor of Management (Emeritus) and Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has contributed to the discipline of organizational psychology in the areas of organization development, career development and organizational culture. In Career Survival: Strategic Job and Role Planning, he presented concepts and activities for managers based on research he first reported in Career Dynamics: Matching Individual and Organizational Needs (1978). He is the author of Organizational Culture and Leadership (1992), and is considered the leading international expert on organizational culture.

TRAINING – DOES IT WORK?
Training is a learning process structured in a systematic fashion and designed to raise the performance level of an employee (Goldstein, 1993; Tannenbaum & Yukl, 1992). With the marked change in work environments over the last quarter of the twentieth century (such as new ways of working, cutbacks at managerial level and the devolution of responsibility and accountability to individual staff) has come an urgent need to develop and maintain staff skills through continuous training. Furthermore, with the expanded use of new technology (and information technology in particular) most people at work need continual trainingto update their skills (Ashton & Felstead, 1995; Pfeffer, 1998; Tharenou & Burke, 2002). Yet the approach to training in many organizations is often haphazard and reactive. Psychologists have much to offer organizations in relation to how training can best be used to achieve a fit between the individual and his job. Organizations must undertake a training needs assessment in order to identify who needs to develop more knowledge and skills to successfully complete their present and future tasks. This is usually done through observation, interview, group discussion and work samples. Training methods include on-thejob training (coaching), lectures, simulations (e.g. cockpit simulation), case studies and programmed instruction (via computers). A critical question (given the huge costs involved) is whether training transfers to job performance. Three factors influence the transfer of training:
1 the similarity of training to work tasks – the more similar the better;
2 the employee’s motivation to use newly learned skills or knowledge on the job; and
3 organizational support for the transfer of training, such as supervisory support for the implementation of new ideas.
Ideally, training should be evaluated to determine whether it is achieving its desired ends. This can range from whether the individual enjoyed the training and applies it, to whether it affects job performance, customer satisfaction or even organizational productivity and profitability. Does training work in practice? Research shows that training improves individual and organizational performance in a variety of ways, including increased organizational productivity, better product quality and improved customer service. In a review of training research, Tharenou and Burke (2002) report that training is related to:
1 the acquisition and retention of essential employees;
2 employee satisfaction;
3 employee turnover rate (i.e. the percentage of employees quitting their jobs each year);
4 work productivity (e.g. sales per employee);
5 product quality; and
6 customer ratings of service and product quality.

QUESTIONS FROM HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY

QUESTIONS FROM HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY

1. Medicine suggests that people become ill because they catch bacteria or viruses or develop something
wrong with their bodies. What other factors might influence whether someone becomes ill?
2. Medicine takes responsibility for making people well again. What can the person themselves do about
their own health?
3. Most people know that smoking is bad for them but many continue to smoke. Why might this be?
4. Even after being asked by their doctor, many women do not attend for their regular cervical smear.
What factors might influence their decision not to attend?
5. When ill, some people take to their bed, take time off work and need looking after. For others, illness
simply gets in the way and they try to carry on as usual. Why do people differ in this way?
6. If you took the same symptoms to five different doctors, you might get five different diagnoses and
five different treatments. Why do you think this is?
7. Stress has been linked with a range of health problems. How do you think that stress influences
illness?
8. Some people die from heart attacks, whilst other people recover and have long and happy lives. Once
someone has had a heart attack, what do you think they could do to prevent another one?

Behavioural risk factors ,Rehabilitation programmes

Behavioural risk factors
The risk factors for CHD can be understood and predicted by examining an individual’s health beliefs. Psychology’s role is to both understand and attempt to change these behavioural risk factors.
 Smoking is estimated to be the cause of one in four deaths from CHD. Smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day increases the risk of CHD in middle-age threefold. Giving up smoking can halve the risk of another heart attack in those who have already had one.
 Diet and exercise (especially cholesterol levels) have also been implicated in CHD. It has been suggested that the 20 per cent of a population with the highest cholesterol levels are three times more likely to die of heart disease than the 20 per cent with the lowest levels. We can reduce cholesterol by cutting down total fats and saturated fats in our diet, and increasing polyunsaturated fats and dietary fibre. Other risk factors include excess coffee and alcohol and lack of exercise.
 High blood pressure is another risk factor – the higher the blood pressure, the greater the risk. Even a small decrease in the average blood pressure of a population could reduce the mortality from CHD by 30 per cent. Blood pressure appears to be related to a multitude of factors, such as genetics, obesity, alcohol intake and salt consumption.
 Type A behaviour is probably the most extensively studied risk factor for CHD. Friedman and Rosenman (1959) initially defined type A behaviour as excessive competitiveness, impatience, hostility and vigorous speech. In 1978, using a semi-structured interview, they identified two types of type A behaviour. Type A1 is characterized by vigour, energy, alertness, confidence, loud speaking, rapid speaking, tense clipped speech, impatience, hostility, interrupting,frequent use of the word ‘never’ and frequent use of the word ‘absolutely’. Type A2 was defined as being similar to type A1, but not as extreme, and Type B behaviour was regarded as relaxed (for example, showing no interruptions of others’ speech) and quieter.
 Stress has also been extensively studied as a predictor of CHD. In the 1980s Karasek developed a job demand/job control model of stress. He proposed the ‘job demand control hypothesis’, which includes the concept of job strain (see chapter 20). According to Karasek and colleagues (e.g. Karasek & Theorell, 1990), there are two aspects of job strain: i) job demands (which reflect conditions that affect performance) and ii) job autonomy (which reflects theperson’s control over the speed or the nature of decisions made within the job). Karasek’s hypothesis suggests that high job demands and low job autonomy predict CHD. More recently, Karasek developed the hypothesis further to include the concept of social support. This is deemed to be beneficial for CHD, and is defined in terms of emotional support (i.e. trust between co-workers and social cohesion) and instrumental social support (i.e. the provision of extra resources and assistance).
Rehabilitation programmes

Modifying exercise – Most rehabilitation programmes emphasize exercise as the best route to physical recovery, on the assumption that this will in turn promote psychological and social recovery, too. But whether, more generally, these programmes influence risk factors other than exercise (such as smoking, diet and Type A behaviour) is questionable. Modifying type A behaviour – The recurrent coronary prevention project was developed by Friedman et al. (1986) in an attempt to modify type A behaviour. It is based on the following questions: ‘Can type A behaviour be modified?’ and ‘Could such modification reduce the chances of a recurrence?’ The study involved a five-year intervention and1000 participants who had all suffered a heart attack. They were allocated to one of three groups: (i) cardiology counselling, (ii) type A behaviour modification, or (iii) no treatment. Type A behaviour modification involved: discussions of beliefs, values and ways to reduce work demands and increase relaxation, and education about changing the individual’s cognitive framework. At five years, the type A modification group showed a reduced recurrence of heart attacks, suggesting that such intervention programmes may reduce the probability of reinfarction in ‘at risk’ individuals.Modifying general lifestyle factors Other rehabilitation programmes have focused on modifying risk factors such as smoking and diet. For example, van Elderen, Maes and van den Broek (1994) developed a health education and counselling programme for patients with cardiovascular disease after discharge from hospital, with weekly follow-ups by telephone. Although this study involved only a small number of patients, the results seemed to provide some support for including health education in CHD rehabilitation programmes.