Individual Differences in Coping

• Social Support helps to reduce stress.
• Job Skill – the more skilled at job, the less stress
• Physical Health – good health leads to reduced impact of stress
• Type A/Type B Personality – Type A personality reflected by competitiveness, inflated sense of time urgency, hostility.  Hostility component of Type A personality is linked to heart disease, Type A individuals, in essence, create more stress for themselves. Type B individuals rarely have heart attacks before the age of 70.
• Job Complexity – increased complexity leads to heart disease in Type A individuals.  But, complexity also is linked to job satisfaction!!
• Locus of Control – internal locus of control is linked to reduced impact of stress
• Negative Affectivity –A tendency to focus on the negative aspects of life.  Linked to high levels of stress
• Individual Differences Hardiness: Reflects a resistance to stress: elements include :Sense of commitment to family and work, A perceived sense of control, A view of change as normal and challenging.
• Organization-based Self Esteem – our assessment of our adequacy and worth with regard to our place in the employing organization (job specific self esteem)
• Gender Differences – female managers face more stressors than do male managers (e.g., role conflict, discrimination, harassment)
• Stress and Type of Occupation: Clerical and blue collar workers suffer the most stress due to a relative lack of control. Most stressful professions include: laborer, secretary, clinical lab. technician, nurse, first-line supervisor, restaurant server, machine operator, farm worker, miner. One of the least stressful professions is college professor.
• Work-Family Conflicts : Greater role conflict for women – primary responsibility for family life falls on woman. Family with 3 kids, average work week for females is 90 hours, for males it is 70 hours. Bad work days tend to carry over into family life – tendency is stronger for women.  Sadly, positive states do not carry over. Despite these problems, women with paying jobs are psychological and physically healthier than full-time homemakers