Should the subjective be the objective? On studying mental processes, coping behavior, and actual exposures in organizational stress research
✍ Scribed by John Schaubroeck
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 95 KB
- Volume
- 20
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0894-3796
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Emphasis on measuring actual (`objective') job exposures has increased in recent organizational behavior/human resource management research. I argue that this approach has greater potential for increasing knowledge about how to make work environments more healthy than the alternative approach of focusing on mental processes and individual coping behaviors suggested by Perrewe and Zellars. Incorporating psychological knowledge about attributions and emotions can enhance theory building in the organizational sciences. However, given that health outcomes are more strongly related to continuous exposures it may be better to focus on modal job content and general tendencies of individuals than to emphasize discrete events and speci®c, transitory states.