1. Major life events?
2. Daily hassles: frequency, intensity, duration
3. Job satisfaction and stress – those who enjoy work suffer less impact from stressful events.

• Work overload
• Quantitative: too much to do in too short a time
• Qualitative: work that is too difficult
• Quantitative has increased in recent years due to downsizing
• Work underload – work that is too simple or insufficient to fill one’s time
• Both of these impact stress and health, appears that a moderate amount of stress is optimal
• Organizational Change – if not hardy, change causes stress in individuals.  Can be reduced by including employees in planning.
• Role Ambiguity – unstructured or poorly defined job responsibilities (expected standards, methods, schedules)
• Role Conflict – conflict between job demands and employee’s personal standards
• Management Style. Lack of participation by workers in decision making, Poor communication in the organization, lack of family friendly policies.Example: Their needs to get the boss’s approval for everything, and the company is insensitive to her family needs.
• Interpersonal Relationships. Poor social environment and lack of support or help from coworkers and supervisors.
• Career Concerns. Job insecurity and lack of opportunity for growth, advancement, or promotion; rapid changes for which workers are unprepared.
• Environmental Conditions. Unpleasant or dangerous physical conditions such as crowding, noise, air pollution, or ergonomic problems.

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