Motivation, cognitions and traits: predicting occupational health, well‐being and performance

Abstract

Past research on vulnerability/resistance to occupational stress and strain has focused predominantly on personality defined at the trait or dispositional level (e.g. Type A Behaviour Pattern, Locus of Control, Dispositional Optimism and Negative Affectivity). This is problematic for two reasons. First, within the current, prevailing integrative view of personality there are three main elements: motivation, cognitions, and traits (Winter, 1996;McAdams, 2000). The second problem is that there are two branches that together define personality psychology as a discipline: (a) the nomothetic or 'individual difference' approach; and (b) the 'ideographic' approach, that is the structure and organization of personality at the individual level (Epstein, 1994), yet trait theory-and especially the 'Big Five' model-have paid little attention to the latter, a trend that is also evident in the occupational stress literature. The central thesis of the current paper is that motivation, cognitions and traits should contribute more variance to the stress-strain relationship than trait personality alone. A preliminary model is presented and recommendations for future research provided.

Une étude sur le rôle modérateur des traits de personnalité sur la relation entre les conditions de l’organisation du travail et la détresse psychologique

“…À cet effet, certains auteurs notent que lorsque cette composante de la personnalité n'est pas contrôlée, les résultats des études sur la détresse psychologique se voient limités (Shields, 2006;Vermulen et Mustard, 2000 (Schmitz et al, 2000). Certes, les individus possédant un centre de contrôle interne ont tendance à utiliser des stratégies d'adaptation centrées sur les problèmes, ce qui serait plus approprié pour faire face aux stresseurs de façon efficace (Code et Langan-Fox, 2001). Tandis (Daniels et Guppy, 1994;Naswall et al, 2005;Parkes, 1991;Rahim, 1996).…”

Occupational Stress and Its Impact on Job Performance

“…In an organizational context, eustress is often called as positive stress where individuals who have adequate knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes to cope with their work demands and pressures. [4] [5] [6] [7]. On the other hand, distress is also known as negative stress where individuals have not adequate knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes to cope with external forces and challenges placed on their bodies [3][4] [8].…”

“…PHS is normally viewed as a physiological reaction of the body (e.g., headache, migraine, abdominal pain, lethargic, backache, chest pain, fatigue, heart palpitation, sleep disturbance and muscle ache) to various stressful triggers at the workplace that directly and negatively affects an individual's productivity, effectiveness, quality of work and personal health [9][10] [11]. While, PSS is often seen as an emotional reaction experienced by an individual (such as anxiety and depression burnout, job alienation, hostility, depression, tension, anger, nervousness, irritability and frustration) as a result from the stimulate at the workplace [6] [9][10] [12].…”

Investigating the Impacts of Job Stress on the University Librarians within the Persepective of Human Resource Management: The Case of North Cyprus

“…Code and Langan, 2001;Maslach, 1998, in Cooper (Eds); Quick et al, 2001). Some authors have used stress to denote such external forces and strain to denote the resulting reaction (e.g.…”