Conflicting Perspectives on Stress Reduction in Occupational Settings: A Systems Approach to Their Resolution

摘要

An effort was made to determine how an experimental concept such as stress became altered in the real world of special interest groups, how the chosen definition of stress influenced subsequent interventions, what corporate and union definitions for stress and strategies for stress reduction existed, relation of reduction methods to the definitions, and the effect of strategies if the problem of stress was viewed with a different basic definition. Specific stressors noted by labor representatives included lack of control over the work content, lack of control over the work process and pace, unrealistic task demands, lack of understanding by supervisors and management, the inability to keep work and home life stressors from interacting negatively, and lack of predictability and security about the future of the job. Most unions had not gone beyond the day long workshops and educational material format for stress reduction. Little emphasis was placed on lifestyle reformation and health promotion programs. Corporations recognized acutely the role of individual habits and perceptions in generating stressful situations. Missing from the corporate approach was the acknowledgment that organizational or work setting constraints help to create maladaptive behaviors and cognitions.