Tenderness and Steadiness: Relating Job and Interpersonal Demands and Resources With Burnout and Physical Symptoms of Stress in Canadian Physicians

This study examined the extent to which job and interpersonal demands and resources are associated with burnout and physical symptoms of stress among Canadian physicians. Using the job demands‐resources (JD‐R) model, we predicted that demands would be more strongly related to emotional exhaustion and physical symptoms, whereas resources would be more strongly related to personal accomplishment and decreased depersonalization. The findings reveal that communication skills and emotional labor contributed to the explained variances beyond workload and work–life conflict (as job demands), as well as autonomy, predictability, and understanding (as job resources). The predictors were differentially associated with the outcome variables in a manner that is consistent with the JD‐R model. Implications for physician well‐being and improved patient outcomes are discussed.     

Does it matter in the long run? Longitudinal effects and interactions in the differentiated job demands–resources model

The distinction of challenge and hindrance stressors in the job demands–resources (JD–R) model has increasingly attracted the interest of occupational health researchers. Drawing on the differentiated JD–R framework, we tested causal, reciprocal, and interaction effects of challenge demands, hindrance demands, and job resources on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and work engagement. Cross-lagged structural equation modelling was used to analyse cohort data of N = 400 German physicians across three waves comprising 9 years of observation. Overall, support for our hypotheses was limited. Higher job resources were associated with reduced depersonalization in the first time lag of 2 years. No cross-lagged effects were found for the second time lag of 7 years. Out of 12 hypothesized interaction effects, only 1 significant interaction was observed, where job resources attenuated the positive association between challenge demands and depersonalization between the first and second waves. Results provide only modest support for differential effects of challenge and hindrance demands in the JD–R model. Potential shortcomings and implications for future research are discussed.     

Teacher Beliefs and Responses Toward Student Misbehavior: Influence of Cognitive Skill Deficits

This study aimed to examine whether having knowledge of student cognitive skill deficits changes teacher beliefs and responses in regard to classroom misbehavior. Teachers (N = 272) were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition. Although teachers in both conditions read the same vignette describing a student's misbehavior, the experimental group also reviewed information about the student's cognitive skill deficits. Teachers provided with cognitive skill deficit information were, on average, less likely to believe the student had control over the misbehavior, suggesting perceptions of unintentionality. Furthermore, they were significantly more likely to indicate positive emotional responses. Results suggest that school psychologists may consider sharing cognitive skill deficits information with teachers who are working with students displaying challenging behavior.     

A Longitudinal Test of the Job Demands‐Resources Model among Australian University Academics

A longitudinal test of the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) model of work stress and engagement ( Bakker & Demerouti, 2007 ; Demerouti et al., 2001 ) was conducted in a sample of Australian university academics (N= 296). The aim was to extend the JD‐R model by (1) determining how well job demands (work pressure, academic workload) and job resources (procedural fairness, job autonomy) would predict psychological strain and organisational commitment over a three‐year period, and (2) incorporating longitudinal tests of reversed causation. The results of SEM analyses showed that Time 1 resources directly predicted Time 2 strain and organisational commitment, but that Time 1 demands predicted Time 2 strain only indirectly via job resources. We did not find evidence for reversed causation. We discuss possible mediators of the relationships between working conditions and work stress outcomes, and the practical implications of the results.     

Professional efficacy,exhaustion, and work characteristics among police officers: A longitudinal test of the learning‐related predictions of the demand—control model

The present study addressed the relationships among professional efficacy, emotional exhaustion, and job characteristics (job demands and job control) in the context of a two‐wave panel study among 828 Dutch police officers. Based on the demand–control model, we expected that high demands/high control would be positively related to professional efficacy, and that high demands/low control would be related to high levels of exhaustion. Moreover, we hypothesized that high levels of exhaustion would lead to lower levels of professional efficacy and that high levels of efficacy would lead to low levels of exhaustion. Structural equation modelling largely supported these predictions. High demands were longitudinally related to high levels of efficacy and high levels of exhaustion; high control was longitudinally related to high levels of efficacy. Further, efficacy and exhaustion were indeed mutually related. Finally, high levels of exhaustion were longitudinally related to high levels of demands. We conclude that there are complex, yet theoretically, and practically interpretable relations among efficacy, strain and work characteristics.     

Emotional labor and burnout among female teachers: Work–family conflict as mediator

With the increasing number of women in the workforce, there is a need to understand how the interrelationship between emotions and the demands of work and family influence their well‐being. This study examined how emotional labor [surface acting (SA) and deep acting] and work–family conflict contribute to explaining variance in burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization). In a sample of 102 married, female Malay teachers, with at least one child living at home, results showed that SA was positively associated with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The results also showed that work–family conflict mediated the relationship between emotional labor and burnout. However, no moderation effect of work–family on the SA–burnout relationship was found. The results are discussed with respect to the general literature on the stress–strain relation and work–family conflict.     

Personality as a moderator between emotional exhaustion and workplace deviance among teachers

This study investigated the moderating role of personal factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness in the relationship between emotional exhaustion and workplace deviance. The sample comprised 200 teachers from nine schools in the south-eastern part of Nigeria (females = 85%; married = 85%; age range 20–59 years; organisational tenure = 8.04 years, SD = 7.44 years; senior staff = 55%). The teachers completed measures of self-reported agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional exhaustion, workplace deviance, and demographics. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was utilised to predict workplace deviance from agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional exhaustion. The results showed that agreeableness and conscientiousness negatively predicted workplace deviance, whereas emotional exhaustion positively predicted it. In addition, individuals who are low in agreeableness were more likely to indulge in workplace deviance, whereas those high in this trait were more likely to refrain from it. Managing personal workplace deviance may sap resources for work productivity.     

中学生学业倦怠状况及量表编制

通过对中学生学业倦怠的研究,编制了中学生学业倦怠量表,并分析了中学生学业倦怠状况。结果表明:学业倦怠包括情绪衰竭、去个性化、低成就感和行为不当4个维度;中学生存在较严重的学业倦怠。     

The role of workaholism in the job demands-resources model

Background and Objectives: The present study tries to gain more insight in workaholism by investigating its antecedents and consequences using the job demands-resources model. Design: We hypothesized that job demands would be positively related to workaholism, particularly when job resources are low. In addition, we hypothesized that workaholism would be positively related to negative outcomes in three important life domains: health, family, and work. Methods: The research involved 617 Italian workers (employees and self-employed). To test the hypotheses we applied structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated structural equation modeling (MSEM) using Mplus 6. Results: The results of SEM showed a good model where workload, cognitive demands, emotional demands, and customer-related social stressors were positively related to workaholism and work–family conflict (WFC) (partial mediation). Additionally, workaholism was indirectly related to exhaustion and intentions to change jobs through WFC. Moreover, MSEM analyses confirmed that job resources (job security and opportunities for development) buffered the relationship between job demands and workaholism. Particularly, the interaction effects were statistically significant in five out of eight combinations. Conclusions: These findings suggest that workaholism is a function of a suboptimal work environment and predicts unfavorable employee outcomes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Teachers’ and Parents’ Perspectives on a Curricular Subject of “Religion and Spirituality” for Indian Schools: A Pilot Study Toward School Mental Health Program

Religious–spiritual (R/S) education helps medical students cope with caregiving stress and gain skills in interpersonal empathy needed for clinical care. Such R/S education has been introduced into K-12 and college curricula in some developed nations and has been found to positively impact student’s mental health. Such a move has not yet been seen in the Indian education system. This paper aimed to examine perspectives of teachers and parents in India on appropriateness, benefits, and challenges of including R/S education into the school curriculum and also to gather their impressions on how a R/S curriculum might promote students’ health. A cross-sectional study of religiously stratified sample of teachers and parents was initiated in three preselected schools in India and the required sample size (N = 300) was reached through snowballing technique. A semi-structured questionnaire, with questions crafted from “Religion and Spirituality in Medicine, Physicians Perspective” (RSMPP) and “American Academy of Religion’s (AAR) Guidelines for Religious Literacy,” was used to determine participants’ perspectives. Findings revealed that teachers’ and parents’ “comfort in integrating R/S into school curriculum” was associated with their gender (OR 1.68), education status (OR 1.05), and intrinsic religiosity (OR 1.05). Intrinsic religiosity was significantly (p = 0.025) high among parents while “intrinsic spirituality” was high (p = 0.020) among teachers. How participants’ R/S characteristics influence their support of R/S education in school is discussed. In conclusion, participants believe R/S education will fosters students’ emotional health and interpersonal skills needed for social leadership. A curriculum that incorporates R/S education, which is based on AAR guidelines and clinically validated interpersonal spiritual care tools would be acceptable to both teachers and parents.     

Students' Perceptions of Class Management and Reports of Their Own Misbehavior

This study examines relationships between students' perceptions of class management and their self-reported misbehavior. Findings are based on a national representative sample of 3834 students from 227 classes in grades 6 and 9 who were attending Norwegian schools. Students' perceptions of class management accounted for significant amounts of variance in self-reported misbehavior. Perceived class management was more strongly associated with off-task orientation and opposition toward teachers than with bullying. Explained variance in misbehavior was markedly higher on the individual than on the class level. Student misbehavior seems only moderately related to general differences in the class management a class encounters. The relatively high variance in off-task orientation and opposition toward teachers accounted for by perceived class management at the individual student level might indicate that the extent of such misbehaviors is more closely linked to how teachers adapt management to particular students or to how students are favored by teachers. Perceived emotional support from teachers showed the strongest positive associations with desired student behavior.     

Recovery opportunities,work–home conflict,and emotional exhaustion among hematologists and oncologists in private practice

Hematologists and oncologists in private practice play a central role in the care provided for cancer patients. The present study analyzes stress and relaxation aspects in the work of hematologists and oncologists in private practice in Germany in relation to emotional exhaustion, as a core dimension of burnout syndrome. The study focuses on the opportunities for internal recovery using breaks and time out during the working day, the frequency of working on weekends and on vacation, and the physician’s work–home and home–work conflict. Postulated associations between the constructs were analyzed using a structural equation model. If work leads to conflicts in private life (work–home conflict), it is associated with greater emotional exhaustion. Working frequently at the weekend is associated with greater work–home conflict and indirectly with greater emotional exhaustion. By contrast, the availability of opportunities to relax and recover during the working day is associated with less work–home conflict and indirectly with less emotional exhaustion. These results underline the importance of internal recovery opportunities during the working day and a successful interplay between working and private life for the health of outpatient hematologists and oncologists.     

Psychosocial safety climate as a precursor to conducive work environments,psychological health problems,and employee engagement

We constructed a model of workplace psychosocial safety climate (PSC) to explain the origins of job demands and resources, worker psychological health, and employee engagement. PSC refers to policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety. Using the job demands–resources framework, we hypothesized that PSC as an upstream organizational resource influenced largely by senior management, would precede the work context (i.e., job demands and resources) and would in turn predict psychological health and work engagement via mediation and moderation pathways. We operationalized PSC at the school level and tested meso‐mediational models using two‐level (longitudinal) hierarchical linear modelling in a sample of Australian education workers (N = 209–288). Data were repeated measures separated by 12 months, nested within 18 schools. PSC predicted change in individual psychological health problems (psychological distress, emotional exhaustion) through its relationship with individual job demands (work pressure and emotional demands). PSC moderated the relationship between emotional demands and emotional exhaustion. PSC predicted change in employee engagement, through its relationship with skill discretion. The results show that the PSC construct is a key upstream component of work stress theory and a logical intervention site for work stress intervention.     

Daily suppression of discrete emotions during the work of police service workers and criminal investigation officers

The aim of the present research among Dutch police officers was to examine whether fluctuations in emotional job demands predict exhaustion through the suppression of discrete emotions. A first diary study (N =25) tested how the suppression of discrete emotions is related to exhaustion at the end of the work shift of police call-center service workers. Results revealed that suppressing anger was positively related to exhaustion at the end of a work shift, whereas suppressing happiness was not. A second study (N=41) among criminal investigation officers showed that the emotions anger, abhorrence, and sadness were among the most common negative emotions that were suppressed as part of the emotional labor of this specialized occupational group. Results of a third (diary) study (N=39) confirmed that emotional dissonance and more particularly the suppression of abhorrence mediated the relationship between emotional job demands and exhaustion at the end of a work shift.     

Display rule "regulators": the relationship between supervisors and worker emotional exhaustion

This field study examined the effect of supervisory regulation of display rules--the rules about what kind of emotion to express on the job (R. Ekman, 1992; A. Rafaeli & R. I. Sutton, 1987)--on the emotional exhaustion of subordinates. On the basis of a sample of 940 call center employees, the authors found that worker emotional exhaustion varied across supervisors within jobs, suggesting that emotion work is influenced at the supervisory, rather than job, level. Moreover, the authors found that the importance supervisors place on interpersonal job demands of their workers was positively related to worker emotional exhaustion. Worker career identity moderated the interpersonal-job-demands--emotional-exhaustion relationship, but self-efficacy did not. Study conclusions and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Job demands,work‐family conflict,and emotional exhaustion in police officers: A longitudinal test of competing theories

We propose and test a comprehensive theory designed to explain seemingly contradictory relations between job demands, emotional exhaustion, and work‐family conflict (WFC) reported in the literature. Using job demands‐resources theory, effort‐recovery theory, and personal resources theory we hypothesized that job demands would spillover to emotional exhaustion as mediated by WFC (causality model), and alternatively that job demands would also spillover to WFC as mediated by emotional exhaustion (reverse causal model). Further, we also hypothesized using loss spiral theory that a more comprehensive model representing reciprocal and cross‐linked effects (causal and reverse causal simultaneously) would best fit the data. The hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal study of 257 Australian (Victorian) frontline police officers at two time points approximately 12 months apart. We used structural equation modelling and found in support of the simultaneous reciprocal effects hypothesis, that the more comprehensive model fitted the data better than either the causality or the reverse causal model. Future research should more comprehensively model the important relationships between job demands, emotional exhaustion, and WFC to reflect their complex interplay. Interventions to reduce work demands arising from work pressure and emotional demands are indicated to prevent conflict at home and emotional exhaustion in police officers.     

Protecting Job Performance and Well-Being in the Demanding Work Context: The Moderating Effect of Psychological Detachment for Chinese Employees

The aim of this study was twofold: first, to examine the lasting effects of working hours on later job performance and well-being (i.e. emotional exhaustion and work engagement); second, to delineate the protective role of psychological detachment in the highly demanding Chinese work setting featuring long working hours. We employed a panel design in which all variables were measured twice, with six months in between the waves. Data were obtained from 323 Chinese employees working in diverse industries in Taiwan. Analysing the panel data with structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques, we found that working hours were positively associated with emotional exhaustion and negatively associated with work engagement and job performance, measured six months later. Detachment moderated the effects of working hours on later work engagement and job performance. Specifically, detachment attenuated the negative relationships between working hours and work engagement and job performance. The present study extends the recovery research in the West by demonstrating the protective role of detachment in the East Asian societies with important managerial implications.     

Student Misbehavior in Hong Kong: The Predictive Role of Positive Youth Development and School Satisfaction

This study examined the predictive influences of positive youth development and school satisfaction on student misbehavior. The respondents were 1652 Grade 7 students (738 boys and 912 girls) recruited from 13 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Data was collected by a set of validated questionnaires. A predictive model was tested and developed by using structural equation modelling. The results showed that positive youth development (characterized by social competence, emotional competence, cognitive competence, behavioral competence, moral competence, recognition for positive behavior, beliefs in the future, and prosocial norms) positively influenced school satisfaction and reduced student misbehavior. School satisfaction significantly mediated the predictive effect of positive youth development on student misbehavior, particularly among girls. Girls reported having significantly higher levels of school satisfaction, moral competence, prosocial norms, and recognition for their positive behavior, while boys reported having significantly more frequent misbehavior. Off-task disruptive behavior was the most frequent misbehavior among students in Hong Kong. These findings contribute to research on positive youth development, quality of school life and student wellbeing, particularly in the Chinese context. Future research and practical implications for fostering students’ psychosocial competence and school satisfaction for preventing misbehavior were discussed.     

Transmission of reduction‐oriented crafting among colleagues: A diary study on the moderating role of working conditions

Zooming into reduction‐oriented job crafting among employees, next to minimizing demands (i.e., making a job less strenuous), we introduced optimizing demands (i.e., simplifying the job and making work processes more efficient) and suggested that optimizing demands should be positively related to work engagement, whereas minimizing demands negatively related to work engagement. Moreover, we suggested that both forms of reduction‐oriented crafting can be transferred among colleagues, and this will particularly occur in jobs that are high on demands (workload and emotional demands), low on resources (autonomy), and when the colleagues have a high‐quality relationship. We examined these hypotheses among 65 dyads of employees who filled in a general questionnaire and a diary for three working days. Multilevel analyses supported the transmission of both job crafting dimensions among colleagues. Moreover, there is more transmission of minimizing demands among colleagues when workload and emotional demands are high and autonomy is low. Additionally, optimizing demands was transmitted among colleagues when autonomy was low and quality of relationship with colleague was high. Optimizing demands was positively related to work engagement, whereas minimizing demands was unrelated to work engagement. These findings imply that optimizing demands is a favourable behaviour and can be transmitted among colleagues under specific conditions.

Practitioner points

• Working smarter is related to higher work engagement
• Employees model their colleague's proactive behaviour
• Unfavourable working conditions stimulate modelling behaviour of colleagues

     

幼儿教师共情的负面效应：一个有调节的中介模型

为探讨共情负面效应的作用机制及条件,采用共情量表、Maslach职业倦怠问卷教育版、情绪劳动策略量表和领悟社会支持量表对253名幼儿教师进行调查。结果发现：(1)幼儿教师的情绪共情正向影响情绪枯竭,该影响作用可以通过情绪劳动这一中介实现;(2)幼儿教师的认知共情负向影响情绪枯竭;(3)社会支持调节了幼儿教师情绪劳动对情绪共情与情绪枯竭关系的中介过程的后半段路径。研究结果对幼儿教师心理健康有重要意义。