According to Breif and Weiss
(2002), the following categories have been identified as factors which
products stress in the workplace. Workplace factors that produce moods and
emotional stress have been grouped into several not necessarily mutually
exclusive categories (George 1996). Examples of these categories include:
• stressful events (or otherwise aversive stimuli),
• workgroup characteristics,
• Organizational rewards and punishments.
Stressful events: The job-related stress literature is massive, with
at least one journal, Work & Stress, exclusively devoted to the topic. The
field is populated by a diversity of theoretical orientations (e.g., Cooper
1998). Several studies in the 1990s found that most often, stresses in the
workplace are caused by longstanding personality-affect linkages rather
than issues with machinery, equipment, or other hard asset. In a sampling
study of employed mothers, Williams et al. (1991) observed that self-
reported multiple roles juggling (i.e., simultaneously attending to demands
of different roles) had immediate effects on stress, and the emotional
Leaders: Leaders have been theorized to affect how their followers
feel (George 2000) and to have a direct effect on the stress which the
members of an organization experience. For example, George (1996)
asserted, "Leaders who feel excited, enthusiastic, and energetic themselves
are likely to similarly energize their followers, as are leaders who feel
distressed and hostile likely to negatively activate their followers" (p.
84). This idea clearly is evident in the transformational leadership
literature, in which the claim is made that these types of leaders use
strong emotions to arouse similar feelings in their audiences (e.g., Conger
& Kanungo 1998). The issue of leadership styles will be addressed further
Work Group Characteristics: Pre...