Ch 7: Psychosocial Hazards

The life of a highly paid professional athlete would seem to be all positive, but evidence shows that many elite athletes are exposed to a range of workplace stressors that are both similar to and different from those experienced by those in more "typical" occupations. Many athletes experience depression and other mental health issues both during and after their playing career. If there are 20 Canadian players on a National Hockey League team (the rest are Americans and Europeans), according to Canadian statistics how many are likely to experience or be dealing with a mental health problem?

4

A basic principle of preventive stress management is that the health of the individual and the health of the organization are independent.

False

Constructive feedback is a tangible form of social support.

False

GPS tracking systems on company vehicles that show the company where their driver is at all times and how fast they are going are an example of an acute stressor.

False

General adaption syndrome describes the body's way of reducing stress as it continues to adapt to stressors

False

What type of moderator can aggravate an individual's response to a stressor?

Risk factor

Cyberbullying (tweets, comments on Facebook) is a form of interactional injustice.

True

Employees may perceive annual performance reviews as an acute stressor.

True

Flexible hours that help workers who are looking after elderly parents take them to their doctor's appointments are a tangible form of social support.

True

If an employer announces a layoff of 25% of employees, job insecurity would be what type of stressor?

acute

Refer to Scenario 7-1: Every athlete on a professional sports team is hired on a contract basis, with no guarantee of permanent employment. What type of stressor is contract negotiation?

acute

What two categories of stressor have, or can have, a long duration?

chronic and catastrophic

Refer to Scenario 7-1: Playing time is something that athletes on sports teams monitor very closely and being "benched"-not allowed to play their regular shifts-can be very humiliating. However, if the coach does not bench an underperformer, what type of injustice might the rest of the team experience?

distributive injustice

Stressors may vary along which of the following dimensions?

frequency of occurrence, intensity, duration, and predictability

Based on the factors identified in the NIOSH model of workplace stressors, whose job has the most potential to be stressful?

highly paid assembly line worker

Which of the following is NOT a category conceptualized by the NIOSH model?

job design

Refer to Scenario 7-1: Which of the following is a social moderator that could buffer athletes from experiencing negative effects of stress due to recent losses to other teams?

locker room jokes

Which of the following is most likely to be an outcome of family-to-work conflict?

long lunch breaks

Ergun works from a home office as a salesperson for a large drug company. How can his sales manager determine whether working from home is a psychosocial hazard for Ergun?

monitor his sales activity and results

What is an example of an organizational secondary stress intervention?

offering an on-site fitness centre

What are the four components that researchers and practitioners of occupational health psychology focus on to reduce work-related psychosocial disorders?

organizational change, information, psychological health services, and surveillance

Refer to Scenario 7-1: If the team provides laptops with Skype for communicating with family and friends while the team is on the road, what type of stress intervention would this be and what type of work-family conflict could it help to reduce?

organizational secondary intervention; work-to-family conflict

Which of the following is an example of a primary stress intervention?

providing flexible working conditions

What are the four categories of strain reactions?

psychological, physical, behavioural, and organizational

What is an example of an individual tertiary stress intervention?

seeing a psychotherapist

Why have primary stress interventions not been widely implemented in Canada?

senior manager resistance

The psychosocial model of health used to discuss stress highlights which of the following factors?

social environment and psychological factors

What model would explain why Celeste is unaffected by a network outage, whereas Celine is screaming loudly at the office's network administrator?

transactional model

What two personality characteristics are particularly relevant to stress?

type A behaviour pattern and negative affectivity

The Canadian standard for psychological health and safety at work (CSA-Z1003-14) identifies 15 organizational factors that affect psychological health at work.

False

Ruby Lee is always late to meetings, and her typical excuse is "I just tried to get one more thing done." Javier Suarez is always on time and drums his fingers on the table while he waits for Ruby. Ruby and Javier are both Type A personalities.

True

Technology can result in workers feeling isolated in the workplace.

True

According to the textbook, what is the main reason why organizations in the Mental Health Commission's case study project wanted to focus on improving mental health in the workplace?

because of a moral obligation

What is experienced by an employee who feels that his salary is too low given his amount of responsibility and the long hours he works?

distributive injustice

Mateo is a medical resident who works long hours in a high-stress environment. He can't cut back on his hours or the stressors, so to stay healthy and avoid strain he hits the gym several days a week. This is best described as which of the following?

secondary intervention