Safety at work: A meta-analytic investigation of the link between job demands, job resources, burnout, engagement, and safety outcomes.

In this article, we develop and meta-analytically test the relationship between job demands and resources and burnout, engagement, and safety outcomes in the workplace. In a meta-analysis of 203 independent samples (N = 186,440), we found support for a health impairment process and for a motivational process as mechanisms through which job demands and resources relate to safety outcomes. In particular, we found that job demands such as risks and hazards and complexity impair employees' health and positively relate to burnout. Likewise, we found support for job resources such as knowledge, autonomy, and a supportive environment motivating employees and positively relating to engagement. Job demands were found to hinder an employee with a negative relationship to engagement, whereas job resources were found to negatively relate to burnout. Finally, we found that burnout was negatively related to working safely but that engagement motivated employees and was positively related to working safely. Across industries, risks and hazards was the most consistent job demand and a supportive environment was the most consistent job resource in terms of explaining variance in burnout, engagement, and safety outcomes. The type of job demand that explained the most variance differed by industry, whereas a supportive environment remained consistent in explaining the most variance in all industries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Civic engagement patterns and transitions over 8 years: The AmeriCorps national study.

Latent transition analysis was used to examine civic engagement transitions across 2 waves spanning 8 years in a sample of AmeriCorps participants and a comparison group (N = 1,344; 77% female). Latent indicators of civic engagement included volunteering, community participation, civic organizational involvement, local and national voting, civic consciousness, and perceptions of civic knowledge. Three latent statuses were identified; inactive, voting involved, and highly committed. Consistent with life cycle theories of political engagement, the inactive status was most prevalent at Wave 1 and the voting-involved status most prevalent at Wave 4. AmeriCorps members were less involved in voting at Wave 1 but, among voters, were more likely to become highly committed by Wave 4. Compared with those who did not attend college, those who did had higher levels of civic engagement initially and over time. Young participants and Asian youths demonstrated lower levels of involvement initially compared with older participants or White youths. Findings suggest that national service programs geared toward young people who are not in college may hold promise for addressing gaps in civic engagement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The crossover of strain from school principals to teachers and vice versa.

The study investigated crossover of stress and strain in the workplace on a sample of 47 school principals and 183 teachers in Israeli elementary schools. The main goal of this study was to examine whether the crossover effect found among couples in the family also exists in the workplace. A 2nd aim of the study as to unravel the mechanisms that account for the crossover process. Using structural equation modeling, the authors found a significant crossover of job-induced tension but not of burnout from principals to teachers and vice versa. Being undermined by their principals elevated teachers' burnout and job-induced tension. This is the 1st study to demonstrate crossover of strain in the workplace and to discuss the implications of contagious job-induced tension in work environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing two burnout interventions: Perceived job control mediates decreases in burnout.

This quasi-experimental study compared the effects of two rehabilitation interventions on burnout and perceived job conditions during a 1-year intervention among female white-collar workers. The participatory intervention (n = 20), involving rehabilitation activities that focused on the individual as well as on individual-organizational levels, assessed exhaustion, cynicism and perceived job control during a 1-year period. Increased job control served as a mechanism through which exhaustion and cynicism decreased in this intervention. The traditional intervention (n = 32), involving rehabilitation activities focusing mainly on the individual level, resulted in a reduction in time pressures during one year. Furthermore, both interventions improved perceived workplace climate. Compared to the traditional approach, the participatory intervention was a more effective strategy for treating burnout. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

HIV sexual risk behavior following bereavement in gay men.

The present study followed a group of 100 gay men up to 1 year before and 1 year after losing a partner to AIDS (University of California, San Francisco Coping Project). Following bereavement, participants were at increased risk for engaging in unprotected anal intercourse: at 4 to 6 months for HIV-negative men and at 8 to 12 months for HIV-positive men. Sociodemographic variables, HIV serostatus, substance use, depression, prebereavement relationship quality, and social support did not explain sexual risk-taking in this sample. However; men who engaged in unprotected anal intercourse were twice as likely to be involved in a new primary relationship as those who did not. The authors concluded that risk varies over time by HIV status and may involve engagement in new relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Continuity and change in early school engagement: Predictive of children's achievement trajectories from first to eighth grade?

Premises about the effects of early engagement on achievement were investigated with 383 children who were followed from ages 5.5 to 13.5. Change and continuity in behavioral (cooperative-resistant classroom participation) and emotional (school liking-avoidance) engagement were assessed during Grades 1-3 and were examined within variable- and person-oriented analyses as antecedents of scholastic progress from Grades 1 to 8. Findings corroborated the premises that change as well as continuity in early school engagement is predictive of children's long-term scholastic growth. Compared to children who participated cooperatively in classrooms, those who became increasingly resistant across the primary grades displayed lesser scholastic growth. Among children who manifested enduring engagement patterns, those who exhibited a combination of higher behavioral and emotional engagement across the primary grades made greater academic progress than those who displayed lower levels of these two forms of engagement. Overall, the results of this investigation were consistent with the school engagement hypothesis and extend what is known about the predictive contributions of early school engagement to children's achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work characteristics and sickness absence in burnout and nonburnout groups: A study of Swedish health care workers.

The aim of this study was to search for constellations of work characteristics that discriminate people who experience burnout from those who do not, and also from those who score high in exhaustion but not in disengagement, and vice versa. The study is based on data from 3,719 employees in a County Council in Sweden. Discriminant analysis revealed that four burnout categories (nonburnout, disengaged, exhausted, and burnout) related in different ways to self-reported work characteristics. The proportions of respondents with overtime, sickness absence, and sickness presence were higher in the burnout and the exhausted groups compared with the nonburnout group. The most common professions in the burnout group were, unexpectedly, dental nurses, secretaries, and service staff. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Workaholic and work engaged employees: Dead ringers or worlds apart?

Building on Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory and Meijman and Mulder's Effort-Recovery Model, the present study examined the nature, antecedents, and consequences of working hard (i.e., workaholism and work engagement) in a Dutch convenience sample of 1,246 employees. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that workaholism and work engagement were two largely independent concepts. Crossing these two concepts yielded four types of workers: workaholic employees, engaged employees, engaged workaholics, and nonworkaholic/nonengaged employees. MANOVA and subsequent ANOVAs were used to compare these four groups regarding their motivation, working hours, and levels of burnout. As expected, study results revealed that workaholic employees were driven by controlled motivation, whereas engaged employees were driven by autonomous motivation. Engaged workaholics were driven by both controlled and autonomous motivation. In addition, the results revealed that engaged workaholics spent most time on working. Unlike workaholic employees, engaged workaholics did not experience the highest levels of burnout, suggesting that high engagement may buffer the adverse consequences of workaholism. The present study emphasizes the importance of differentiating among at least three categories of employees who work hard: workaholic employees, engaged employees, and—for the first time—engaged workaholics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Engagement and disaffection in the classroom: Part of a larger motivational dynamic?

A study of 805 4th through 7th graders used a model of motivational development to guide the investigation of the internal dynamics of 4 indicators of behavioral and emotional engagement and disaffection and the facilitative effects of teacher support and 3 student self-perceptions (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) on changes in these indicators over the school year. In terms of internal dynamics, emotional components of engagement contributed significantly to changes in their behavioral counterparts; feedback from behavior to changes in emotion were not as consistent. Teacher support and students' self-perceptions (especially autonomy) contributed to changes in behavioral components: Each predicted increases in engagement and decreases in disaffection. Tests of process models revealed that the effects of teacher context were mediated by children's self-perceptions. Taken together, these findings suggest a clear distinction between indicators and facilitators of engagement and begin to articulate the dynamics between emotion and behavior that take place inside engagement and the motivational dynamics that take place outside of engagement, involving the social context, self-systems, and engagement itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reported anxiousness and two types of stimulus incongruity.

Investigated the the effects of 2 kinds of stimulus incongruity (surprise and nonconfirmation) on reported anxiety. Surprise incongruity involves receiving an unexpected stimulus, and nonconfirmation incongruity involves not receiving an expected stimulus. Reported anxiety was measured by a form of N. S. Endler, J. M. Hunt, and A. J. Rosenstein's (see 38:2) Stimulus Response (S-R) Inventory of Anxiousness. 4 groups of 10 female undergraduates, each, (equated for initial anxiousness) were subjected to 1 of 4 levels of surprise incongruity (high, moderate, low, control) and to 1 of 2 levels of nonconfirmation incongruity (high, 0). All groups were tested in a "listening to a tape" situation. Mean reported anxiety was greater for the high- than for the low-surprise incongruity groups (p     

Relationships between teachers' presentations of classroom tasks and students' engagement in those tasks.

Correlated the presence/absence of various teacher task-presentation statements with measures of subsequent student task engagement to investigate the possibility that expectations about classroom tasks that teachers communicate to students in the process of presenting those tasks might affect student engagement in the tasks. Reading and math lessons were observed (8–25 times each) in 2 4th-grade, 2 5th-grade, and 2 6th-grade classes. Typically, each reading or math period was subdivided into 2–4 tasks. For example, a math period might begin with a review of the previous day's seatwork/homework assignment, followed by presentation of a new concept or skill, followed by presentation of a new assignment. Teacher-presentation data and student-engagement data were collected for each task observed. Contrary to expectation, student engagement was generally higher when teachers moved directly into tasks than when they began with some presentation statement. Within the subset of tasks that were begun with teacher-presentation statements, those presentation statements classified as likely to have negative effects on student engagement were associated with lower student engagement, but there was no corresponding tendency for teacher-presentation statements classified as likely to have positive effects on student engagement to be associated with high rates of student engagement. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linking job demands and resources to employee engagement and burnout: A theoretical extension and meta-analytic test.

We refine and extend the job demands–resources model with theory regarding appraisal of stressors to account for inconsistencies in relationships between demands and engagement, and we test the revised theory using meta-analytic structural modeling. Results indicate support for the refined and updated theory. First, demands and burnout were positively associated, whereas resources and burnout were negatively associated. Second, whereas relationships among resources and engagement were consistently positive, relationships among demands and engagement were highly dependent on the nature of the demand. Demands that employees tend to appraise as hindrances were negatively associated with engagement, and demands that employees tend to appraise as challenges were positively associated with engagement. Implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The evaluation of an individual burnout intervention program: The role of inequity and social support.

This study evaluated a 5-week, group-based burnout intervention program among direct-care professionals working with mentally disabled individuals. Equity theory was used as the theoretical framework. The main objective of the program was to reduce perceptions of inequity in the relationship with the organization and with the recipients of care by increasing the fit between the professional's goals and expectations and the actual work situation. One experimental group and 2 control groups participated. All 3 groups filled out 3 questionnaires: before the program started, 6 months later, and 1 year later. Individual absenteeism rates were assessed for 1 year before and after the program. Results showed that in the experimental group burnout, absence, and deprived feelings diminished compared with the control groups. The most profound effects were among participants who could draw on social resources to benefit from the intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving office work: a participatory ergonomic experiment in a naturalistic setting

In a Department of Salary Records where VDU tasks were performed at a high work rate, a participative ergonomic study was undertaken. First, the 'old' workplace was investigated for all 45 employees. Work stations appeared to be of poor ergonomic quality. Second, 12 employees participated in an experiment at the actual workplace. Objective and subjective effects were recorded under three conditions: the 'old' workplace, the recommended ('ideal') workplace, and the self-chosen workplace. Based on this data 'ergonomic' furniture and additional accessories were ordered and all 45 employees received tailor-made instructions and training with respect to their ideal workplace. After 5 months data for their 'objective' workplaces and subjective reports about the workplace were recorded. The study focuses on the comparison of the three conditions and of the two groups of employees: 33 who received thorough instruction and training only, and 12 who also participated in the experiment. Both objective and subjective improvements are demonstrated in the recommended situation when compared to the original situation. Although some employees deliberately chose to deviate from the recommended situation--owing to task and individual characteristics--self chosen workplaces still constituted a much better workplace in comparison to the old workplace. The 12 employees who participated in the experiment chose a better self-preferred workplace when compared to their 33 colleagues. It is concluded that experimental measurements in a naturalistic setting may contribute significantly to workplace improvements (1) by presenting adequate and 'objective' information for workplace improvement and ergonomic redesign, and (2) as a change agent itself, that is as an 'intensified treatment'.     

The differential effects of interpersonal conflict from customers and coworkers: Trait anger as a moderator.

Interpersonal conflict (IC) at work is a frequently experienced type of workplace mistreatment that has been linked to a host of negative workplace outcomes. Previous research has shown that IC can have differential effects based on source, but this has not yet been investigated in terms of customer IC versus coworker IC. To remedy this oversight in the literature, we used a multimethod, multitime point design to compare IC from customers and coworkers experienced by 75 call center employees. Primarily, we investigated burnout, physical health symptoms, and task performance. Results indicated that customer IC was more strongly related to both personal and organizational outcomes. Additionally, trait anger was investigated as a moderator of these relationships, and the results indicated that people who are easy to anger may be more likely to experience negative effects as a result of customer IC. Implications of these findings, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Burnout and inequity among human service professionals: A longitudinal study.

In a composite sample of human service professionals (N?=?245), longitudinal relations across 1 year were tested between equity in the professional–recipient relationship and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment). The 1st research question was whether inequity influenced burnout across time. The 2nd research question was whether longitudinal relations between equity and burnout were curvilinear, as predicted by equity theory. The results confirmed that inequity affects the central component of burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion) and that this relation is curvilinear. Feeling more deprived and feeling more advantaged resulted in higher future emotional exhaustion levels. No indication was found for a longitudinal relation between inequity and depersonalization. A synchronous relation was found suggesting that personal accomplishment influences equity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trait hostility and ambulatory blood pressure among traffic enforcement agents: The effects of stressful social interactions.

This study investigated the hypothesis that trait hostility is associated with heightened cardiovascular reactivity to potentially stressful social interactions but not to nonsocial activities in the workplace. Participants were 73 (39 women) New York City traffic enforcement agents (TEAs) who patrol the streets and issue summonses for vehicular and parking violations. During their patrols, TEAs face potentially stressful interactions when they encounter motorists and pedestrians who may be angry about receiving summonses. Mood and ambulatory blood pressure were initially measured when TEAs were recently hired and attending classes at the training academy (Time 1), and were subsequently assessed again once the TEAs began independently patrolling the city streets (Time 2). Random effects regression models yielded a significant interaction of hostility and work activity on ambulatory systolic blood pressure at Time 2. For those high in hostility, but not for those low in hostility, systolic blood pressure levels were higher while interacting with members of the public than during nonsocial work activities. The findings support the notion that situational factors affect the association of hostility to cardiovascular reactivity, and that interpersonal stressors in the workplace elicit cardiovascular activation among those high in hostility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A prospective study of the association between obesity and burnout among apparently healthy men and women.

The authors prospectively tested the hypothesis that obesity predicts burnout and the reverse-causation hypothesis that burnout predicts obesity. Respondents were 724 men and 340 women, apparently healthy employees, who underwent routine periodic health examinations at 2 points of time about 18 months apart. Obesity was assessed by body mass index, waist-hip ratio, and waist circumference. In regression analyses, done separately for men and women, the authors controlled for depressive symptomatology, sport activity, and Time 1 levels of the criterion. The hypothesis that burnout predicts obesity was not supported. The authors found that Time 1 measures of obesity predicted reductions rather than the hypothesized elevations of Time 2 burnout levels. The authors also found that for male respondents with relatively higher levels of Time 1 burnout, the higher their level of Time 1 obesity measure, the lower their level of T2 burnout. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Timing Is Everything: Pre-Engagement Cohabitation and Increased Risk for Poor Marital Outcomes.

Data from a longitudinal study were used to examine differences among couples that cohabited before engagement, after engagement, or not until marriage. Survey data and objectively coded couple interaction data were collected for 136 couples (272 individuals) after engagement (but before marriage) and 10 months into marriage. At both time points, the before-engagement cohabiters (59 couples) had more negative interactions, lower interpersonal commitment, lower relationship quality, and lower relationship confidence than those who did not cohabit until after engagement (28 couples) or marriage (49 couples), even after controlling for selection factors and duration of cohabitation. Our findings suggest that those who cohabit before engagement are at greater risk for poor marital outcomes than those who cohabit only after engagement or at marriage, which may have important implications for future research on cohabitation, clinical work, and social policy decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emergency medicine career change: associations with performances in medical school and in the first postgraduate year and with indebtedness

OBJECTIVE: Emergency medicine has been identified as the specialty that has gained the most young physicians who have changed their careers. To identify factors that may have contributed to such career changes, the authors compared the characteristics of three groups of physicians trained at their medical school: those who chose and stayed in emergency medicine, those who migrated into emergency medicine from other specialties, and those who moved out of emergency medicine. METHODS: A prospective longitudinal study was conducted. The sample consisted of physicians who chose emergency medicine as their careers at graduation and stayed in the specialty (n = 24), those who migrated from other specialties into emergency medicine (n = 51), and those who moved out of emergency medicine (n = 10). This sample was obtained from a total of 2,173 graduates of Jefferson Medical College between 1978 and 1987. The three groups of physicians were compared according to their academic performances both during medical school and after graduation. The dependent variables were freshmen and sophomore grade point averages (GPAs), written clinical examination scores, scores on National Board of Medical Examiners examination (Parts I, II, and III), and residency program directors' ratings. Age and indebtedness at medical school graduation and board certification status also were examined. RESULTS: Those physicians who stayed in emergency medicine and those who migrated from other specialties into emergency medicine had similar measures of academic performance, but both of these groups had higher academic performance measures and higher board certification rates than did the physicians who moved out of emergency medicine. Those who stayed in emergency medicine had the highest mean debt in the senior year of medical school. CONCLUSIONS: High academic performance and high indebtedness are factors associated with choosing or staying in the specialty of emergency medicine.