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Role stress—a methodological trap?
Author(s) -
Fineman Stephen,
Payne Roy
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/job.4030020105
Subject(s) - psychology , stress (linguistics) , occupational stress , similarity (geometry) , variables , social psychology , trap (plumbing) , econometrics , statistics , mathematics , computer science , artificial intelligence , linguistics , philosophy , environmental engineering , engineering , image (mathematics)
This study explores the notion that many existing studies which show moderate relationships between role variables and stress symptoms are doing so because of the operational similarity of independent and dependent variables. It was predicted that the removal of such an artefact by clearly separating the two sets of variables would result in a nil relationship. Matched ‘cases’ and ‘controls’ were compared in two different organizations. The independent judgments of occupational health specialists were used to measure stress on a number of agreed dimensions, and role measurements were taken by the researchers in three different ways. On all comparisons made there was a strong trend suggesting no role/stress associations. The implications of the results for role stress studies are discussed.