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Role overload and underload in relation to occupational stress and health
Author(s) -
Shultz Kenneth S.,
Wang Mo,
Olson Deborah A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
stress and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1532-2998
pISSN - 1532-3005
DOI - 10.1002/smi.1268
Subject(s) - stressor , psychology , stress (linguistics) , autonomy , occupational stress , crew , information overload , job satisfaction , applied psychology , social psychology , clinical psychology , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , world wide web , political science , law , aeronautics , engineering
Most research on work stress has focused on the concept of role overload, or too many job demands, as opposed to role underload, or too few job demands. Therefore, the present study was carried out to determine if different levels of job demands may be differentially associated with job‐related stress as well as with various health outcomes. Specifically, in the present study, we used data from the Eurobarometer Survey on Working Conditions ( n = 16,000) to investigate whether role overload and underload resulted in different negative health outcomes. We also examined to see whether different job characteristics, such as having control of your work schedule, differentially buffered the effects of role demands on work stress for workers experiencing role overload, role underload, or neither (i.e. matched). Results indicated that respondents reporting role overload had the highest level of all 16 negative health outcomes, with the role underload group being the next highest and the matched group being the lowest. In addition, a series of hierarchical logistic regression analyses showed that the control variable of time buffered stress for the role matched and role underload groups, while both time and autonomy buffered stress for the role overload group. The implications of the results for both theory and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.