Schedule of Readings in Work Stress Seminar

Syllabus, Graduate Seminar on Occupational Health Psychology (OHP)

INP7037.002

PSY4931.007

Fall 2007

Instructor

Dr. Paul Spector

Office: PCD (Psychology) 4138

Voice: 974-0357

E-mail: spector@shell.cas.usf.edu

Available on campus every Thursday, and by e-mail and phone always.

Website: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~spector

Time and Place

Thursday, 2-4:50

PCD 2125

Overview

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an emerging interdisciplinary field concerned with psychological factors in employee health, safety, and well-being. This course provides an in depth treatment of this literature, focusing mainly on occupational stress and safety. Students will read and discuss chosen readings each week. In addition a class project will provide experience in designing an OHP-related scale.

Objectives

1. To acquire knowledge of the empirical literature on OHP.

2. To enhance skills in critical review of technical writing.

3. To provide an experience in designing a psychological scale.

4. To gain expanded appreciation of how research is conducted and disseminated.

5. To learn the fundamentals of journal article review (doctoral students only).

Grading

Readings will be assigned for discussion each week. Each student will be assigned responsibility for certain articles that will be presented in class (see presentations section for instructions). Every student is to generate four discussion questions for the material each week (see discussion question section) that will be turned in at the end of each class. These questions will provide the stimulus for discussion in class of the material. Participation is required of all students. A class project of designing a psychological scale will be done over the semester. Ten percent of the grade will be determined by submitting (on time) four journal-type reviews on assigned articles (see schedule).

Missed Classes

Students are expected to attend all classes. All missed classes must be made-up by writing a two page (double spaced) overview of the topic that was discussed that week. The overview is due the week immediately following the absence. It can be e-mailed to me. Missing more than the first half hour of a class will be considered an absence, unless prior arrangements are made.

Readings

Required Text: Quick, J. C., & Tetrick, L. E. (2003). Handbook of Occupational Health Psychology. Washington, DC: APA.

Weekly Readings. Weekly readings, that form the bulk of the material for the class, are in the attached reading list. The schedule shows which readings will be discussed each week. Most are from the major journals, and can be found in the library or virtual library. I have no objection to students splitting the copying work and trading articles. Each student is still responsible for acquiring all readings and being prepared. Be sure to acquire all readings during the first two weeks of the semester (before things get too busy). If journals are not available, be sure to notify me within the first two weeks of the semester so I can make arrangements to make a copy available.

Assessment Project

Each student must develop an original scale to assess a variable relevant to the OHP (e.g., job stressor or job strain). This involves choosing the variable, defining it, writing items, administering items to a sample, conducting item analysis to refine the scale, writing a brief report summarizing the development effort, and presenting a brief report to the class. Employed undergraduates will likely serve as the subjects, although use of other populations is permitted. We will compile all scales together and collect data on one common sample so that relations among scales can be determined, but all other stages must be the student’s own independent work. Each member of the class must choose a different construct, so choices will be discussed and, if necessary, negotiated in class. There will be two products from the project—a paper and a presentation. The paper should be a research report in APA format, including an introduction, method, and results/discussion (combined). The introduction should give a brief background to your construct. The presentation should be about 5-10 minutes using PowerPoint.

Point/Counterpoint Debate

We will read the point/counterpoint exchange among Perrewé – Schaubroeck – Frese. The class will be divided into three groups, each of which will adopt one of these authors’ perspectives for purposes of in class debate/discussion. Each student should read all three papers, plus the Lazarus paper for background. Then study in detail the position of your author and be prepared to argue their point of view. The Perrewé group will start things off by presenting their perspective, and the other groups can then jump in and agree/argue. The Perrewé group is expected to defend their position, which of course was not done in the published form of the article.

Reviews of Journal Articles (Graduate Students Only)

The reviews of journal articles should be similar to what you might write if you were asked by a major journal to serve as a reviewer. This means you should read the paper carefully, noting anything that is either particularly good or is problematic. This can include conceptual/theoretical or methodological issues. You should try to comment on some aspect of the Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. Emphasis depends upon what, in your judgment, are the most important issues. A good review strives for balance, describing both strengths and weaknesses of an article, but of course, since the purpose is to be critical, negatives typically dominate. Although reviews vary considerably in length, a thorough job usually is possible in about one to two single spaced pages. The reviewer guidelines from Personnel Psychology is attached to this syllabus.

Advice On Doing a Review for a Journal. (See also the review guide on the website.) The purpose of a journal review is twofold. First, it helps the editor decide whether or not to publish an article. Editors need to know what’s good and bad about an article, so decisions can be based on a fair and impartial review. Second, feedback to authors is helpful in improving/refining a paper, and in helping them understand why their paper might not have been accepted. Concrete and specific feedback is most helpful. General statements, such as “this is really a crummy paper” are not at all helpful. Better would be a statement such as “the cross-sectional design used doesn’t allow for the sort of causal conclusion the authors are trying to reach.” Focus on those aspects where you have some expertise. It is not helpful if you “shoot from the hip” and note that something is wrong just because it doesn’t “feel right”. If you aren’t certain about something, either look up the answer, consult someone who knows the answer, or be honest and say that something doesn’t seem quite right to you, but you aren’t sure why (or even if you are right). If you aren’t comfortable commenting on statistics, focus your attention on more conceptual issues. Finally, always remember that being a critic is easy, but doing a good piece of research is very difficult. There are innumerable constraints on I/O research, and what author’s publish is typically the best that they could do under the circumstances.

Discussion Questions

The purpose of the discussion questions is to guide and stimulate our class discussion of the material. A good question is one that will produce a difference of opinion or requires some thought and creativity to answer. It might require that we have an understanding of an issue or the research findings. Simple questions that just ask the class to recall what’s in the reading should be avoided. For example, a good question might be, “Why should an organization provide family-friendly benefits to employees? What are the advantages and drawbacks? If you were CEO of a company, would you provide them? Why or why not? Argue the position that a company should (or shouldn’t) give these benefits.” Avoid questions such as “What are the most common family-friendly benefits listed in the reading? In the reading, what did the author say were the four effects of implementing these benefits? How much does it cost to implement these benefits? Which types of companies are most family-friendly?” These questions are just asking everyone to remember something verbatim from the reading, so there's not much room for discussion.

Each week students should generate 4 questions, one each from the following categories.

1. Empirical findings: A discussion of whether research supports or refutes some hypothesis or addresses some question.

2. Methodology: A critique/discussion of the methodology of a particular study.

3. Study design: A discussion of who we might design a study to address a particular question or issue—this one could require some creativity.

4. Theories: A discussion of some theoretical position or positions. This could be a comparison of two or more theories.

Presentations of Articles

One student will be responsible for presenting an overview of the week’s topic at the beginning of class. Consider this a mini-lecture on the week’s topic/s, based on the material we read. The idea is not to give a detailed summary of each reading, but to integrate the readings into a coherent overview. Connections should be made among the articles if possible. Overheads or PowerPoint should be used to help highlight the major points.

Taping policy: Notes and tapes cannot be taken for the purpose of sale.

Schedule

The schedule lists the topics and assignment due dates. The OHP book chapter assignments are here, and specific readings are in the week by week reference list.

Date	Topic	Reading/Assignment
8/30	Course Introduction
9/6	OHP: History and Scope	Forward: Levi; C1: Tetrick; C2: Barling; C3: Smith
9/13	Occupational Stress	C18: Kasl; Frankenhaeuser 86, Jackson 83^R, Keenan-Newton 85, Parkes 82
9/20	Control and Buffering	C10: Theorell; Bosma 98, McClenahan, 07, Spector 98
9/27	Schedules/Work-Family	C8: Smith; C7: Frone; Barling 86^R, Frone 97, Martens 99
10/4	Cross-national OHP	Fay 98, Hofstede 84, Peterson 98, Spector 01
10/11	Negative affectivity	C5: Nelson; Watson 86, Brief 88, Chen 91, Burke 93, Spector 00 (read in this order)
10/18	Interventions	C14: Cooper; C16: Semmer; Bruning 87^R, Ganster 82, Petterson, 06
10/25	Debate: Appraisal vs. Environment	Lazarus 91 (for background), Spector intro, Perrewé - Schaubroeck – Frese 99 point/counterpoint
11/13	Psychological factors in disease	C13: Landsbergis; Murphy 91, O’Leary 90, Parkes 87, Shirom 97
11/8	Accidents & Safety	C6: Zohar; DeJoy 00, Hemingway 99^R, Neal, 06, Siu, 04
11/15	Abuse and Violence	Cortina 01, Hershcovis, 07, Keashly 05, LeBlanc 05, Spector, 07
11/22	Thanksgiving
11/29	Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD)	C11: Coovert, Feuerstein, 05, Kerr, 01, Linton, 01 Scale presentations, papers due
12/6	Future – Healthy Work Organizations	C4: Bennett, Sauter 96

Note: ^RArticle to be reviewed—due day discussed (9/13, 9/27, 10/18, 11/8).

Readings By Weekly Topic

OHP: History and Scope

Chapters from OHP handbook only

Occupational Stress

Frankenhaeuser, M., & Johansson, G. (1986). Stress at work: psychobiological and psychosocial aspects. International Review of Applied Psychology, 35, 287‑299.

Jackson, S. E. (1983). Participation in decision making as a strategy for reducing job‑related strain. Journal of Applied Psychology, 68, 3‑19. (NOTE: See erratum 1984 Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 546‑547.

Keenan, A., & Newton, T. J. (1985). Stressful events, stressors and psychological strains in young professional engineers. Journal of Occupational Behavior, 6, 151‑156.

Parkes, K. R. (1982). Occupational stress among student nurses: A natural experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 784‑796.

Control and Buffering

Bosma, H., Stansfeld, S. A., & Marmot, M. G. (1998). Job control, personal characteristics, and heart disease. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 3, 402-409.

McClenahan, C. A., Giles, M. L., & Mallett, J. (2007). The importance of context specificity in work stress research: A test of the Demand-Control-Support model in academics. Work and Stress, 21, 85-95.

Spector, P. E. (1998). A control theory of the job stress process. In C. L. Cooper (Ed.). Theories of organizational stress (pp. 153-169). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Schedules/Spillover

Barling, J., & Rosenbaum, A. (1986). Work stressors and wife abuse. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 346‑348.

Frone, M. R., Russell, M., & Cooper, M. L. (1997). Relation of work-family conflict to health outcomes: A four-year longitudinal study of employed parents. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 70, 325-335.

Martens, M. F. J., Nijhuis, F. J. N., Van Boxtel, M. P. J., & Knottnerus, J. A. (1999). Flexible work schedules and mental and physical health. A study of a working population with non-traditional working hours. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 35-46.

Cross-National OHP

Fay, D., Sonnentag, S., & Frese, M. (1998). Stressors, innovation, and personal initiative: Are stressors always detrimental? In C. L. Cooper (Ed.). Theories of organizational stress (pp. 170-189). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Hofstede, G. (1984). The cultural relativity of the quality of life concept. Academy of Management Review, 9, 389-398. (a)

Peterson, M. F., Smith, P. B., Akande, A., Ayestaran, S., Bochner, S., Callan, V., Cho, N. G., Jesuino, J. C., D’Amorim, M., Francois, P. H., Hofmann, K., Koopman, P. L., Leung, K., Lim, T. K., Mortazavi, S., Munene, J., Radford, M., Ropo, A., Savage, G., Setiadi, B., Sinha, T. N., Sorenson, R., & Viedge, C. (1995). Role conflict, ambiguity, and overload: A 21-nation study. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 429-452.

Spector, P. E., Cooper, C. L., Sanchez, J. I., Sparks, K., Bernin, P., Büssing, A., Dewe, P. Hart, P., Lu, L., Miller, K., Renault de Moraes, L., O’Driscoll, M., Ostrognay, G. M., Pagon, M., Pitariu, H., Poelmans, S., Radhakrishnan, P., Russinova, V., Salamatov, V., Salgado, J., Shima, S., Siu, O. L., Stora, J. B., Teichmann, M., Theorell, T., Vlerick, P., Westman, M., Widerszal-Bazyl, M., Wong, P., & Yu, S. (2001). A twenty-four nation/province study of work locus of control, well-being, and individualism: How generalizable are western work findings? Academy of Management Journal.

Negative Affectivity

Brief, A. P., Burke, M. J., George, J. M., Robinson, B. S., & Webster, J. (1988). Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 193‑198.

Burke, M. J., Brief, A. P., & George, J. M. (1993). The role of negative affectivity in understanding relations between self-reports of stressors and strains: A comment on the applied psychology literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 402-412.

Chen, P. Y. & Spector, P. E. (1991). Negative affectivity as the underlying cause of correlations between stressors and strains. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 398-407.

Spector, P. E., Zapf, D., Chen, P. Y., & Frese, M. (2000). Why negative affectivity should not be controlled in job stress research: Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 79-95.

Watson, D., Pennebaker, J. W., & Folger, R. (1986). Beyond negative affectivity: Measuring stress and satisfaction in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 8, 141-157.

Interventions

Bruning, N. S., & Frew, D. R. (1987). Effects of exercise, relaxation, and management skills training on physiological stress indicators: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 515‑521.

Ganster, D. C., Mayes, B. T., Sime, W. E., & Tharp, G. D. (1982). Managing organizational stress: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 533-542.

Petterson, I. L., Donnersvärd, H. A., Lagerström, M., & Toomingas, A. (2006). Evaluation of an intervention programme based on empowerment for eldercare nursing staff. Work and Stress, 20, 353-369.

Appraisal Versus Environment

Frese, M., & Zapf, D. (1999). On the importance of the objective environment in stress and attribution theory. Counterpoint to Perrewé and Zellars. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 761-765. [Point/counterpoint]

Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Psychological stress in the workplace. In Perrewe', P. L. (Ed.). Handbook on job stress [Special Issue]. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6, 1-13.

Perrewé, P. L., & Zellars, K. L. (1999). An examination of attributions and emotions in the transactional approach to the organizational stress process. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 739-752. [Point/counterpoint]

Schaubroeck, J. (1999). Should the subjective be the objective? On studying mental processes, coping behavior, and actual exposures in organizational stress research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 753-760. [Point/counterpoint]

Spector, P. E. (1999). Objective versus subjective approaches to the study of job stress. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 737. [Point/counterpoint]

Physiological Factors in Disease

Murphy, L. R. (1991). Job dimensions associated with severe disability due to cardiovascular disease. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 44, 155-166.

O'Leary, A. (1990). Stress, emotion, and human immune function. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 363-382.

Parkes, K. R. (1987). Relative weight, smoking, and mental health as predictors of sickness and absence from work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 275‑286.

Shirom, A., Westman, M., Carel, R. S., & Shamai, O. (1997). Effects of work overload and burnout on cholesterol and triglycerides levels: The moderating effects of emotional reactivity among male and female employees. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2, 275-288.

Accidents/Safety

DeJoy, D. M., Searcy, C. A., Murphy, L. R., & Gershon, R. R. M. (2000). Behavioral—diagnostic analysis of compliance with universal precautions among nurses. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 127-141.

Hemingway, M. A., & Smith, C. S. (1999). Organizational climate and occupational stressors as predictors of withdrawal behaviours and injuries in nurses. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72, 285-299.

Neal, A., & Griffin, M. A. (2996). A study of the lagged relationships among safety climate, safety motivation, safety behavior, and accidents and the individual and group levels. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 946-953.

Siu, O. L., Phillips, D. R., & Leung, T. Q. (2004). Safety climate and safety performance among construction workers in Hong Kong: The role of psychological strains as mediators. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 36, 359-366.

Abuse and Violence/Technology

Cortina, L. M., Magley, V., Williams, J. H., & Langhout, R. D. (2001). Incivility in the workplace: Incidence and impact. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6, 64-80.

Hershcovis, M. S., Turner, N., Barling, J., Arnold, K. A., Dupré, K. E., Inness, M., LeBlanc, M. M., & Sivanathan, N. (2007). Predicting workplace aggression: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 228-238.

Keashly, L., & Harvey, S. (2005). Emotional abuse in the workplace. In. S. Fox, & P. E. Spector (Eds.). Counterproductive workplace behavior: Investigations of actors and targets (pp. 201-235). Washington, DC: APA.

LeBlanc, M. M., & Barling, J. (2005). Understanding the many faces of workplace violence. In. S. Fox, & P. E. Spector (Eds.). Counterproductive workplace behavior: Investigations of actors and targets (pp. 41-63). Washington, DC: APA.

Spector, P. E., Coulter, M. L., Stockwell, H. G., & Matz, M. W. (2007). Relationships of workplace physical violence and verbal aggression with perceived safety, perceived violence climate, and strains in a healthcare setting. Work & Stress, 21, 117-130.

Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD)

Feuerstein, M., Nicholas, R. A., Huang, G. D., Haufler, A. J., Pransky, G., & Robertson, M. (2005). Workstyle: Development of a measure of response to work in those with upper extremity pain. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 15, 87-104.

Kerr, M. S., Frank, J. W., Shannon, H. S., Norman, R. W. K., Wells, R. P., Neumann, W. P., & Bombardier, C. (2001). Biomechanical and psychosocial risk factors for low back pain at work. American Journal of Public Health, 91, 1069-1075.

Linton, S. J. (2001). Occupational psychological factors increase the risk for back pain: A systematic review. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 11, 53-66.

Future

Sauter, S. L., Lim, S. Y., & Murphy, L. R. (1996). Organizational health: A new paradigm for occupational stress research at NIOSH. Japanese Journal of Occupational Mental Health, 4, 248-254.

Readings Alphabetically