How the mind works: workplace

Stress in workplace
Concepts of Stress
In behavioral research, stress itself has traditionally been viewed as a source of
disturbance arising from an individuals physical or social environment.
However, since individuals do not react in exactly the same way to common
conditions, it is now considered more appropriate to view stress in terms of each
individuals response to his or her environment. This has led to both continuing
debate and some confusion, since some researchers continue to define stress in
terms of the external stimuli involved (e.g., noise, temperature, vibration). Defining
stress only in terms of the physical stimulus does not account for why the same
stimulus induces different stress responses across individuals or within the same
individual on different occasions. Consideration of stimulus properties therefore
provides an important but nevertheless incomplete understanding of stress effects.
To more fully capture all the dimensions of stress, we have developed a trinity of
stress model which includes (1) environmental stimulation as the input dimension;
(2) the transactional perspective, emphasizing the individual response as the
adaptation facet; and (3) most critically, an output performance level. We return to
this description after a review of some theoretical background.
Arousal Theory
In contrast to the stimulus-driven view of stress, this might be considered a physicsbased approach,
the biologically based approaches define stress in terms of the physiological
response patterns of the organism. According to Cannon, external conditions (e.g.,
temperature, noise, etc.) or internal deficiencies (e.g., low blood sugar, etc.) trigger
deviations from homeostatic equilibrium. Such threats to equilibrium result in
physiological responses aimed at countering that threat. Environmental objects or
events that give rise to such responses were referred to as stressors. Physiological
responses to stressors are general in character, since the set of responses is similar
across different stressors and contexts.
Arousal theory is one of the most widely applied physiological response-based
theories of stress and performance. Within this framework, stress effects are
observed under conditions that either over arouse (e.g., noise) or under arouse the
individual (e.g., sleep deprivation)
Stressors, such as noise or sleep loss, Act by either increasing or decreasing the
arousal level of the individual relative to the optimum level for a given task. The
optimum level is also postulated to be inversely related to the difficulty of the task.
A potential mechanism to account for this relation was first postulated by
Easterbrook (1959), who indicated that emotional arousal restricts the utilization of
the range of peripheral visual cues from the sensory environment, so that, under

conditions of chronic or acute stress, peripheral stimuli are less likely to be

processed than more centrally located cues. As attention narrows (i.e., as the
number of cues attended to is reduced), performance capacity is preserved by the
retention of focus on salient cues. Eventually, performance fails as stress increases
and even salient cues become excluded.
Finally, arousal theory assumes that a stress or(or set of stressors) affects overall
processing efficiency
and that differences in task demands (i.e.,difficulty) are reflected only in the
position of the optimal level of performance.
Appraisal and Regulatory Theories
Most modern theories of stress and performance have two central themes. They
either explicitly include or implicitly assume an appraisal mechanism by which
individuals assess their environments and select coping strategies to deal with
those environments. Psychological stress itself as the result of an individuals
appraisal of his or her environment as being taxing or exceeding his or her
resources or endangering his or her well-being. The negative effects of stress are
most likely to occur when individuals view an event as a threat (primary appraisal)
and when they assess their coping skills as inadequate for handling the stressor.
A second central theme of current stress theories is that individuals regulate their
internal states and adapt to perturbations resulting from external stressors,
including social stressors and task-based stress. Individuals respond to appraised
threats (including task load) by exerting compensatory effort to either regulate their
internal cognitive affective state or to recruit resources necessary to maintain task
performance. Thus, individuals are often able to maintain performance levels,
particularly in real-world settings, but only at a psychological and physiological cost.
Reference: Neuroergonomics-The Brain at Work, edited by Raja Parasuraman &
Matthew Rizzo-PDF