The Causes of Work Stress

There are a number of reasons that may cause work stress. For instance, boring repetitive jobs can lead to mental strain, which is disclosed in Kornhauser’s research that in car industry, higher job occupation level results in better mental health, vice versa.

Besides, both low job control and high requirements lead to stress. In this case, imbalanced work effort and rewards can cause heart disease. It is stated by Fletcher (1900) that the workers of higher status are more likely to have stress problems. An example for this is that white-collar workers have experienced deterioration in their working condition more seriously. Therefore, it can be concluded that stress management targets at professional employees.

Additionally, technology may cause stress. Some training company found one third of their employees believing that they are suffering from stress and ‘digital depression’ caused by technology products like emails. It should be admitted that advanced technology boosts the increase of productivity, however, the rising expectations and competition put more stress on the employees (Primm, 2005). Furthermore, the stress also will come from the misfit between individuals and their environment when stable feeling of comfortable is broken.

To conclude the causes of work stress systematically, it can be divided into two basic aspects, the environment factors and economic factors.

Primarily, working condition has a significant effect on work stress. The first factor that may cause the stress is the physical environment. If the working condition is exposed to hazardous and noxious, or crowded and lack of privacy, work stress may arise in this case.

The second one is role conflict, which may induce stress when the individual is torn by conflict in job demands or they do not want to do the job. Once the demand of job exceeds the individuals coping ability, it will disrupt their psychological equilibrium. Besides, role ambiguity is also one of the...