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Answer:
The various stages of stress are related to the pattern followed in development of responses to stressful events. Hans Style is known for his pioneer work in the area of stress. He discovered that all negative stimuli result in tissue damage. He called this as General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). Later on the term ‘stress’ was coined by him for this phenomenon of GAS. It has the following three stages: alarm, resistance and exhaustion.
1 Alarm
It is the first sign of stress development. Due to an external stress creating factor (stressor) the internal stress system of the body becomes activated. Many physiological and chemical reactions start occurring as a warning and preparation against stress, like increase in muscle tension, increase in blood pressure and increase in hormone flow such as adrenaline from endocrine gland.
2 Resistance
If the stressors continue then the GAS moves into the second stage of Resistance during which the body mechanisms tend to resist the stress. This may lead to two possibilities: (i) either the resistance is successful and the stress will come to an end; or (ii) the body mechanisms are not able to cope against the stressor and the person becomes susceptible to disease.
3 Exhaustion
Finally, if the stressors continue, the adaptive mechanism reserves of stage two get exhausted. In the third stage of Exhaustion, an individual experiences a variety of ailments and diseases. This stage presents the greatest threat to the health and well being of a person.
A. Reasons of Stress
The four basic causes of stress are as follows:
1 Environmental Factors
Environmental uncertainty influences stress levels among employees in an organization. Changes in the business cycle create economic uncertainties which indirectly affect working people. Political uncertainties can also be stress inducing. Technological uncertainty can cause stress because new innovations can make an employee’s skills and experience obsolete in a very short period of time. The physical environment, in which one lives, can also be a source of stress. Pollution, extremes of temperatures, poor living conditions, all contribute to stress. Noise itself is a source of environmental stress. The stress response is triggered by noise over 85 decibels (a loud music, motorcycle, lawn mower, vacuum cleaner sounds). Some other environmental causes of stress include: radiation, lighting – too much or too little, impure air and water supplies, heavy metal toxicities, other toxins – plastic, pesticides, toxic fumes, electromagnetic pollution, severe storms, drought, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, terrorism and war.
2 Organizational Factors
All of us engage with, belong to and are often employed byan organization. This can result in organizational stress. It often involves the demands and pressures placed upon a person by the organization, business or group for which one works. Organizational factors like avoiding of errors, task completion in a limited time period, work overload, a demanding and insensitive boss, and unpleasant coworkers are a few examples which put pressures on an employee. Organizational factors can be of following types:
- Task Demands are factors related to a person’s job. These are intrinsic to the job. They include the design of the individual’s job (autonomy, task variety, degree of automation) working conditions, and the physical work layout. Some jobs lead to more stress related responses than others.
- Role Ambiguity: A role is a set of activities associated with certain position in the organization as defined or determined expectations of the significant members of the system and his/ her own expectations from the position he/ she occupies in the system. If these work activities are ill defined, then the person will not behave as expected by others because his role has poor clarity. Role ambiguity is created when role expectations are not clearly understood. It may be related to activities, responsibilities, norms etc. Generally it is experienced by people occupying roles newly created in the organization.
- Role Conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy. When there are conflicting expectations from the significant members of the system like boss, peer, subordinate or clients, the role occupant may experience stress. Intra – role conflict is another type of role conflict where an individual plays more than one role simultaneously in his life and the demands of these roles conflict with one another.
- Role Overload is experienced when there are too many expectations from the members of the system so that the employee feels that he/ she do not have adequate time or ability to meet such requirements. They feel that more is expected of them than what time permits and this creates stress in them.
- Role Stagnation occurs when a person’s ability is underutilized, or the role performed by him does not provide the opportunity for taking up challenging tasks, or there is no scope for learning new things for preparation for higher responsibilities.
- Resource Deficiency: is experienced when the resource (like money, material, facilities, information etc.) required by the role occupant for performing effectively are found to be insufficient or not available.
- Personal Deficiency: is experienced when the role occupant finds himself/ herself lacking the skills or competencies required for performing effectively. Such stress may happen to people put on new roles without training because they feel that they lack the requisite knowledge and skill to manage the role.
- Organizational Structure and Design defines the level of differentiation in the organization, the degree of rules and regulations, and where decisions are made. Unfair and inadequate pay, rigid rules, ambiguous policies, poorly designed jobs, lengthy procedures, inadequate communication, lack of participation in decision making, poorly designed performance appraisal system, and improper control increase stress.
- Organizational Leadership represents the managerial style of the top management people. The head of various departments and the CEO’s work towards achieving organisational objectives by putting pressure and tight control, which may induce tension, fear and anxiety among employees thus creating stress.
3 Group Factors
A number of people together at a given place and at a given time can be considered a group. People in a group interact with each other and influence each other. This interaction and influence can both create stress and also ease out stress. Some of the group stressors are as follows:
- Lack of group cohesiveness: stress may be induced among people either due to task design, restriction/ prohibition put up by seniors for being together, or by rejection/ boycott by other members of the group. Lack of cohesiveness (feeling of being ‘together’) is more serious an issue at lower levels of organisations.
- Lack of social support: social support is provided to each other by members through sharing of joys and sorrows. In absence of such a support, a person feels lonely and dejected and even small problems seem to be too big to handle. This leads to generation of stress.
- Group conflicts: conflicts are generated due to hostility, negative attitude, aggression, rivalry, and misunderstanding among group members. The disagreement among group members, is the cause of stress.
4 Individual Factors
The following individual factors create stress in different forms:
- Personal Characteristics: personality traits of an individual like rigidity, authoritarianism, extroversion, emotionality, tolerance for ambiguity, locus of control, need for achievement, are found to be associated with stress felt by him/ her. The personality ‘Type A’ persons have a tendency to control all aspects of a situation and if they are unable to control, they react with frustration. Because of their nature of perfection and fear of failure they experience more stress. Whereas, the personality ‘Type B’ persons are easy going, relaxed, less competitive and more philosophical in nature and hence are less prone to stress. People with internal locus of control believe that they control events concerning their lives. They believe in hard work. They are more prone to stress in comparison to people with external locus of control. People with external locus of control believe that their lives are beyond their control and that God or fate decides their destiny.
- Changes in Life: any sudden change in a life of a person, which may be either pleasant (marriage, birth of a child, promotion, etc.) or unpleasant (like divorce, death of a family member, change of place of work/ stay), affect the routine we are used to. This change in routine can lead to stress. Faster the change more will be the stress level. More the stress level, greater will be the vulnerability towards illness. The degree of stress created by certain events in life can be assessed by ‘The Social Readjustment Rating Scale, given by T.H. Holmes and T.H. Rahe (refer annexure 1 at the end of the chapter).
- Personal Life: factors related to personal life that can cause stress are family issues, broken families, troubled marriage, and personal economic problems. Economic problems created by individuals overextending their financial resources, spending more than earnings, and getting under debt, lead to stress among individuals. Another significant individual factor influencing stress is a person’s basic dispositional nature. Over-suspicious anger and hostility increases a person’s stress and risk for heart disease. The individuals with high level of mistrust for others also cause stress for themselves.
