Effects of initial resources on the development of strains during a stressful training situation: Some counterintuitive results

Abstract

SummaryResource theories of occupational stress argue that employees' personal and environmental resources protect them from too much distress or strain during stressful work experiences. We examined four resources (emotional stability, previous experience, low drain on pre-existing resources, and workgroup quality) available to soldiers at the beginning of a stressful 3-month training experience as predictors of the trajectories of their strains over that period of time. Based on conservation of resources theory and the job demands-resources model, we predicted that the trends of strains would be more favorable (would increase more slowly or decline more quickly) if participants started the training with greater resources. The resources, primarily emotional stability and lack of pre-existing resource drain, tended to be negatively related to strains, consistent with the idea that they can reduce strains. Significant interactions predicting trends were found predicting two of the three strains (post-traumatic stress symptoms and depression, but not reports of physical health). Contrary to expectations, however, the three resources that significantly predicted trends over time (emotional stability, previous experience, and low pre-existing resource drain) were associated with worsening rather than improving strains.

The Importance of Definitional and Temporal Issues in the Study of Resilience

“…Previous research has focused on outcome trajectories—or the particular manner in which outcomes change over time—in relation to occupational health and resilience (e.g., Beehr, Ragsdale, & Kochert, ; Bonanno, Mancini, Horton, Powell, LeardMann, Boyko et al, ; Solinger et al, ). Because there are various ways that important outcomes might change following adversity, the nature of this change needs to be characterised so as to differentiate those who have and have not exhibited successful adaptation.…”

Explaining the entrepreneurial intentions of employees: The roles of societal norms, work-related creativity and personal resources

“…Third, we predicted that risk tolerance and passion for work, as personal resources, buffer the escalation of normative adversity into reduced work-related creativity and then diminished entrepreneurial intentions. Future studies could examine other contingent personal resources such as employee resilience (Pérez-López et al, 2016), creative self-efficacy (Tierney and Farmer, 2011) or emotional stability (Beehr et al, 2015). Such studies might also consider previous work experience in entrepreneurship or business in general; these were not included in our data collection.…”

The Relationship between Workplace Incivility and Helping Behavior: Roles of Job Dissatisfaction and Political Skill

“…Fourth, our focus on political skill as a single contingency factor that mitigates the indirect relationship between workplace incivility and helping behavior might be complemented by considerations of other personal factors. For example, employees' tenacity (Baum & Locke, 2004), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), emotional stability (Beehr, Ragsdale, & Kochert, 2015), and innovation propensity (De Clercq & Belausteguigoitia, 2017) may serve as buffers of the negative relationship between workplace incivility and helping behavior through job dissatisfaction. Moreover, studies could compare the relative strength of the buffering effect of political skill on the indirect relationship between workplace incivility and helping behavior with that of other social effectiveness variables, such as emotional intelligence, self-monitoring, or leadership efficacy (Semadar et al, 2006).…”