“Out of Sight, Out of Mind?”: The Role of Physical Stressors, Cognitive Appraisal, and Positive Emotions in Employees’ Health

Abstract

This study analyzes the mediating role of the appraisal of environmental stressors in the relationship between physical characteristics in the offices and health symptoms. It also studies the moderating role of positive emotions in the relationship between physical characteristics and the appraisal of environmental stressors using a diary study on 59 office workers (n = 432 time points) and sensor data. The results show that the appraisal of environmental stressors mediates the relationship between physical office characteristics and health symptoms, emphasizing the important link of stress appraisal in the stressors-strain relationship. The results also show that positive emotions moderate the relationship between the sound level and the appraisal of noise, supporting the fact that emotions can have an impact on people's appraisals. The contributions of this study are the objective measurement of physical stressors in offices, along with their appraisals by the office users, using the diary study design.

Parental worry about indoor air quality and student symptom reporting in primary schools with or without indoor air quality problems

“…These results are supported by several previous studies suggesting that environmental hazards and stressors are associated indirectly with increased symptom complaints. 20,21 We cannot, however, eliminate the possibility that symptoms might also act as mediators of the association between IAQ problems and worry because this study is based on cross-sectional data. Even though our results show stronger associations in the pathway from IAQ problems to symptoms through worry, it should be kept in mind that these two pathways are not mutually exclusive but coexist.…”

“…20 Another recent study suggests that appraisal of office environmental stressors, such as dust, noise, and glare, mediates the relationship between these characteristics and health symptoms. 21 Based on the previous literature, it, therefore, seems plausible to assume that worry could partly explain the association between observed IAQ problems and symptom reporting also in the school environment.…”

From Happiness Orientations to Work Performance: The Mediating Role of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Experiences

“…In fact, different aspects of the indoor environment have been studied, showing that about 86% of productivity problems reside in the indoor work environment [18]. However, as Kozusznik and colleagues [50] found, the perception of employees' working environment (i.e., environmental stressors) is the key to work outcomes. Indeed, as another study shows, both task-and context-related performance are affected by employees' level of comfort, which means that environmental comfort can be a very influential aspect in employee performance [18].…”

“…Furthermore, given that perceived comfort in offices has been shown to be affected by actual physical thermal comfort (operationalized as predicted mean vote, PMV) [73], and that objective physical office characteristics are linked to the subjective way people perceive them [50], we considered it necessary to control this "hard" physical variable in the study. We believe both considerations are important contributions of the present study.…”

Bring your understanding of anxiety with you: Employees’ experiences of anxiety in open-plan offices

“…The cognitive perspective suggests individuals vary in their responses to anxiety according to whether they appraise their anxiety as threatening or harmless. Kożusznik et al (2017) reveal an employee's emotions can influence their appraisals of stressors within their open-plan office. Therefore, both the emotion and cognitive perspective recognizes anxiety as a response to external stimulus.…”