Work-Role Stress and Attitudes Toward Co-Workers

Role theory has been used to conceptualize the findings regarding job stress, suggesting that the source of job stress is one's co-workers. If this is so, individuals in stressful jobs are likely to be especially dissatisfied with their co-workers. In interviews with 651 employees of five Midwestern work organizations, it was shown that three role stresses (role ambiguity, role overload, and underutilization of skills) were related to five employee outcomes: overall job dissatisfaction, life dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, depressed mood, and fatigue. As hypothesized, each stress was most strongly correlated with dissatisfaction with the stress itself, second most strongly correlated with dissatisfaction with co-workers, and least strongly correlated with dissatisfaction with the nonsocial aspects of the work role. It was concluded that people who experience job stress blame the social system in the organization, resulting in their dissatisfaction with co-workers, who are the elements of that system.