Thesis

esearchers were still focusing on the stimulus-response area, i.e., that a person’s response to a
stimulus comes from the type of that stimulus. Which means that the person is not only
reacting but it is acting on its own terms. Still at this time, research connected to stress was
not embracing the idea of separating between reaction and action. This situation was
unchanged until research started to look at the many ways a person is confronting stress. A
researcher connected to this kind of research was John Mason, since he was the first to look
into this area (Dantzer, 2001). Mason suggested that the unspecified reaction to stress comes
from the arising of emotions which a person is experiencing when dealing with a problem
(Mason, 1971). This means that it is the novelty of a situation which gives the non-specific
response to stress and not the need to go back to homeostasis. Today we know that emotions
and stress have an effect on our health through different pathways which are either
sociobehavioural, cognitive or biological. Researchers like Selye, Cannon and Mason have
contributed to the early works of this knowledge and they were the ones who started looking
into this important area of psychology and physiology (Dantzer, 2001).
2.2. WORK STRESS AND HEALTH
According to Allen & Mellor (2002) occupational stress or work stress is a prevalent problem
in a variety of workplaces. It contributes to reduced employee health, physically, mentally,
and emotionally and also contributes to a higher level of absenteeism among workers
(Farrington, 1995). Jex & Beehr (1991) defined work stressors as antecedent circumstances at
a person’s workplace or within the organization itself which call for well accustomed
reactions by the worker. Thus, according to these authors both the environment and the
person’s reaction have to be taken into consideration to be able to understand the concept of
work stress. Lazarus & Folkman (1984, in Chang, Daly, Hancock, Bidewell, Johnson et al.,
2006) defined stress as something which is only being experienced in situations which are
evaluated as being greater than a person’s resources to deal with them. Consequently,
someone could understand extra working responsibilities as something threatening and
another person could look upon these additional responsibilities as challenging.
Kompier & Cooper (1999, in Bradley & Cartwright, 2002) stated that work stress is well-
known around the world to be a relevant topic regarding the health and safety of employees.
Geurts & Grundemann (1999, in Bradley & Cartwright, 2002) conducted a research in 15