Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

Role Conditi0ns and the Worker Casualty Process 163
conditions in the work environment that create role conflict. We may
work for a company that places excessive demands on our time and
availability. Some of us may work on an “on-call” status that renders
every planned family activity tentative and contingent on the silence of
the beeper or telephone. We may be involved in a pattern of shift work
that means we see very little of our families, or that significantly interferes
with our ability to attend social events, school activities, or athletic
events in our roles as mothers or fathers. Our jobs may require excessive
travel that makes it difficult to sustain strong family and outside-ofwork
social relationships.
There are also conditions in the family system that can exacerbate
role conflict. These include any conditions or events that strain a
worker’s personal adaptational energy, such as the (high distress) career
of a spouse or intimate partner, disabling illness or injury, marital or
family problems, excessive needs of a child, aging parent, or other dependent,
or single parenthood.
Many of the distress-related marriage casualties I’ve studied occurred
when role conflict grew to the point that either the job or the family had
to be sacrificed.
10.5 Role-Integrity Conflict
Role integrity conflict is the incongruence between one’s
personal values and beliefs and the values and beliefs inherent
in the work environment.
Workers bring values and beliefs with them when they enter the life of
an organization, and these values and beliefs may evolve over time
through experiences in the organization. The organization also has explicit
and implicit values and beliefs that evolve over time through the
influence of its members and through interactions with the outside
world. When the values of the worker and the organization are divergent,
stress results from the worker’s need to bring the organization’s
values into conformity with his or her own values. At the same time,
forces of homogenization in the work milieu seek to bring each worker’s
values and behavior into congruence with organizational norms. This
battle of adaptation, and how it is resolved, may have a significant impact
on the health and self-esteem of the worker.
The list of such value conflicts is almost unending: the nurse and
physician confronted with hospital administrators more concerned with
profits than patient care, the civil service worker fighting cynicism about