The Relationship Between Dispositional Affectivity, Perceived Income Adequacy, and Financial Strain: An Analysis of Financial Stress Perceptions.

Despite financial concerns representing of the most substantial sources of stress, the intersection between individual differences and financial stress has received sparce attention. Emphasizing the cognitive-appraisal process, our study reveals financial stress perceptions partly reflect a dispositional tendency to interpret financial information either more positively or negatively. Across two studies (N = 441; N = 348), we found that positive and negative affect predict subjective financial perceptions of income adequacy. Further, using Relative Weights Analysis, we demonstrate that in predicting financial stress perceptions, dispositional affect is as important as, or more important than, objective measures of financial stress (i.e., household income and debt). Lastly, using moderated mediation, we found that both current and future perceived income adequacy mediate the relationship between one's income and their experience of affective financial strain, and dispositional affect moderates this relationship. Our work informs current research and interventions seeking to understand individual differences in financial stress perceptions.

Psychosocial safety climate and stigma: Reporting stress-related concerns at work.

While researchers have begun to investigate theory and methods related to attenuating stress-related issues at work, one underexplored area is a barrier to reporting stress-related concerns in the workplace. Research on organizational climate broadly covers psychosocial safety at work. However, the literature has not examined other, more specific factors such as stigma towards reporting stress-related concerns in the workplace. Using a prospective design, the current study examined the distinction between psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and stigmas surrounding reporting stress that may exist in organizations. Furthermore, we investigated whether PSC would buffer against the effects of such stigmas. The findings of this study indicate that stigma and PSC are distinct and can independently predict psychosocial outcomes. The results also indicate that PSC may play a role in attenuating the effects of these stigmas on some psychosocial outcomes. Implications and potential avenues for future research in this area are discussed.

Stigma at work: The psychological costs and benefits of the pressure to work safely.

INTRODUCTION: Workplace accidents and injuries can be quite costly to both individual employees and their organizations. While safety climate (i.e., perceptions of policies and procedures related to safety that should reflect an organization's value of safety) has been established as a predictor of safety behaviors, less research has considered the possible negative pressures that could result from an environment that emphasizes safety. Though organizations may intend to create a positive safety climate, concerns about being treated differently if an employee were to be involved in a safety incident may result in unintended, but detrimental safety and health outcomes. METHOD: This study investigated the stigma associated with being involved in a safety-related incident in relation to self-reported safety behaviors and psychological health outcomes. The data were acquired through a two-wave prospective design, surveying workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk; N = 528) who indicated they were exposed to at least one physical work stressor (e.g., heavy lifting; air quality; standing for extended periods) a few times each month or more. RESULTS: When controlling for safety climate, safety stigma was related to decreased safety compliance and poorer psychological health. There was a marginally significant interaction between safety stigma and safety motivation in relation to safety compliance. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that experiencing pressure to work safely, for fear of being evaluated negatively, may actually come at the cost of employees' safety compliance and psychological health. Practical applications: These results may be useful in assessing and intervening to improve an organization's safety climate. Organizations should closely examine the climate for safety to ensure that positive aspects of safety are not undermined by a stigmatizing pressure associated with safety in the work environment.

One Climate or Many: Examining the Structural Distinctiveness of Safety, Health, and Stress Prevention Climate Measures.

OBJECTIVE: This study explores the structural distinctiveness of safety, health, and stress prevention climate scales and examines whether these measures predict safety, physical health, and mental health outcomes over time. METHODS: We obtained samples of university students, Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, and firefighters to assess the dimensionality of the three climate foci, and provide content, construct, and criterion validity of the three measures. RESULTS: Findings from our study suggest that the constructs of safety, health, and stress prevention climate are psychometrically distinct, as well as demonstrate content, construct, and criterion validity evidence. CONCLUSION: This study provides preliminary evidence for integrating the constructs of safety, health, and stress prevention climate in the Total Worker Health™ framework for predicting safety-, health-, and stress-related outcomes.

Psychometric properties of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale: A factor analysis and item-response theory approach.

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) in two languages, German and English. Students from a university in Austria (N = 292; 55 males; mean age = 18.71 ± 1.71 years; 237 females; mean age = 18.24 ± 0.88 years) and a university in the US (N = 329; 128 males; mean age = 18.71 ± 0.88 years; 201 females; mean age = 21.59 ± 2.27 years) completed the ESS. An exploratory-factor analysis was completed to examine dimensionality of the ESS. Item response theory (IRT) analyses were used to provide information about the response rates on the items on the ESS and provide differential item functioning (DIF) analyses to examine whether the items were interpreted differently between the two languages. The factor analyses suggest that the ESS measures two distinct sleepiness constructs. These constructs indicate that the ESS is probing sleepiness in settings requiring active versus passive responding. The IRT analyses found that overall, the items on the ESS perform well as a measure of sleepiness. However, Item 8 and to a lesser extent Item 6 were being interpreted differently by respondents in comparison to the other items. In addition, the DIF analyses showed that the responses between German and English were very similar indicating that there are only minor measurement differences between the two language versions of the ESS. These findings suggest that the ESS provides a reliable measure of propensity to sleepiness; however, it does convey a two-factor approach to sleepiness. Researchers and clinicians can use the German and English versions of the ESS but may wish to exclude Item 8 when calculating a total sleepiness score.

The importance of provision and utilization of supervisor support.

Three cross-sectional studies examined the benefits of provision of supervisor support while controlling for subordinate utilization of supervisor support. Data were collected from workers in a subordinate role (Study 1 N = 355; Study 2 N = 229; Study 3 N = 109). Consistent with expectations, provision of supervisor support consistently explained unique variance in affective job criteria while controlling for utilization of supervisor support. The results indicate that supervisors should acknowledge that their workers experience the affective benefits of supervisor support even if the workers do not consistently use the support provided. Contrary to expectations, provision of supervisor support did not consistently explain unique variance in perceived job stressors while controlling for utilization of supervisor support. However, workers must utilize the supervisor support provided in order to perceive fewer job stressors. We recommend supervisors to take caution when relocating their support to different subordinates based solely on a lack of utilization of support, as this may cause higher perceived job stressors for their subordinates based on the lack of provision of that support.