In the literature on stress research and work load there can be found different conceptions regarding the role of personality characteristics: In the transactional stress model personality characteristics have an important impact on appraisal and coping processes. In the model of salutogenesis the personality characteristic "sense of coherence" (SOC) represents the core of stress theory. In contrast action regulation theory (Handlungsregulationstheorie, HRT) offers a strictly condition-related understanding of work load with the concept of regulation problems, respectively the model of contradictory demands. Against this theoretical background different possibilities of the influence of personality characteristics on the stress process were examined. In a sample of 205 employees from two hospitals condition-related variables of work load, different personality variables, and variables of psycho-physical strain were measured and analyzed in structural equation models. The results show that sense of coherence and negative affectivity play a superordinate role within the stress process. Beside direct effects on psycho-physical strain, also perception-effects, selection-effects, and stressor-creation-effects could be observed. Nevertheless also after statistical control of the personality variables condition-related work load remains a significant predictor for psycho-physical strain. On the one hand the results show the importance of personality variables - in particular of sense of coherence - for the stress process. On the other hand it becomes evident that work stress cannot be reduced to a problem of the individual employee.
«
In the literature on stress research and work load there can be found different conceptions regarding the role of personality characteristics: In the transactional stress model personality characteristics have an important impact on appraisal and coping processes. In the model of salutogenesis the personality characteristic "sense of coherence" (SOC) represents the core of stress theory. In contrast action regulation theory (Handlungsregulationstheorie, HRT) offers a strictly condition-related u...
»