The role of early family experiences in the perception of organizational stress: Fusing clinical and organizational perspectives

Abstract

This study of a longitudinal investigation of 170 junior doctors, followed from when they were students, was designed to contribute to the organizational–individual debate over the causes of job stress and especially to address some of the criticisms of those studies which see stress as largely dispositional. It considers individual and organizational predictors of job attitudes and stress, in particular the roles played by personality variables relevant to their job (self‐criticism, empathy and dependency), family variables of perceived early relationships, early loss or separation, and parents' ages, as well as more traditional factors of initial stress levels and role satisfaction (all measured as students) together with present objective measures of hours worked, responsibility levels and type of hospital. It was found that the main predictors of job stress were self‐criticism and father's age, while job attitudes were predicted by relationship to mother and student role satisfaction. The non‐family predictors were in turn predicted by family variables. In addition, those who had suffered parental loss or separation when young were more likely to reach a clinical level of symptoms. Finally, the importance of both organizational and individual factors was indicated by the finding that the level of perceived stress caused by senior doctors was predicted first by the type of hospital and almost as strongly by relationships with fathers. This is seen as an empirical indication of psychoanalytical transference in job stress. The results suggest underlying mechanisms for the dispositional approach to job perceptions and stress, though the organization remains important and requires more detailed assessment.