Abstract
Job resources can buffer the deleterious effect of adverse work environments. Extant studies on the interaction pattern between job resources and adverse environments were confined to the diathesis stress model. This traditional perspective has received the challenge from the differential susceptibility model and the vantage sensitivity model. Additionally, stress reactivity may be one of the important job resources at the personal biological level, but its moderating role was short of empirical research. This study aimed to examine how stress reactivity interacts with work environments in predicting job burnouts among 341 Chinese hospital female nurses. This study selected job control and job support representative of supportive environments and psychological demands representative of an adverse environment and the cortisol content in 1-cm hair segment as a biomarker to assess individual’s stress reactivity in 1 month. The nurses self-reported their work environments and job burnouts and provided 1-cm hair segments closest to the scalp. Hair cortisol content was measured with high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The interaction pattern was examined with multiple linear regressions and the analysis of region of significance (RoS). The regression revealed that the interaction of hair cortisol content with job control could positively predict professional efficiency among nurses, with psychological demands could negatively predict emotional exhaustion, and with coworker support could negatively predict professional efficiency. The RoS analysis revealed that nurses with high cortisol levels had not only significantly higher professional efficiency than those with low cortisol levels in high job control but also significantly lower professional efficiency in low job control. Nurses with high cortisol levels had significantly higher emotional exhaustion than those with low cortisol levels in low psychological demands. Nurses with low cortisol levels had not only significantly higher professional efficiency than those with high cortisol levels in high coworker support but also significantly lower professional efficiency in low coworker support. The interaction patterns of stress reactivity with both job control and coworker support were consistent with the differential susceptibility model, but the interaction between stress reactivity and psychological demands supported the vantage sensitivity model.
Highlights
Numerous studies have well documented that adverse work environments can have detrimental effects on the employee’s well-being, health, and work-related outcomes (Salvagioni et al, 2017)
The items on job control and emotional exhaustion did not generate the unique factor with the explained variance more than 40% (30.32% as examined with an exploratory factor analysis through principal components extraction) and did not converge on a single factor [χ2/df = 8.138, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = 0.741, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.755, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = 0.731, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.145 as tested with a confirmatory factor analysis]
This study confirmed that the interaction patterns of stress reactivity with job control and coworker support among Chinese hospital nurses follow the differential susceptibility model and that the interaction between stress reactivity and psychological demands supports the vantage sensitivity model. These results extended the interaction pattern between job resources and work environments from the traditional perspective of the diathesis stress model to the novel perspectives of the differential susceptibility model and the vantage sensitivity model when the focus was expanded from the adverse and pathogenic responses in adverse environments to the adaptive responses in supportive environments
Summary
Numerous studies have well documented that adverse work environments can have detrimental effects on the employee’s well-being, health, and work-related outcomes (Salvagioni et al, 2017). Most extant empirical studies focused on the buffering role of the external organizational resources related to job characteristics in the workplace, such as social support from coworkers and supervisors, work autonomy, quality of the relationship with the supervisor, and performance feedback (Demerouti et al, 2001; Bakker et al, 2003, 2005; Johnson and Spector, 2007). The recent study only investigated the interaction of the HPA activity (or stress reactivity) with emotional labor (a special aspect of job demands) in predicting job burnouts. It needs to extend the moderating role of stress reactivity to more generalized stressful work environments from other aspects of high job demands or low job controllability or less social support
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
