Work stress and the stress‐buffering roles of work and family resources

Abstract

AbstractThis paper describes the development of the Work Environment Scale, which includes measures of perceived stressful and supportive aspects of the job milieu. This scale is used to examine stressful effects of the work environment on personal functioning and the stress‐buffering value of work and family social resources among a representative community group of men and women. Work stressors had a greater impact on men, but supportive social resources provided more attenuation of such effects among men than among women. Although work stressors generally had less effect on men whose wives were employed, high stress in the women's work settings had some indirect negative consequences for their husbands.Reprint requests should be directed to the authors, Social Ecology Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, California 94305, U.S.A.