Exam 5: Stress

Kwame, Rosalinda, and Sven work at Security First Trust and National Reserve, a medium-sized bank with 240 branches in eight states. Kwame works as a teller. Rosalinda works as one of five regional supervisors, each of whom is expected to supervise a team of tellers. Kwame recently received instructions from his supervisor that all tellers will be evaluated on the number of people they assist at their window per day. Serving more customers means higher performance effectiveness. However, Kwame is also expected to follow the bank's number-one goal of customer satisfaction. Rosalinda is facing her own challenges. Two of the regional supervisors suddenly left the bank for other opportunities, resulting in a significant increase in work responsibility and time pressure for Rosalinda and the remaining two supervisors. Just two days before the two regional supervisors quit, the bank hired Sven as a supervisor trainee. With the bank suddenly short-handed, Sven was asked to take up all the responsibilities of a regional supervisor. He has been given very few instructions or guidelines about how things are supposed to be done. Instead, the bank expects him to learn on the job. Rosalinda's stress is related to a

Veronica is feeling stressed and has asked her manager if there are any supportive practices available to help her. Her manager suggests that since Veronica is interested in environmental issues, she should take advantage of a program that would enable her to take six months away from the company to work on the local "reclaim the bay" initiative. Veronica's manager is offering her

The organization must help its employees cope with stress. List the various resources an organization can provide to help employees cope with stressors.

Depression, anxiety, and anger reflect ________ strain.

Which of the following best exemplifies benign job demands?

Supportive practices are one way of helping employees cope with stressful demands.

A compressed workweek, telecommuting, on-site child care and flextime are all examples of

Alberto works as a receptionist for a graphic design firm. His daily job duties include making copies, replying to e-mails, answering phones, and greeting people who enter the office. This suite of tasks, when they are not overly taxing or exceeding his capacity, are called

Social support refers to the help that people receive when they are confronted with stressful demands.

When people first encounter stressors, the process of primary appraisal is triggered.

Which of the following is defined as a psychological response to demands for which there is something at stake and coping with those demands taxes or exceeds a person's capacity or resources?

Which of the following is an example of behavioral coping?

A supervisor appears understanding and empathizes with his subordinates when they experience work-related stress. In this example, the supervisor is providing ________ support.

Instrumental support refers to the help people receive that can be used to address the stressful demand directly.

________ refer(s) to the lack of information regarding what needs to be done in a role, as well as unpredictability regarding the consequences of performance in that role.

Hindrance stressors have a strong positive relationship with job performance.

Which of the following reflect(s) the relatively minor routine demands that get in the way of accomplishing the things that we really want to accomplish?

Judy has just started a new job as a checker at Farmer's Grocery. It is her first job after graduating from high school, and she hopes to save enough money in the first year to be able to move in with her boyfriend. In her first week, she befriends two other new checkers, Silvio and Natasha, and she finds the majority of customers to be polite and sociable. At the end of her first week on the job, she checks the upcoming week's work schedule only to discover that she is scheduled to have Tuesday and Friday off instead of Wednesday and Thursday as she requested. She is disappointed because her boyfriend has Wednesdays and Thursdays off from his job as a waiter, and their conflicting schedules means she will not be able to see him much. The next week, she finds that she has Tuesday and Saturday off, despite once again requesting Wednesday and Thursday off. The week after that, she finds herself feeling anxious about going into the break room because she is reluctant to find out if her days off are again different from what she requested. According to what you know about the transactional theory of stress, what will be the next step Judy takes?

Activities including participation in formal education programs, music lessons, sports-related training, hobby-related self-education, and volunteer work are examples of

Hindrance stressors often trigger positive emotions such as pride and enthusiasm.