Social Job Stressors can Foster Employee Well-Being: Introducing the Concept of Social Challenge Stressors
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Social Job Stressors can Foster Employee Well-Being: Introducing the Concept of Social Challenge Stressors Marcel Kern 1
&
Clara Heissler 2 & Dieter Zapf 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Existing social stressor concepts disregard the variety of task-related situations at work that require skillful social behavior to maintain good social relationships while achieving certain task goals. In this article, we challenge the view that social stressors at work are solely dysfunctional aspects evoking employee ill health. Drawing from the challenge-hindrance stressor framework, we introduce the concept of social challenge stressors as a job characteristic and examine their relationships with individual welland ill-being. In study 1, we developed a new scale for the measurement of social challenge stressors and tested the validity of the scale. Results from two independent samples indicated support for a single-factor structure and showed that social challenge stressors are distinct from related stressor concepts. Using two samples, one of which was already used to test the factor structure, we analyzed the unique contribution of social challenge stressors in predicting employee well- and ill-being. As expected, social challenge stressors were simultaneously related to psychological strain and well-being. Using time-lagged data, study 2 investigated mechanisms that may explain how social challenge stressors are linked to well-being and strain. In line with the stress-asoffense-to-self approach, we expected indirect relationships via self-esteem. Additionally, social support was expected to moderate the relationships between social stressors and self-esteem. Whereas the indirect relationships were mostly confirmed, we found no support for the buffering role of social support in the social hindrance stressors-self-esteem link. Although we found a moderation effect for social challenge stressors, results indicated a compensation model that conflicted with expectations. Keywords Challenge and hindrance stressors . Social stressors . Conflicts . Organizational injustice . Employee well-being . Self-esteem . Social support
Negative effects of job stressors have been the focus of organizational stress research for a long time. Recent research, however, has shown detrimental as well as beneficial effects of some stressors on individual well- and ill-being. This has resulted in the introduction of the challenge-hindrance stressor framework (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Boudreau,
* Marcel Kern [email protected] Clara Heissler [email protected] Dieter Zapf [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60629 Frankfurt, Germany
2
Department of Business Psychology, University of Kassel, Pfannkuchstraße 1, 34121 Kassel, Germany
2000; LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005) distinguishing stressors based on their characteristics and impacts. Stressors that are consistently associated with employee strain have been called hindran
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