Job-Stress Worker-Strain Relationship Moderated by Off-the-Job Experience

Abstract

The present study examined the role that off-the-job stressors play in the job-stress worker-strain relationship. A sample of 72 managers was administered a social readjustment scale for life-stress off the job, a job-stress rating scale, and measures of job satisfaction, depressed mood, psychosomatic complaints, and severity of physical illness. Analysis indicated that stressors combine in a multiplicative fashion to produce strain for workers; only the combined and interacting pressures of nonwork stress and work stress created strain in the worker. The application of these findings in the industrial setting is discussed; suggestions are made concerning the possibility that some factors in off-the-job experience buffer the individual from stress at work.