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Life Satisfaction with Reference to Occupational Stress

ABSTRACT

The study was designed to investigate the impact of occupational stress on life satisfaction among employee. The sample consisted of 160 participants selected randomly from various Morbi clock industry. Srivastava and Singh's Occupational stress scale, Dhillon's Life Satisfaction scale and Personal Data Sheet were administrated to selected respondents. The were analyzed by using t-test. Result revealed that there is significant difference between low occupational stress group with medium and high occupational stress groups. The study also revealed that there is not any significant difference between medium and high occupational stress group.

INTRODUCTION:

Stress is perhaps the most common problem of every day life. Stress refers to an individual's reaction to a disturbing factor in the environment. It is an adaptive response to an external situation that results in physical, psychological and behavioral deviations for organisational participants. Stress is the result of a mismatch between the challenges experienced and belief in the ability to cope. The challenges may come from external source and may be the result of too much or too little pressure. They may also come from within the individuals and be the product of their own value systems, need and expectations.

Stress implies some from of demand on the individual, it can be perceived as a threat that it may create a psychological imbalance and can certainly affect individual performance. It is particularly concerned with how people cope with changes in their lives at work, at home and in other circumstances. Randall (1998) occupational stress is the interaction of the work conditions with the characteristics of the worker such that the demands of work exceed the ability of the worker to cope with them.

There are two types of stress, namely positive and negative. Positive stress offers potential gain leading to better performance as in the case of an athlete who often uses stress positively and performs better. Negative stress is associated with constraints, when an event or situation is very serious or dangerous , the emotions become negative and create deep dejection, despondency and depression. These negative emotions have a crippling effect on work life styles and quality of life.

It is common belief that workers should leave their emotions at the door when they walk into work. In the last two decades, however , research has revealed that this practice may not be possible or desirable. Depending on the level of stress it can badly affect one's life especially at the work place where they begins to spend several long hours and thus have less time for other things. stressed employees may be unhappy and thus produce nominally. Stress can deteriorate social and family relationship. On the other word we can say stress affect life satisfaction also. Diener et al. (1985) defined Life Satisfaction as "a cognitive, judgmental process. It dependent upon a comparison of one's circumstances with what is thought to be an appropriate standard."

U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (1999) reported that about one – third of worker's felt high level of stress on their work place and it's adversely affect seen physical health and psychological well – being . This evidence and examining impact of occupational stress on life satisfaction among employees.

METHOD

Sample : The sample of present study consisted of randomly selected 160 subjects from clock industries Morbi.
Tools : The following tools were used in the present study:

    1. Personal Data Sheet :
      Personal data sheet was prepared to collect some personal information about employees such as name, age, income, cadre, etc.
    2. Occupational Stress :
      A well developed and widely used Occupational Stress Index in the Indian context (Srivatva and Singh, 1981) was chosen to assess the occupational stress of the sample. The scale consists of 46 items with 5 alternative responses varying from ' strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree' each to be rated on the five point scale. The maximum and minimum score obtained in the scale are 230 and 46 respectively. The reliability index ascertained by Spilt half ( odd – even ) method and Cronbach's alpha – coefficient for the scale as a whole were found to be .94 and .90 respectively.
    3. Life Satisfaction Scale :
      The Life Satisfaction Scale developed by Dhilon (1986) was used, which includes 13 items. It was Likert type scale with 5 alternative responses varying from ' strongly agree' to ' strongly disagree' each to be rated on the five point scale. The maximum and minimum score obtained in the scale are 65 and 13 respectively. The reliability measured by spilt half and test – retest for the scale as a whole were found to be .90 and .94 respectively.

Procedure :
Above mentioned devices were administered to all the selected subjects. Scoring was carried out as per the manuals. To test the framed hypotheses related to life satisfaction with reference to occupational stress t-test was used.

RESULTS
The purpose of present study was to investigate the impact of occupational stress on the life satisfaction among employees. Low, medium and high occupational stress groups were framed on the basis of first and third quartile deviation score on occupational stress scale. Then t – test was applied to find out the significance of mean differences. Obtained results are present in table – 1.

Table – 1 : Mean, SDs and t- values of Life Satisfaction with reference to Occupational Stress ( N = 160).

Sr.
No.

Occupational Stress Groups

N

Mean

SD

t-values

1

Low

41

50.44

6.29

L/M=1.64*

2

Medium

77

48.53

7.21

M/H=0.36ns

3

High

42

48.45

6.55

L/H=2.61**

*P<0.05 , **P<0.01, NS = Not Significant

Table – 1 displays the means and standard deviations of Life satisfaction scores of subjects belonging to different occupational stress groups and also displays t- values for mean difference on Life satisfaction among employee.

The results clearly revealed that employee with high occupational stress experienced less life satisfaction as compared to low and medium occupational stress employees. High occupational stress group significantly differed with low and medium occupational stress group on life satisfaction ( t = 1.64 and 2.61 ). Results presented in table -1 give an indication that as the amount of occupational stress increases , the level of satisfaction about life decreases in employees.

DISCUSSION

The results of the present study clearly show that employees with high occupational stress experienced lowest level of life satisfaction. Various earlier studies have also reported occupational stress has negative effects on life satisfaction of employees ( Jiunn – Woei Lian , 2006 ). Previous studies have concluded that stress is the source of burnout in the industry, it's affects business productivity, social life and satisfaction also (Sethi , King and Quick , 2006 ). Sahni (1998 ) revealed that low stressed group compared with the high stressed group tends to be significantly higher in respect of their job commitment, self – esteem , life satisfaction and good human relations. They would to improve organisational effectiveness and quality of work life also. It may also be argued that occupational stress is not always negative. Low levels of stress can enhance employee's motivation and job performance (Cherniss , 1990).

REFERENCES

1. Ahmed, S., and Ahmed, H., (1992). Role stress and work satisfaction : A study on middle managers. Indian Psychiatry Journal , 20.
2. Cherniss , (1990)."Staff Burnout : Job Stress in the Human Services ". Journal of Organizational Behavior. 20 – 22.
3. Cooper , C., Dewe, P. and Michael, P. (2001). Organizational Communication: A review and critique. Sage publication . 14 – 15.
4. Diener et al. ( 1985). "The Satisfaction with Life Scale " Journal of Personality Assessment, 49 (1) , 71 – 75.
5. Jiunn – Woei Lian (2006). Job Stress, Job Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction between managerial and technical IS Personnel, Department of information Management , National Central University, Taiwan.
6. Randall , R., Ross, and Elizabeth M., (1998). Intervention in Occupational Stress. 12 – 14.
7. Sahni, A. K., (1998). Stress in Managers and Professionals in Indian Organizations, Academy of Management review, 10, 76-88.
8. Sethi , King and Quick (2006). Occupational Stress and Coping Strategies. Discovery Publishing house pvt. Ltd. New Delhi 12 – 13.
9. NIOSH (1999). Stress at work. US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS Publication, 99-101.

*************************************************** 

Dr.Pallavi R.Chauhan
Asst. Professor (Psychology),
Idar Anjana Patidar Atrs & P.N.Patel Commerce College,
Idar-383430 (Sabarkantha)
and
Miss. Megha K. Thakar
Researcher,
Department of Psychology,
Saurashtra University,
Rajkot - 360005

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