Models of Stress Theory and Their Application to First Responder - Research Paper Example

Stress Models Stress Models Work environments affect the nature of work and its impacts on employee psychological s. There are job characteristics and personal factors that affect an individual’s response to stressful experiences and susceptibility to the development of stress. The economic and health costs of work stress are high and straining to both companies and employees. This justifies the importance of models of stress because they conceptualize all the aforementioned factors and provides suggestions of how to redesign work in order to avoid the undesirable impacts of stress. The present paper discusses the similarities and differences between the demand control support and effort-reward imbalance models of stress together with application of these models to first responders. Key words in this paper will include demand, control, effort, reward, and first responders. Similarities The two models have a correlation so that the direction of change caused by either increase or decrease of demands, control, and support corresponds to the direction of change caused by either the increase or decrease of efforts and rewards. Therefore, whereas high demands, involving situations that allow high control facilitated by high social support leads to diminished stressful experience, high efforts that are compensated by high rewards lead to diminished susceptibility to stressful experience. Demand control support model has control as a measure of countering the demands of a task and effort reward imbalance claims that control is an intrinsic personal motivation. Both models argue that an imbalance in their proposed concepts leads to exhaustion and emotional distress (Veldhoven et. al., 2005). Differences Demand control support model is an interactional model while Effort Reward Imbalance Model is a transactional model. As an interactional model, demand control support model emphasizes the structural traits of an individual’s interactions with his or her environment. On the other hand, transactional models of stress focus on the factors underlying an individual’s response to a stressful situation. These underlying factors include locus of control, personality, appraisal, and coping. The Demand Control Support Model does not factor in the role of individual differences but effort reward imbalance emphasizes the importance of individual differences (Chmiel, 2009). Application of demand control support model to first responders This model emphasizes demands and control as the two psychosocial job characteristics that are important. Borrowing from this model, the job control of first responders has to do with the decision authority that has to do with an individual’s control over a work situation and skill discretion that involves the use of learnt skills and competencies in responding to an emergency. Police officers are an example of first responders that do not have a high level of job control. This is because of the elaborate chain of command observed in the police line of duty. Every police first responder answers to a senior officer and this can be limiting to the potential of these responders. Given the low job control of police as first responders, an emergency that has high levels of demand exposes them to high strain and fatigue, and this increases their susceptibility to stress (Van et. al., 2005). However, emergency medical technicians are an example of first responders who have a high level of job control. This model shows that individuals who have high job control confront emergencies that have high levels of demand with relative ease and have low susceptibility to stress and adverse health. Whereas firefighters are exposed to intensely strenuous situations, they maintain strong social support and this buffer the negative effects of high job demands. This social comes in terms of feedback and socialization. It can also take the form of provision of information and other resources that help first responders to cope with emergencies and their aftermaths. It is particularly rewarding for a first responder to engage in a task in which he or she can apply the skills which they acquired training for both the first responder job and in other trainings (Kalueff & LaPorte, 2008). A downside to the application of this model on first responders is the fact that it does not account for why a given level of demand and control elicits varying health and behavioral outcomes in different individuals. As such, it becomes difficult to explain why an emergency of a fire will traumatize one firefighter and not others. The model is also limited in its application on first responders because of the fact that it restricts its conception of demand to workload only. First responders have more demands than workload such as family responsibilities and other duties for example in the case of first responders who are police officers. Additionally, the modern workplace reflects a dynamic multi-stressor nature that this model is not able to capture. Commentators note that control as not as desirable as demand control support model presents it. To some people, control is a stressor because of low self-efficacy. The implications of this model of stress for first responder job redesign is that responsibilities are supposed to be organized in such a way that they have less demands, allow more control and responders should be encouraged to develop wide social support networks (Bakker et. al., 2005). Application of effort-reward imbalance to first responders According to this model, first responders should be compensated for their efforts with proportional rewards. Emergencies are demanding and can be overwhelming especially when the actors do not feel appreciated or acknowledged. It would be satisfying to first responders if they were paid better salaries, given promotion opportunities and better job security. At the same time, this model charges first responders to improve their efforts. Intrinsic efforts that first responders can improve on include the need for control and over-commitment. The need for control can be improved by seeking extra training and professional development that would impart a first responder with better skills that would translate into improved self-esteem. Over-commitment involves a drive to exceed expectations and stand out in the team. A first respondent can improve their tendency towards over-commitment is to allow other team members to make their contributions during an emergency (Veldhoven et. al., 2005). Extrinsic efforts include workload and first responders can channel their effort towards tackling their workloads without delay and working with deadlines. According to this model, it is the perceived and not the actual mismatch of effort and rewards that leads to high susceptibility to stress. This underscores the role of individual differences in how first responders react to emergencies. This explains why a first responder would have the courage to rescue a person who is burning while the sight of a grossly burned person can traumatize another firefighter. High rewards are associated with better self esteem and low levels of exhaustion. The limitation of this model is the fact that it restricts the role of individual differences to first responders’ intrinsic effort only. As such, the model does not provide suggestions of how to influence stress perception process (Chmiel, 2009). In conclusion, the demand control support model of stress conceptualizes the direction of change of an individual’s psychological states in the same direction as the effort-reward imbalance model based based on the interaction of their proposed concepts. The Demand Control Support Model of stress emphasizes the concept of control as a way of responding to the shortage of demand and effort-reward imbalance model conceptualizes control as an element of first responder’s intrinsic motivation. The Demand Control Support Model of stress differs from effort-reward imbalance model in the sense that it is an interactional while the latter is transactional model. Whereas the Demand Control Support Model underplays the role of individual differences, the effort-reward imbalance model emphasizes this role. Demand control support model can be applied to first responders by defining the requirements of a task and the control needed for responders to handle these requirements. Effort-reward imbalance model is applicable to first responders in determining whether the compensation that these responders get is proportional to the effort that these responders expend to their work. References Bakker, A., Demerouti, E. & Euwema, M. (2005). Job resources buffer the impact of job demands on burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10: 170 – 180. Chmiel, N. (2009). An introduction to work and organizational psychology: A European perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Kalueff, A. V., & LaPorte, J. L. (2008). Behavioral models in stress research. New York: Nova Biomedical Books. Van, V., Jonge, J., Bosma, H. & Schaufeli, W. (2005). Reviewing the effort-reward imbalance model: drawing up the balance of 45 empirical studies. Social Science & Medicine, 60: 1117 – 1131. Veldhoven, M., Taris, T., Jonge, J. & Broersen, S. (2005). The relationship between work characteristics and employee health and well-being: how much complexity do we really need? International Journal of Stress Management, 12: 2 – 28. Read More