The overarching aim of the proposed study is to examine the effects of interpersonal relationships in the workplace on anger and physical health. It calls for two interviews, 20 months apart, with a national sample of 2,000 currently employed adults. The stress process framework, which posits that exposure to stressful role conditions can harm emotional and physical functioning, guides the proposed aims to 1) identify the structural sources and extent of interpersonal conflict in the workplace, 2) specify the origins of conflict in relation to social statuses, occupational status, and job conditions, 3) document the consequences of conflict for emotions and health, and 4) determine the mediating and moderating functions of the sense of mastery and supportive bonds in the workplace. Although interpersonal relationships in general can be a source of positive and negative emotions, the proposed inquiry focuses on those in the workplace because of the salience of work and its instrumental importance to other roles and well-being. The proposed study centers on the types of conflict involving actions that are particularly evocative of anger such as violations of self, perceived injustice or inequity, goal impediments, and experienced aggression. Potential sources of conflict are proposed to emerge at three levels: social statuses, occupational status and conditions, and the structure of relations in different role-set domains. We focus on the worker's relationships with superordinates (managers or supervisors), subordinates (people managed or supervised), customers or clients (the recipients of service), and other peers (coworkers). By employing a wide lens to assess the entire role-set, we can investigate the potentially different sources and effects of conflict while accounting for the complexity of organizational and authority structures.
| Young, Marisa; Schieman, Scott (2012) When hard times take a toll: the distressing consequences of economic hardship and life events within the family-work interface. J Health Soc Behav 53:84-98 |
| Glavin, Paul; Schieman, Scott; Reid, Sarah (2011) Boundary-spanning work demands and their consequences for guilt and psychological distress. J Health Soc Behav 52:43-57 |
| Schieman, Scott; McMullen, Taralyn (2008) Relational demography in the workplace and health: an analysis of gender and the subordinate-superordinate role-set. J Health Soc Behav 49:286-300 |
