Stress: Role related issues

In the last byte, we looked at how task related issues act as a source of stress. In today's byte, we look at how role related create a social-psychological demand in a work environment and act as source of stress.

We can classify role related stress into 2 categories:

1. Role Conflicts
2. Role Ambiguity

Role Conflicts result from result from inconsistent or incompatible expectations communicated to a person. Role Ambiguity is the confusion of a person experience related to the expectations of others. Role ambiguity may be caused by not understanding what is expected, not knowing how to do it, or not knowing the result of failure to do it.

We can understand Role Conflicts better if we can categorize the same. We can classify these into:

1. Interrole conflict: is caused by conflicting expectations related to two separate roles. Example: an individual could be as an employee and be a parent. In such cases work-family demands could lead to stress.
2. Intrarole conflict: is caused by conflicting expectation related to a single role. Example: A manager would press an employee to work fast and also deliver a high-quality work - this in some cases could cause conflict for the employee!
3. Person-role conflict: is caused when an employee is expected to behave in a way that violates personal values, beliefs or principles. Ethics violations are one source of such person-role conflicts.