The Source of Stress

A recent Whitehall report on stress claimed that high-pressure jobs which cause chronic stress can dramatically increase the risk of a heart attack (Independent, 23 January). Unfortunately, the report would appear to have the causation hopelessly muddled. The possibility that its findings could lead to tougher guidelines for employers on reducing stress just perpetuates the confused thinking.

The inference is that the jobs in question are inherently stressful. Thus, only by changing either the job, or the way that it’s managed, can the level of associated stress be reduced. A little reflection shows that this is not the case. Stress is an emotional state experienced by a particular individual.

Imagine there’s a woman called Mary who has just taken on a task that’s entirely new to her. She is keen to perform the task well not only for her own satisfaction, but also to impress her boss, to obtain a much needed increase in pay that will help her stave off mounting debt and, finally, to get noticed by that dishy man in the Purchasing Dept. Her first few tries are a disaster. Her workmates laugh at her. She believes she will never perform the task well. Her stress level is rising.

At a different time and place a man called Philip also takes on an entirely new task. Philip considers the task trivial and it is really of no interest to him. He attaches no importance to anyone else’s opinion, he is already wealthy and there is no significant other on whom he wishes to make an impact. His first few tries are also a disaster; he fares no better than Mary. His workmates also laugh at him and, although he believes he will never perform the task well, he is totally unconcerned. Philip is not stressed.

In each case the task in question was identical. The reaction to it and its associated outcomes were entirely different. The task is neutral. The stress experienced only rises when the person concerned attaches particular significance to what they are doing. Someone who is largely indifferent to what happens in any particular set of circumstances is not going to get stressed.

The association between the stress people report and their biological responses found by the Department of Epidemiology at University College London is to be entirely expected. A person’s emotional state feeds through to their physiology and their behaviour. They are inextricably linked. Such a finding merely confirms an interaction that is already recognised and well known.

Earlier results from the studies, led by Professor Sir Michael Marmot and published in the European Heart Journal, showed that those in low-status jobs who were required to follow the orders of their bosses were more stressed, and died sooner, than the hot-shot executives handing out the orders. Again, this is to be expected. Those hot-shot executives are a self-selecting sample.

If you have the ability to become a hot-shot executive, but do not relish the stress you associate with that position, then you unlikely to either put yourself forward for promotion, or accept it should it be offered. Those lower down the hierarchy will include a higher proportion of those already approaching the limits of their abilities, those less mobile in the job market for want of talent and those essaying new tasks and fresh assignments with which they have yet to become comfortable. Professor Marmot’s findings are a glimpse of the blindingly obvious.

Given this set of facts it would be perverse to place the onus on employers to mitigate the stress experienced by each individual in their workforce. Even among those engaged on exactly the same work, in the same location for the same boss stress will vary from individual to individual. Those that care most will be stressed most, other things being equal.

But other things rarely are equal, so is the employer entirely culpable in respect of Mary where the money element of her emotive reaction is self-imposed and outside the employer’s control? Or is the expectation now that employers should hire only those that couldn’t-care-less on the grounds that people with that attitude are less likely to experience stress?

Full and appropriate consideration and nurture of the workforce is in the interest of every employer. Some legislation in some areas is necessary to direct the unenlightened, but the nanny tendency of the British state can go too far, especially when it is guided by questionable science.