Protestant pastors in America are leaders who provide guidance in spiritual matters to millions of people. The demands of their work can be stressful and overwhelming, leading to burnout. Burnout results in some pastors leaving their leadership positions, which has a negative impact on the members of the congregation as well as the pastors themselves. This study's goal was to determine the perceived needs of pastors, in order to prevent burnout, and the kinds of resources they perceive would best meet their needs. This study utilized a qualitative approach in the collection, description, and analysis of data. The results revealed pastors feel over-extended and face unrealistic expectations in their work. Support systems, such as clergy groups may be helpful in combating these. Taking time off, spiritual renewal practices, and exercise are some important practices many of the pastors in this study agreed would be beneficial as well. / Fisher Institute for Wellness and Gerontology

A teacher's ability to foster and sustain high quality learning environments for their students relies largely on their own coping abilities and mental health. However, due to the emotionally taxing nature of their profession, teachers are at increased risk for developing elevated levels of occupational stress and burnout. To help teachers cope with their occupational stress and other negative emotions related to their occupation, mindfulness-based stress reduction programs for teachers have been introduced through schools. Evidence for the effectiveness of such programs is promising, however few studies have considered underlying mechanisms that may be driving these effects. Using data collected as part of a randomized controlled trial, this thesis examines the impact of mindfulness training on three coping resources, namely, somatic body awareness, executive function, and emotion regulation. Additionally, this thesis examines whether development of these resources translate into improvements in teachers' occupational well-being--specifically indicated through reductions in their anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout. Results suggest that the mindfulness training significantly improves teachers' somatic body awareness, with evidence for improvements in teachers' emotion regulation reappraisal as well. Additionally, some mediation results were promising, however, no significant mediations were found for any of the coping resources on any of the well-being outcomes for teachers. By addressing these topics, the results of this thesis contribute to the current field's understanding of how mindfulness training works to improve well-being in teachers.

The main aim of this study was to gain an overall estimate of the incidence of self-reported burnout among Indian secondary school teachers. Other secondary, though closely related aims were: a) to determine whether teachers differ, with respect to selected background variables, in their perceptions of burnout; b) to investigate the differences, if any, in the responses of burnoutees and non-burnoutees to 25 selected role-related variables with a view to examining the relationship between such variables and burnout; and c) to examine the distribution of burnoutees and nonburnoutees on an internal - external locus of control dichotomy with a view to examining the relationship between this personality construct and burnout. The sample of Level One secondary school teachers in this study (N = 690) was randomly selected from a list of all Indian secondary schools in the greater Durban area (N = 59). Teachers responded to a four-part questionnaire designed to gather data relating to demographic characteristics, role-related stressors, locus of control and degree of burnout. The Maslach Burnout Inventory was used to determine whether a respondent was a "burnoutee" or a "non-burnoutee". It included 3 subscales relating to Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalisation and Personal Accomplishment. The major findings of this study were as follows: a) Approximately 1 in 4 teachers in the sample saw himself/herself as a "burnoutee". b) When teachers were grouped according to background variables, the incidence of burnout was found to be greater among female, married, younger, less experienced, graduate and low-salaried teachers. c) The majority of both "burnoutees" and "non-burnoutees" in this study were unhappy with teaching and found it to be only "moderately satisfying". Many also declared that teaching had not lived up to their expectations and that they would readily change to an entirely new kind of occupation if they had to start their careers afresh. The low degree of satisfaction was found to correlate with perceived feelings of burnout. Older teachers, however, enjoyed greater job satisfaction than their younger counterparts. d) No relationship was found between the personality construct of Locus of Control and burnout. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1992.

The purpose of this project was to examine the factors affecting coaches with stress burnout. This project was intended for all coaches from high school to college level.

Recovery during nonwork time is essential for restoring resources that have been lost throughout the working day. Recent research has begun to explore the nature of recovery experiences as boundary conditions between various job stressors and employee well-being. Interpersonal conflict is an important work stressor that has been associated with several negative employee outcomes, such as higher levels of psychosomatic complaints, anxiety, depression, and frustration. This study contributes to recovery research by examining the moderating role of recovery experiences on the relationship between workplace interpersonal conflict and employee well-being. Specifically, it was hypothesized that recovery experiences (e.g., psychological detachment, mastery, control, relaxation, negative work reflection, positive work reflection, and social activities) would moderate the relationship between interpersonal conflict and employee well-being (e.g., job satisfaction, burnout, life satisfaction, and general health complaints). Hierarchical regression was used to examine the hypotheses. Relaxation was found to be a significant moderator of the relationship between self-reported interpersonal conflict and employee exhaustion. Additional analyses found mastery experiences to be a significant moderator of the relationship between coworker reported interpersonal conflict and both dimensions of burnout (exhaustion and disengagement). Several main relationships between recovery experiences and employee well-being were found that support and extend earlier research on recovery from work. Practical implications for future research are discussed.

Teaching is a stressful, uncertain, and emotionally laden profession (Chaplain, 2008; Farber, 1999; Johnson et al., 2005). One approach to reduce psychological distress and improve well-being in teachers is through the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs. While MBSR programs have been shown in several studies to be effective with regard to improving well-being in teachers, little research has been done to date examining the relationship between program dose and outcomes. This study examines the relationship between both generic and program-specific dose and outcomes of stress and burnout. Results showed some evidence that generic yoga frequency is related to outcomes. No significant relationships between program-specific dose and outcomes were found. Directions for future research are discussed.

Increasingly, evidence indicates that workplace interpersonal conflicts (WIC) are the most upsetting/troublesome daily work stressors (Sulsky & Smith, 2007), and within the context of nursing, WIC is a problem of high prevalence and intensity (Baltimore, 2006; Farrell, 1999). In relation to coping with stressors such as WIC, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) established the transactional model of stress and coping, where cognitive appraisals of the stressor (e.g., perceived control) are central to coping and classified all coping behaviors as either problem-focused or emotion-focused. They also proposed the "goodness of fit hypothesis", which predicts that problem-focused coping efforts used to cope with stressors of high appraised control and emotion-focused coping paired with stressors of low appraised control will produce the most effective outcomes. Contrary to these predictions, the general literature has produced inconsistent results, suggesting that context, research method, and individual difference variables (i.e., occupational tenure) should be considered when testing this hypothesis, particularly in novel contexts such as the nursing workplace. This research was part of a larger study to identify key factors in the retention of nurses in the workforce, including a weekly survey spanning 12 weeks. Across the 12 week study period, 148 nurse participants completed an online survey, which included questions regarding the most negative interpersonal conflict at work for that week, the appraised controllability of the event, how the participant coped across 8 coping strategies, and how effective the coping efforts were. I used hierarchical linear modeling to test the goodness of fit hypothesis with these data, where the interaction terms between coping frequency and control represented the key predictions of goodness of fit. Results revealed no support for the goodness of fit hypothesis, as the interactions were not significant. Consistent with goodness of fit, however, perceived control positively predicted problem-focused coping and negatively predicted emotion-focused coping for some nurses. This suggests that despite no improvement in coping outcomes, the underlying mechanisms for goodness of fit (i.e., matching perceived control with coping type) were in operation. Results also demonstrated no support of occupational tenure as a variable influential on the coping process. However, supplemental analyses revealed that as organizational tenure increased, nurses varied their coping strategies more, which then, in turn, produced more effective coping outcomes. As the first effort to examine goodness of fit within the workplace to the best of my knowledge, these results suggest that the goodness of fit hypothesis may only have limited applicability to nursing, but should be examined in other nursing contexts and workplace conditions. Moreover, the length of time a nurse spends with an organization seems to influence one's coping style and the ability to match coping efforts with situational characteristics, producing more effective coping with interpersonal conflicts at work. These findings also imply that providing nurses with training about organization-specifics may improve efforts to cope with interpersonal conflicts that arise in the workplace.

This study aims to explore the extent to which participating in a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme may result in shifts in people’s relationship with time, notably whether they become more present-focussed. The eight week MBSR programme advocates mindfulness, which is defined as paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgement, as a way of reducing stress. The programme has been available in East London since 2009. A case study of eight MBSR programme participants’ experiences using narrative analysis was conducted. Narrative psychology and social constructionism provided the theoretical basis in which our storied lives are located in culturally inscribed narratives, with specific discourses around time and stress. Time discourses tend to pressurise people to believe that it is better to go about daily life at a fast pace, which requires significant hurrying and rushing with pervasive senses of time urgency. Stress discourse locates stress management within individuals. One-on-one semi structured interviews were held so that participants could reflect on their experience of time and the present moment orientation of the programme. Participants’ perceived a shift in how they experienced time with greater awareness of being present-focussed and they identified stress reduction benefits, which included feeling calmer, less panicked and more self-accepting. However, some of the participants maintaining the formal mindfulness practices like the body scan, meditation and mindful movement after the programme often proved difficult, as they were drawn back into their dominant narratives around time which were characterised by busyness, productivity and time scarcity.

Work engagement is an increasingly popular construct in organizational and occupational health psychology. However, despite substantial advances in our understanding of work engagement at the between-person level, scholars have argued for increased investigation into what drives engagement on a daily level for individual employees. In the current study, a within-person, day-level design was employed to examine the relationships between nonwork mastery experiences, job crafting behaviors, and daily work engagement. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (Hobfoll, 1989) theory, nonwork mastery experiences and job crafting were operationalized as employee-driven, resource-building strategies that assist employees in generating important psychological and job resources that can be drawn upon in order to maintain high levels of work engagement during the day. Moreover, a reciprocal relationship between work engagement during the day and nonwork mastery experiences the same evening was tested. Employees from a U.S. technology firm provided responses in the morning, at lunchtime, and after work each day for five working days. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses in the current study. Findings revealed no support for the hypothesized model at the within-person level of analysis; however, ancillary analyses suggested support for an indirect relationship between job crafting and work engagement via increased positive affect. Moreover, nearly all the proposed relationships emerged at the between-person level of analysis providing some insight into the effects of resource building strategies and work engagement across participants. Finally, seeking structural resources was identified as a person-level factor that explained variance in employees' initial levels of work engagement at the start of the week, as well as the trajectory of engagement over the course of the week. The current findings contribute to our understanding of bottom-up, employee-driven behaviors that help to sustain engagement over time. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

The research focused on constructing a psychological wellbeing profile for employee wellness and talent retention practices by investigating employees’ psychological wellbeing-related attributes (constituting self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, work engagement and psychosocial flourishing), and whether these significantly mediate the relation between their experiences of bullying and their intention to leave the organisation when controlling for bullying, age, gender, race, tenure and job level. A quantitative survey was conducted on a convenience sample of employed adults (N = 373) of different age, gender, race, tenure and job level groups from various South African organisations. The canonical statistical procedures indicated work engagement (vigour, dedication and absorption) and hardiness (commitment-alienation) as the strongest psychological wellbeing-related dispositional attributes in the workplace bullying and turnover intention relationship. The mediation modelling results showed that workplace bullying significantly predicted turnover intention, which in turn, significantly predicted either high/low levels of work engagement (vigour and dedication) in one’s work. Self-esteem, emotional intelligence or hardiness did not seem likely to influence the relationship between workplace bullying and turnover intention. The multiple regression analysis indicated that participants’ biographical variables (age, gender, race and job level) significantly predicted workplace bullying, self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, work engagement and psychosocial flourishing, and turnover intention. The tests for significant mean differences indicated that participants from various biographical groups (age, gender, race, tenure and job level) statistically significantly differed regarding workplace bullying (independent variable), the psychological wellbeing-related variables, namely self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, employee engagement, psychosocial flourishing (mediating variables) and turnover intention (dependent variable). On a theoretical level, the study deepened understanding of the cognitive, affective and conative behavioural dimensions of the hypothesised psychological wellbeing profile. On an empirical level, the main findings were reported and interpreted in terms of an empirically derived psychological wellbeing profile based on the work engagement of the participants. On a practical level, the findings provided valuable guidelines for the development of talent retention and wellness interventions, which might add to the body of knowledge relating to psychological wellbeing-related dispositional attributes that influenced workplace bullying and talent retention / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / D. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)