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The Role of Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy in Moderating the Effect of Workplace Stress on Depression, Anxiety and Stress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2014

Jason Thompson  and
Rapson Gomez
Jason Thompson*
Affiliation:
IMPACT Strategic Research Centre, Deakin University, School of Medicine, Geelong, Victoria, Australia Monash University Accident Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Rapson Gomez
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Jason Thompson, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia. Email: jason.thompson@monash.edu
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Abstract

Seventy-eight employees (32 males, 46 females) took part in a study to test the hypothesis that the core self-evaluation components of self-esteem and self-efficacy moderate the relationship between workplace stressors (role conflict and role-ambiguity) and strain (depression, anxiety, and tension-stress). Results supported our hypotheses in that self-efficacy moderated the relationship between role ambiguity and depression and between performance role ambiguity and stress, while self-esteem moderated the relationship between role ambiguity and anxiety, between performance role ambiguity and anxiety, and between performance role ambiguity and stress. These findings reinforce the importance of considering role stress variables in relation to the context of an interactive person/environment fit model and provide further insight into the nature of the stress process itself. Furthermore, these results indicate that the function of self-esteem and self-efficacy in the stress process is not identical. Implications for the conceptualisation of the transactional model of stress are discussed.

Keywords

self-esteemself-efficacystressdepressionanxietywork-stress
Type
Articles
Information
The Australasian Journal of Organisational Psychology , Volume 7 , 2014 , e2
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014 

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