Occupational Safety and Health Series No. 50

Human stress, work and job satisfaction: A critical approach

This interdisciplinary research study of the relationship between working conditions, mental stress and job satisfaction applies social psychology and ergonomics to occupational health and occupational safety in the interest of quality of working life.

This study is concerned with man in his working environment, and as such involves the disciplines of physiology, psychology, sociology, ergonomics, clinical medicine and systems engineering. No one person can be a specialist in all these fields. In consequence, this paper is not written for the specialist; it is written by and for the generalist, who has a little knowledge in all these areas, and perhaps specialist knowledge in some, but wishes to see as best he can the totality of the inter-relationships occurring amongst the tangibles and intangibles of work, job satisfaction and stress. The specialist can seek more refined data in his specialist literature.

The publication has eight chapters: the problem; the global perspective: mas as a system and a system component; the psycho-physiology of human stress; the needs and satisfactions of work; the psycho-physiology of work and fatigue; stress mechanisms and manifestations in work; stress and satisfaction: the interrelationship; some remedial suggestions.