Compare and contrast challenge-related stress and hindrance-related stress and their impact and outcomes on individuals.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

There are two general types of stress: challenge-related stress and hindrance-
related stress. Challenge-related stress may be positive, or what is known as eustress,
or “good stress” from the Greek root eu for “good.” Hindrance-related stress is excessive
or undesirable constraints that interfere with an individual’s ability to achieve goals,
creating “negative stress.” A study of 270 U.S. Marines found that leadership (i.e., being
a charismatic leader) increased the Marines’ experience of stress as a challenge, and
this predicted their task performance.
Some executives actually thrive on the good stress, and there may be an optimum level
of stress for performance for some individuals, known as the Yerkes-Dodson law. This
law states that performance increases with increasing stress to an optimum point, but
then the stress becomes too much and performance declines. Increased arousal can
help improve performance but only to a certain point. At the point when arousal
becomes excessive, performance diminishes. Psychologists Robert Yerkes and John
Dillingham Dodson discovered that mild electrical shocks could be used to motivate rats
to complete a maze, but when the electrical shocks became too strong, the rats would
scurry around in random directions to escape. Increasing stress and arousal helps focus
attention on tasks but only up to a certain point. For example, when you are studying for
an exam, an optimal level of stress can help you concentrate and remember the correct
answers while taking the exam. However, too much stress (“test anxiety”) impairs your
ability to focus and you start missing answers.
These forms of stress are not limited to executives, however. Both forms of stress relate
to psychological strain, but one study found that hindrance-related stress is more
related to lessened loyalty and intentions to quit. Hindrance-related stress also
negatively affects learning. However, a challenging learning environment increases
learning. A meta-analysis of 183 independent samples found support for the negative
relationship of hindrance stress to job satisfaction and organizational commitment and
positive relationships with turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behaviors
(absenteeism and turnover). Challenge stressors had the opposite effect on these
outcomes.