Hutchins, Reece (2020) The Role of Optimism, Gender, and Age in the Cognitive Development of Workplace Stress. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Workplace stress is a massive issue throughout the world for individuals, organisations, and nations. This study investigates how workplace stress forms cognitively through appraisals and the effects of optimism, age, and gender on this process using archival survey data. A model (M1) was proposed to represent this process for working Australian female (n = 420) and male (n = 179) samples and tested using path analysis. Based on the Transactional Model by Richard Lazarus, M1 proposed optimism predicts Primary and Secondary appraisals. Optimism was also predicted to increase with age. This model was a good fit to the female sample, but for males age instead predicted stress and optimism had an additional direct relationship with stress. These results may be useful for organisations when selecting and training employees to reduce stress. They also provide information for future research, demonstrating the importance of considering the entire stress process, gender differences, optimism, and age as a continual variable.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Yong Wah Goh |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Aug 2025 03:44 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Aug 2025 03:44 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | optimism; stress; age; gender; appraisal; work |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52432 |
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