P-O Fit
This type of fit occurs when a person's characteristics are similar to those already in the organization
Supplementary fit
Name are the 6 Holland Vocational Interest Types (RIASEC)
Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional
This occurs when a worker is employed but in a way that underutilizes their skills, education, or experience. For example, working part-time involuntarily, earning significantly less than peers, or working outside their specialty area.
Underemployment
This kind of intervention focuses on preventing harm before it occurs. For example, offering financial education programs or retirement planning resources to all employees.
Primary Intervention
A potentially threatening or demanding event that requires an adaptive response. Examples of this in the workplace include role conflict, job insecurity, work-family conflict, or difficult coworkers.
Stressors
(1) This type of fit is when the organization satisfies the employee's needs.
(2) This type of fit is when the employee's skills and abilities meet what the organization requires of them.
(1) Needs-supplies fit
(2) Demands-abilities fit
This element of the Holland assessment refers to the extent to which a person's interest profile matches the work environment they are in. These individuals are predicted to be more satisfied in their jobs.
Congruence
What are the dimensions along which economic stressors differ in Voydanoff's framework?
Whether the stressor is employment-related or income-related, and whether it is objective or subjective.
What is a tertiary intervention for economic stress, and how does it differ from a secondary intervention?
A tertiary intervention aims to restore health to workers who have already been harmed by economic stress. A secondary intervention targets at-risk groups before harm has fully occurred. The key difference is timing. Tertiary is after the harm, secondary is before but targeted at those showing risk.
What is role ambiguity, and what kinds of uncertainty does it involve?
Role ambiguity is a lack of clear information about one's role including unclear expectations, vague performance criteria, uncertainty about scope of responsibilities, or unpredictability about what the job requires.
What is the difference between objective fit and subjective fit?
Objective fit is the actual match between person and environment. Subjective fit is the person's perceived match. They can differ if someone misperceives their environment or has inaccurate self-knowledge.
What is the difference between consistency and differentiation in the Holland model?
Consistency refers to how similar a person's top interest types are to each other (adjacent types on the hexagon are more consistent). Differentiation refers to how strongly a person prefers one type over others, calculated as the gap between their highest and lowest interest scores. A highly differentiated person has one very dominant interest type.
Explain the difference between economic deprivation and economic strain.
Economic deprivation is an objective, income-related stressor. It refers to the actual inability to meet financial needs or a concrete loss of income.
Economic strain is subjective. It refers to the person's perceived financial adequacy and their emotional reactions like worry and anxiety.
Someone could experience strain without meeting the objective criteria for deprivation.
What does it mean when we say the relationship between economic stress and health is bidirectional? Provide an example.
The relationship runs both ways. Economic stressors can cause poor health (e.g., job loss leading to depression), but poor health can also cause economic stress (e.g., a chronic illness limiting someone's ability to work and earn income). This makes it difficult to determine the direction of causation in research.
(1) Explain the core idea of the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory.
(2) Name the four types of resources it identifies.
(3) Provide an example.
COR theory proposes that people are motivated to acquire, protect, and conserve their resources. Stress occurs when resources are threatened, lost, or fail to be replenished after investment. The four resource types are: objects (tangible things that have use or status), conditions (valued situations like employment or marriage), personal characteristics (traits that aid coping, like self-esteem), and energies (resources that help acquire others, like time, money, or knowledge).
A tech startup prides itself on a creative, risk-taking culture. They hire a brilliant engineer who prefers structured routines, clear rules, and predictable workflows. Within six months, the engineer is disengaged and considering leaving. What type of fit issue is this, and why?
This is poor supplementary fit. The engineer's characteristics (preference for structure and predictability) do not match the organization's culture (creative, risk-taking). Because supplementary fit is about similarity between person and environment, the mismatch creates strain and dissatisfaction.
Jordan scores very high on Enterprising interests and moderately high on Conventional interests, with low scores on all other types. His friend Taylor scores similarly across all six types with no clear standout. Whose vocational satisfaction would be easier to predict, and why?
Jordan's satisfaction would be easier to predict. He has high differentiation (a clear dominant interest type) and high consistency (Enterprising and Conventional are adjacent on the hexagon). Taylor's flat profile makes her harder to place in a fitting occupation, so predicting her satisfaction is more difficult.
Alex has a master's degree in mechanical engineering. After being laid off, the only job he could find was a part-time data entry position paying 30% less than his previous salary. He did not choose this situation and is actively looking for something better. What economic stressor best describes Jordan's situation, and why?
Alex is experiencing underemployment. Using Feldman's criteria, he has more education than the job requires, he is involuntarily working part-time, and he is earning significantly less than his referent group. Underemployment captures situations where someone is technically employed but in conditions that fall short of their qualifications and needs.
A large hospital system rolls out a mandatory one-hour financial literacy workshop for all new hires as part of orientation. What type of intervention is this, and what is the goal of this approach?
This is a primary intervention. It is individually-focused, targets all employees before any harm has occurred, and aims to develop employees' financial knowledge and skills in hopes of improving their financial behavior and reducing future stress.
Sofia is a nurse who works 12-hour shifts in a busy emergency department. She is expected to care for patients, complete extensive documentation, train new staff, and respond to administrators, all simultaneously. She frequently feels she lacks the time and energy to do any of it well. Using stress terminology from class, identify the specific type of stressor Sofia is experiencing and explain why.
Sofia is experiencing role overload. Specifically quantitative overload (too much work, not enough time) and potentially qualitative overload (feeling she lacks the ability to meet all the performance standards placed on her). She may also be experiencing role conflict, particularly inter-sender conflict, as she receives competing demands from patients, administrators, and trainees simultaneously.
A hospital is hiring nurses for a high-demand ICU unit. They select candidates who are highly empathetic and people-oriented, but they already have a full team of empathetic nurses. The unit actually struggles most with data management and documentation errors. What type of fit are they optimizing for, and what type of fit should they be prioritizing instead? Why?
They are optimizing for supplementary fit (hiring people similar to those already there). They should be prioritizing complementary fit - finding someone whose skills (e.g., detail-orientation, data management) add something missing from the team. Complementary fit is about completing the environment, not matching it.
Priya is an accountant working in a conventional office setting, whose Holland code is SAE (Social, Artistic, Enterprising). She finds her work tedious and unfulfilling and has been thinking about switching careers. Using Holland's framework, identify at least two concepts that may help explain her situation and explain how each applies.
(1) Poor congruence - Priya's interest profile (SAE) does not match her conventional work environment, which predicts dissatisfaction.
(2) Consistency may be relevant - SAE spans across the hexagon and is not highly consistent, making her interests harder to satisfy in a single role.
Together, these concepts explain why she finds her current work unfulfilling and why career exploration may be valuable for her.
A manufacturing company announces it will be restructuring "sometime in the next year" but gives no details about which positions will be affected or when decisions will be made. Employees are not laid off, but many begin reporting sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, and increased conflict at home. What economic stressor does this scenario best illustrate? Be specific about where it falls in Voydanoff's framework and why.
This illustrates employment uncertainty, or job insecurity: a subjective, employment-related stressor. No one has actually lost their job (so it is not unemployment or deprivation), but employees perceive a threat to their job continuity and feel powerless to control the outcome. The symptoms they report (sleep problems, cognitive difficulties, interpersonal conflict) reflect the strain that results from this subjective stressor.
Parker grew up in poverty but earned scholarships to college and now works as a financial analyst earning a comfortable salary. Despite his success, he frequently worries that he will lose everything, feels like he doesn't belong with his colleagues, and struggles to enjoy his current income. Using Leana et al.'s typology, identify which cell best describes Parker and explain why his inconsistent past and present experiences may contribute to his anxiety.
Parkers situation fits Cell 2: the "Aspirants"
He has a poverty background (past experience) but now earns a middle-to-high income (current experience). This inconsistency between past and present creates anxiety because he may fear his current situation is temporary, feel he does not share the same developmental experiences as his peers, and have difficulty trusting the stability of his new financial reality. Consistency between past and present income tends to anchor expectations; inconsistency disrupts them.
Compare two work stress models of your choosing. Provide an explanation of each, how they are similar or different, and examples.