The Impact of Work Stressors on Identity Threats and Perceived Stress

Abstract

This aim of this study was to explore which kinds of working situations are regarded by psychologists as being particularly detrimental to their identity (personal and professional), how these situations are appraised in terms of threat and/or challenge, and what their impact is on perceived stress, work satisfaction, and perceived threat to occupational status. In all, 842 French psychologists answered an open format question requesting them to report a situation that was particularly difficult for them as a person and/or as a psychologist (analyzed by the way of a content analysis), and a questionnaire containing our dependant variables. Four major categories of situations were highlighted. While the first three were positively linked to threat, the “patient relations” category was negatively correlated with it. “Threat to personal identity” mediated the relationship between difficult situations and perceived stress. Situations appraised as being identity-threatening are mostly the same than those found in the stress literature and are stressful because of their impact on personal identity. Moreover, for psychologists, relations to patients, which are at the heart of the profession, seem to be protective regarding stress and identity threats.