Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland.
Soc Sci Med. 2012 Sep;75(5):784-94. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.04.014. Epub 2012 May 12.
During the latter part of the 20th century, work stress became an important societal issue and a huge amount of scientific attention went to studying it. This paper examines the process of formulating and defining the concept of work stress in the occupational health sciences and in industrial and organizational psychology from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. The empirical material of the study encompasses 108 scientific articles, books, book chapters, 'state of the art' reviews, book reviews, and written conference presentations. The data are analysed in the frameworks of historical sociology, critical psychology, and the anthropology of knowledge. We argue that work stress as a life-structuring concept gained ground in psychosocial and occupational health sciences (and also in lay understanding) in the 1960s simultaneously with the rise of social reformist movements that called for fundamental changes emphasizing democratic and human-orientated work organizations and socially responsible values. With the passing of time, however, the focus on structural improvement of work life waned and the emphasis shifted towards the apolitical occupational health aspects of work stress. Researchers with a psychological orientation emphasized micro-level characteristics as factors affecting work stress, whereas stress-orientated epidemiologists turned to the study of specific occupational stress models and/or risk factors. The emergence and development of work stress research can be seen as a chain of attempts to define and identify new risks and experiences occurring in work life. The process, driven by a gradual shift from industrial environments towards organizational frameworks characterized by social and psychological dimensions, reflected the overall shift towards modern democratic work life and the information society in which employees' emotions and well-being became an issue.
20 世纪后期，工作压力成为一个重要的社会问题，大量的科学研究都集中在这个问题上。本文从 20 世纪 60 年代到 90 年代末，考察了在职业健康科学和工业与组织心理学领域中，工作压力这一概念的形成和定义过程。本研究的实证材料包括 108 篇科学文章、书籍、章节、“现状”评论、书评和书面会议演讲。数据在历史社会学、批判心理学和知识人类学的框架内进行分析。我们认为，作为一种生活结构概念的工作压力，在 20 世纪 60 年代与社会改革运动同时兴起，这些运动呼吁进行根本性变革，强调民主和以人为本的工作组织以及社会责任价值观。然而，随着时间的推移，对工作生活结构性改善的关注逐渐减弱，工作压力的非政治职业健康方面的重点转移。具有心理学倾向的研究人员强调微观层面的特征作为影响工作压力的因素，而以压力为导向的流行病学家则转向研究特定的职业压力模型和/或风险因素。工作压力研究的出现和发展可以被看作是一系列试图定义和识别工作生活中出现的新风险和新体验的尝试。这一过程受到从工业环境向以社会和心理维度为特征的组织框架逐渐转变的推动，反映了向现代民主工作生活和信息社会的总体转变，在这个社会中，员工的情绪和幸福感成为一个问题。
