A COMPARISON OF INCIDENT-BASED AND SCALE MEASURES OF WORK STRESSORS

Occupational stress researchers have often questioned whether scale me asures of work-related stressors accurately reflect the day-to-day exp eriences of employees. As an alternative to such measures, some have s uggested the use of qualitative measures. Unfortunately, however, ther e have been no direct comparisons of these two measurement methods. In the present study, female employees (n = 151) were asked to complete scare measures of three common work stressors, strains, and self-estee m. Stressors were also measured using a qualitative methodology based on critical incidents. Results indicated good convergence between stre ssors measured by these two methods, although there was some indicatio n that order effects may have led to method bias in the qualitative pr ocedure. Both sets of measures explained a significant amount of varia nce in strains, although the scale measures explained more. Only the s tressors measured by scales were related to self-esteem, suggesting th at these may be more influenced by dispositions than qualitative measu res. Implications of these findings for occupational stress research a re discussed.