Additional Scales and Items for the Korean Pilot of JCQ 2.0

Jeffrey V. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor

Center for Occupational and Environmental Health and Justice

University of Maryland

jjohnson@son.umaryland.edu

Note: All questions use four response categories, strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree.

Covariates

important stress-related factors that are important to control for, and to examine the modifying impact of on work variables.)

Single item or small scale covariates to control for and test interactions with important non-work environmental psychosocial factors. I have drafted these items based on the epidemiological literature and have used them in a number of studies as covariates.

Nonwork Social Support

We would no like to ask several questions about how things are for you outside of your job:

1. I know that I can depend on my family for support when things get tough.
2. If I had a real problem, I know that I could count on my friends for help.
3. I have a close friend or family member with whom I can talk to about my true feelings when I need to.

Stressful Life Events

Over the past 12 months have there been any major changes in your personal life?

For example, have you:

Note: if there is a yes answer to any of the below, respondents are directed to answer the following follow-up question:

Did you find this event to be: very stressful (4); somewhat stressful (3); not very stressful (2); or not at all stressful (1).

Gotten married or divorced? (yes or no), if yes do follow-up.

Have you had a close family member leave home? (if yes do follow-up question)

Have you had a close family member become seriously ill? (if yes do follow-up question)

Have you had a close family member die? (if yes do follow-up question).

Family Stress (single item) – goes well at end of demands scale

My responsibilities for taking care of my home and family are often stressful.

Work/Family Conflict (single item) – goes well at end of demands scale

My job and my family life often interfere with each.

Additions to Work Scales

Additional questions that could be added to the job decision latitude scale

I have to continually do what others in charge tell me to do. – decision authority

On my job, many activities occur which last shorter than 3 minutes. – skill discretion

Emotional Labor Scale

This is a subscale that describes was a person must “act” at work. This is precisely what Hochshild describes as emotional labor or emotion management. She considers it a form of profound inauthenticity and alientation that is particularly evident in social service jobs and human caring professions. These items were develop by Kai Spratt based on focus groups and indepth interviews and were identified through factor analysis as a distinct subset of a larger 22 item set of emotional labor questions. The alpha is unknown on this, though I would suspect it to be in the low .70’s. Results on the emotional labor construct, using the larger scale have been published.

Introduction to the scale:

Here are a variety of statements describing how someone in your type of job might act or feel. For each statement, please write in the answer that best indicates how often you ACT or FEEL that way while at work.

How often do you ACT or FEEL this way while at work:

Rarely/Never = 1

Sometimes = 2

Often = 3

Usually = 4

Most of the time = 5

1. I act like nothing bothers me, even when a client has made me mad or upset.
2. I have to act the way people think a person in my job should act.
3. I want my clients to think I’m always able to handle things.
4. I work hard to keep myself in a positive mood at work.
5. At work I have to seem concerned even when I don’t feel like it.
6. I want my clients to think that I’m always calm.

Emotional Demands Indicator

Emotional demands are distinct conceptually from emotional labor in that they refer to the quantitative load connected to care giving. I am extracting a few single items that most clear address this topic. These might be integrated into the psychological job indicator as specific questions asked of people who provide care giving services. (Note – these items were also developed by Kai Spratt based on focus groups.)

Note – use similar language as in the above emotional labor scale.

1. My ability to care is used up by the end of the day.
2. Its hard to be nice so many hours every day.
3. In this job I give it all and there’s nothing left at the end of the day.
4. This job requires constant relating to people who need my services.

Collective Control Scale (or Work Group Solidarity Indicator)

(this scale measures work group co-worker solidarity – its is less a measure of how much social support an individual worker might receive, and more oriented toward trying to establish the extent that the naturally occurring work group, unit or department has developed a climate of mutual solidarity). These items have been extracted from a larger 15 items scale and based on previous studies (5 to date) should provide reliabilities around .75 or greater, and single factor solutions with un-rotated factor analysis. I have further reduced the number of items from 8 to 6, which have the strongest degree of correlation and load heavily on the unrotated factor. (This fits neatly into the concept of “bonding social capital”)

The following questions ask about how things are in your work group or unit. These questions concern the people you see most often during the day and who are part of your formal or informal work group.

1. When problems arise we work together as a group to solve them.
2. We all pitch in and help if anyone needs a hand.
3. There is really no one I can trust to help me at work.
4. There is a feeling of unity among those I work with.
5. We try to share equally in the hardships of the job.
6. If I was in trouble at work, I could easily turn to my fellow workers for help.

Organizational Justice Scales

This refers, according to Kivimaki et al, to the extent to which employees are treated with justice in their workplace. Procedural justice involves whether or not decision making procedures include input from affected parties, are consistently applied, suppress bias, are accurate, are correctable and are ethical (from Occup Environ Med, 2003). Relational justice refers to the polite and considerate treatment of individuals by supervisors.

Procedural Justice (alpha = .80)

1. Procedures are designed to hear the concerns of all those affected by the decision.
2. Procedures are designed to collect accurate information necessary for making decisions.
3. Prcedures are designed to provide opportunities to appeal or challenge the decision.
4. Procedures are designed to generate standards so that decisions can be made with consistency.

Relational Justice (alpha = .90)

1. Your supervisor considers your viewpoint.
2. Your supervisor is able to suppress personal biases.
3. Your supervisor treats you with kindness and considersation.
4. Your supervisor takes steps to deal with you in a truthful manner.

Perceived Organizational Support (alpha=.90)

( a 7 point Likert-type scale is used, 1=strongly agree; 7=strongly disagree)

This measures the extent to which employees believe that there is an implicit understanding or contract between workers and their firm – where each is considered to have reciprocal obligation to the other. It is a form of ‘psychological contract’

Eisenberger suggests that employees form a “general perception concerning the degree to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well being. The POS scale measures this. See Eisenberger, R., et al, Perceived Organizational Support, Discretionary Treatment, and Job Satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 812-820, 1997.

1. My organization cares about my opinions.
2. My organization really cares about my well-being.
3. My organization strongly considers my goals and values.
4. Help is available from my organization when I have a problem.
5. My organization would forgive an honest mistake on my part.
6. If given the opportunity, my organization would take advantage of me.
7. My organization shows very little concern for me.
8. My organization is willing to help me if I need a special favor.

Individual Personality Variables:

Suggest that we advise people to use the Life Orientation Test, a 10 item indicator that measures optimistic vs pessimistic personality.

Outcome Variables:

Suggest that we advise people to use standardized measures, specifically:

1. The CES-D, a 20 item indicator that has been used in many epidemiologic studies, measuring depression and negative mood disorders.
2. NGHQ-PD, a 19 item short form measure of the General Health Questionnaire that measures psychological distress and physiological symptoms of stress.