Running Head: WORK PLACE STRESS AND VIOLENCE 1
Work Place Stress and Violence
Vicky Lester
Principles of Personnel and Human Resource Management PSY-836
February 11, 2015
WORK PLACE STRESS AND VIOLENCE 2
Causes of Workplace Stress
Stress can be defined as a resultant effect when a system, structure or organism is acted
on by a force or forces that leads to disruption of its equilibrium or causes strain. It results from
any physical, emotional, economic or social change that affects a person negatively (Paludi,
Nydegger and Paludi, 2006). Some limited stress is however important in a person’s life as it acts
to motivate them to work out solutions to problems that they may be facing at a given time.
However when the magnitude of the stress is high, and a person is exposed to the stress for a
prolonged time then it can have adverse psychological, social and physical effects. Occupational
stress is defined as that stress that an employee may undergo due to various factors that emanate
from the workplace (Gatchel and Schultz, 2012).There are various factors that have been
identified by various scholars that contribute this kind of stress.
