Stress and Satisfaction on the Job : Work Meanings and Coping of Mid-Career Men

Patricia E. Benner

A research study drawing on 12 monthly interviews with 23 mid-career men. Describes episodes of work stress, satisfaction and coping on the job.

"What is unique in this study is the grouping of subjects on the basis of common ways in which they interpret the place of work in their lives…Although there is a growing interest in work as a source of stress and satisfaction, little attention has been given to the diverse meanings given to work…These meanings vary from viewing work as a basis of one's worth, as a coping resource, as demeaning, as a rut from which one must escape to find new horizons, as a condition of life that one must control and make predictable, as a meaningful and satisfying experience, and as life itself."

Richard S. Lazarus, Ph.D.

Hardcover / Published 1984