Abstract

Positive psychologists and occupational health psychologists have been studying similar topics for many years, but only recently has the construct of flow been incorporated into stress research. There is a great deal of overlap between the theories on stress and flow, with flow seeming to fit very nicely within the domain of stress as an analogue to eustress. In the limited studies in which stress and flow have been investigated together, researchers' results have shown promise for the integration of these topics into a common model. In this study, survey responses from 509 adult workers were analyzed to test how flow might fit within a model of occupational stress. The survey included measures of flow, job resources, challenge job demands, hindrance job demands, and occupational strains. The results supported bivariate relationships between flow and the other categories of measured variables. Flow moderated the relationship between workload and burnout, partially mediated the relationships between job resources and the strain outcomes of burnout and job satisfaction, and partially mediated the relationships between hindrance demands and the strain outcomes of burnout and satisfaction. Flow did not function as a moderator or as a mediator in predicting physical symptoms. The findings, implications, and strengths and limitations of this study are described and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Advisor

Daniel Sachau

Committee Member

Lisa Perez

Committee Member

Marilyn Fox

Date of Degree

2015

Language

english

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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