Work Tension Scale

Description

This measure, (Work Tension) developed by House and Rizzo (1972), describes an employee’s psychological or psychosomatic symptoms associated with ten­sion experienced at work. It includes the extent to which tension from work tends to keep employees awake at night and be constantly on an employee’s mind.

Reliability

Coefficient alpha values ranged from .71 to .89 (Bunce & West, 1996; Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey, & Toth, 1997; Grandey & Cropanzano, 1998; Kacmar, 1999; Netemeyer, Johnston, & Burton, 1990; Sanchez & Brock, 1996).

Validity

Job tension correlated positively with work role ambiguity, work role conflict, work role stress, family role stress, work-family conflict, family dis­ tress, turnover intentions, and poor physical health (Grandey & Cropanzano, 1998; Netemeyer et al., 1990; Sanchez & Brock, 1996). Job tension corre­lated negatively with organizational commitment, job satisfaction, age, and self-esteem (Grandey & Cropanzano, 1998; Netemeyer et al., 1990; Sanchez & Brock, 1996).

Source

Items

Responses are obtained as true, coded 2, or false, coded 1.

1. My job tends to directly affect my health.
2. I work under a great deal of tensions
3. I have felt fidgety or nervous as a result of my job
4. If I had a different job, my health would probably improve
5. Problems associated with my job have kept me awake at night
6. I have felt nervous before attending meetings in the company
7. I often “take my job home with me” in the sense that I think about it when doing other things