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The Person-Environment Fit Approach to Stress: Recurring Problems and Some Suggested Solutions

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From Stress to Wellbeing Volume 1

Abstract

In recent years, the person-environment (P-E) fit approach to stress has become widely accepted among organizational stress researchers (Eulberg, Weekley and Bhagat, 1988). The P-E fit approach characterizes stress as a lack of correspondence between characteristics of the person (e.g. abilities, values) and the environment (e.g. demands, supplies). This lack of correspondence is hypothesized to generate deleterious psychological, physiological, and behavioral outcomes, which eventually result in increased morbidity and mortality. This basic framework forms the core of many current theories of organizational stress, such as those presented by French and his colleagues (French, Rogers and Cobb, 1974; French, Caplan and Harrison, 1982), McGrath (1976), Karasek (1979), Schuler (1980), and others.

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© 2013 Jeffrey R. Edwards and Cary L. Cooper

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Edwards, J.R., Cooper, C.L. (2013). The Person-Environment Fit Approach to Stress: Recurring Problems and Some Suggested Solutions. In: Cooper, C.L. (eds) From Stress to Wellbeing Volume 1. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137310651_5

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